“Yes!” Larry said; he couldn’t stop laughing. Owen was so serious about being the valedictorian of our class that he was already writing his commencement speech—and it was only January. In many schools, they don’t even know who the class valedictorian is until the spring term; but Owen Meany’s grade-point average was perfect—no other student was even close.
“Let me ask you something,” Mrs. Lish said to Owen. “If Marilyn Monroe wanted to sleep with you, would you let her?” I thought that Larry Lish was going to fall down—he was laughing so hard. Owen looked fairly calm. He offered Mrs. Lish a cigarette, but she preferred her own brand; he lit her cigarette for her, and then he lit one for himself. He appeared to be thinking over the question very carefully.
“Well? Come on,” Mrs. Lish said seductively. “We’re talking Marilyn Monroe—we’re talking the most perfect piece of ass you can imagine! Or don’t you like Marilyn Monroe?” She took off her sunglasses; she had very pretty eyes, and she knew it. “Would you or wouldn’t you?” she asked Owen Meany. She winked at him; and then, with the painted nail of her long index finger, she touched him on the tip of his nose.
“NOT IF I WERE THE PRESIDENT,” Owen said. “AND CERTATNLY NOT IF I WERE MARRIED!”
Mrs. Lish laughed; it was something between a hyena and the sounds Hester made in her sleep when she’d been drinking.
“This is the future?” Mitzy Lish asked. “This is the head of the class of the country’s most prestigious fucking school—and this is what we can expect of our future leaders?”
No, Mrs. Lish—I can answer you now. This was not what we could expect of our future leaders. This was not where our future would lead us; our future would lead us elsewhere—and to leaders who bear little resemblance to Owen Meany.
But, at the time, I was not bold enough to answer her. Owen, however, was no one anyone could bully—Owen Meany accepted what he thought was his fate, but he would not tolerate being treated lightly.
“OF COURSE, I’M NOT THE PRESIDENT,” Owen said shyly. “AND I’M NOT MARRIED, EITHER. I DON’T EVEN KNOW MARILYN MONROE, OF COURSE,” he said. “AND SHE PROBABLY WOULDN’T EVER WANT TO SLEEP WITH ME. BUT—YOU KNOW WHAT?” he asked Mrs. Lish, who was—with her son—overcome with laughter. “IF YOU WANTED TO SLEEP WITH ME—I MEAN NOW, WHEN I’M NOT THE PRESIDENT, AND I’M NOT MARRIED—WHAT THE HELL,” Owen said to Mitzy Lish, “I SUPPOSE I’D TRY IT.”
Have you ever seen dogs choke on their food? Dogs inhale their food—they’re quite dramatic chokers. I never saw anyone stop laughing as quickly as Mrs. Lish and her son—they stopped cold.
“What did you say to me?” Mrs. Lish asked Owen.
“WELL? COME ON,” said Owen Meany. “WOULD YOU OR WOULDN’T YOU?” He didn’t wait for an answer; he shrugged. We were standing in the dry, dusty stink of cigarettes that was the commonplace air in the editorial offices of The Grave, and Owen simply walked over to the coat tree and removed his red-and-black-checkered hunter’s cap and his jacket of the same well-worn material; then he walked out in the cold, which so ill-affected Mrs. Lish’s troublesome complexion. Larry Lish was such a coward, he never said a word to Owen—nor did he jump on Owen’s back and pound Owen’s head into the nearest snowbank. Either Larry was a coward or he knew that his mother’s “honor” was not worth such a robust defense; in my opinion, Mitzy Lish was not worth a defense of any kind.
But our headmaster, Randy White, was a chivalrous man—he was a gallant of the old school, when it came to defending the weaker sex. Naturally, he was outraged to hear of Owen’s insulting remarks to Mrs. Lish; naturally, he was grateful for the Lishes’ support of the Capital Fund Drive, too. “Naturally,” Randy White assured Mrs. Lish, he would “do something” about the indignity she had suffered.
When Owen and I were summoned to the headmaster’s office, we did not know everything that Mitzy Lish had said about the “incident”—that was how Randy White referred to it.
“I intend to get to the bottom of this disgraceful incident,” the headmaster told Owen and me. “Did you or did you not proposition Missus Lish in the editorial offices of The Grave?” Randy White asked Owen.
“IT WAS A JOKE,” said Owen Meany. “SHE WAS LAUGHING AT ME, AT THE TIME—SHE MADE IT CLEAR THAT SHE THOUGHT I WAS A JOKE,” he said, “AND SO I SAID SOMETHING THAT I THOUGHT WAS APPROPRIATE.”
“How could you ever think it was ‘appropriate’ to proposition a fellow student’s mother?” Randy White asked him. “On school property!” the headmaster added.
Owen and I found out, later, that the business about the proposition occurring “on school property” had especially incensed Mrs. Lish; she’d told the headmaster that this was surely “grounds for dismissal.” It was Larry Lish who told us that; he didn’t like us, but Larry was a trifle ashamed that his mother was so intent on having Owen Meany thrown out of school.
“How could you think it ‘appropriate’ to proposition a fellow student’s mother?” Randy White repeated to Owen.
“I MEANT THAT MY REMARKS WERE ‘APPROPRIATE’ TO HER BEHAVIOR,” Owen said.
“She was rude to him,” I pointed out to the headmaster.
“SHE MADE FUN OF ME BEING THE CLASS VALEDICTORIAN,” said Owen Meany.
“She laughed out loud at Owen,” I said to Randy White. “She laughed in his face—she bullied him,” I added.
“SHE WAS SEXY WITH ME!” Owen said.
At the time, neither Owen nor I were capable of putting into words the correct description of the kind of sexual bully Mrs. Lish was; maybe even Randy White would have understood our animosity toward a woman who lorded her sexual sophistication over us so cruelly—over Owen, in particular. She had flirted with him, she had taunted him, she had humiliated him—or she had tried to. What right did she have to be insulted by his rudeness to her, in return?
But I couldn’t articulate this when I was nineteen and fidgeting in the headmaster’s office.
“You asked another student’s mother if she would sleep with you—in the presence of her own son!” said Randy White.
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT,” said Owen Meany.
“Tell me the ‘context,’” said Randy White.
Owen looked stricken.