John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany" Chapter 1 103 words

Given the biblical nature of her instructions to us: "to think very hard . . ." she might have imagined that by a supreme act of our combined and hardest thoughts we had succeeded in levitating Owen Meany.

He became a Puritan, and was thereafter "silenced by the ecclesiastical powers, for nonconformity."

It was a hot, muggy, summer day; the low-tide smell of the mud flats was more brinish and morbid than usual.

Together with the famous Mrs. Hutchinson, the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for disturbing "the civil peace"; in truth, he did nothing more seditious than offer some heterodox opinions regarding the locatio

But I skip a Sunday service now and then; I make no claims to be especially pious; I have a church-rummage faith--the kind that needs patching up every weekend.

He dangled silently, and waited for someone to unhook him and put him down.

He was the color of a gravestone; light was both absorbed and reflected by his skin, as with a pearl, so that he appeared translucent at times--especially at his temples, where his blue veins showed through his skin (as though, in addition to his extraordinary size, there were other evidence that he was born too soon).

Sometimes Owen grabbed hold of his chair the instant Mrs. Walker left the room; he'd cling like a bird to a swing in its cage, but he was easy to dislodge because he was ticklish.

The canine Sagamore was killed by a diaper truck, and I now believe that the gods of those troubled waters of that much-abused lake were responsible.

I make no claims to have a life in Christ, or with Christ--and certainly not for Christ, which I've heard some zealots claim.

If he was occasionally capable of being a stoic in the air, he was always a stoic when Mrs. Walker accused him of childish behavior.

But the only aura of the granite quarry that clung to Owen was the granular dust, the gray powder that sprang off his clothes whenever we lifted him up.

As for the settlement of the disputed deed, you can be sure the Indians were not the beneficiaries of the resolution to that difference of opinion.

A girl named Sukey Swift was especially deft at tickling Owen; instantly, his arms and legs would stick straight out and we'd have him up in the air again.

I am descended from John Adams on my grandmother's side (her maiden name was Bates, and her family came to America on the Mayflower); yet, in our town, it was my grandfather's name that had the clout, and my grandmother wielded her married name with such a sure sense of self-possession that she might as well have been a Wheelwright and an Adams and a Bates.

In Little League games he resented this exploitation and once refused to come to bat unless he was allowed to swing at the pitches.

In New England, the Indian chiefs and higher-ups were called sagamores; although, by the time I was a boy, the only sagamore I knew was a neighbor's dog--a male Labrador retriever named Sagamore (not, I think, for his Indian ancestry but because of his owner's ignorance).

When I die, I shall attempt to be buried in New Hampshire--alongside my mother--but the Anglican Church will perform the necessary service before my body suffers the indignity of trying to be sneaked through U.S. Customs.

But in several other versions of the totem ascribed to Watahantowet, the figure has a tomahawk in its mouth and looks completely crazy--or else, he is making a gesture toward peace: no arms, tomahawk in mouth; together, perhaps, they are meant to signify that Watahantowet does not fight.

Our throwing had disturbed the herring gulls who'd been pecking in the mud, and the gulls had moved into the marsh grass on the opposite shore of the Squamscott.

Mrs. Walker would read us an instructive passage from the Bible.

"PUT ME DOWN!" he would say in a strangled, emphatic falsetto.

Even if my father's identity and his story were painful to my mother--even if their relationship had been so sordid that any revelation of it would shed a continuous, unfavorable light upon both my parents--wasn't my mother being selfish not to tell me anything about my father?

We were both surprised; it was the last rock either of us threw that day, and we stood watching the circle of ripples extending from the point of entry until even the gulls were assured we had stopped our disturbance of their universe, and they returned to our side of the Squamscott.

It was a hot, muggy, summer day; the low-tide smell of the mud flats was more brinish and morbid than usual.

But listen to the names of Gravesend's founding fathers: you will not hear a Meany among them.

It was as if Owen Meany had been born without realistic joints.

He was eighty when he spoke at Harvard, seeking contributions to rebuild a part of the college destroyed by a fire--demonstrating that he bore the citizens of Massachusetts less of a grudge than anyone else from Gravesend would bear them.

And Wheelwrights were not inclined toward sympathy to Meanys.

He was from Lincolnshire, England--the hamlet of Saleby--and nobody knows why he named our town Gravesend.

I'm not very sophisticated in my knowledge of the Old Testament, and I've not read the New Testament since my Sunday school days, except for those passages that I hear read aloud to me when I go to church.

Wheelwright was a Cambridge graduate; he'd played foot- ball with Oliver Cromwell--whose estimation of Wheelwright (as a football player) was both worshipful and paranoid.

The Meany Granite Quarry was a big place, the equipment for blasting and cutting the granite slabs was heavy and dangerous-looking; granite itself is such a rough, substantial rock.

He was deprived of his weapons; and with his family and several of his bravest adherents, he sailed north from Boston to Great Bay, where he must have passed by two earlier New Hampshire outposts--what was then called Strawbery Banke, at the mouth of the Pascataqua (now Portsmouth), and the settlement in Dover.

According to Wall's History of Gravesend, N.H., the Rev. John Wheelwright had been a good minister of the English church until he began to "question the authority of certain dogmas"; he became a Puritan, and was thereafter "silenced by the ecclesiastical powers, for nonconformity."

And later still, our town fell under Massachusetts authority--which may, to this day, explain why residents of Gravesend detest people from Massachusetts.

His vocal cords had not developed fully, or else his voice had been injured by the rock dust of his family's business.

He was deprived of his weapons; and with his family and several of his bravest adherents, he sailed north from Boston to Great Bay, where he must have passed by two earlier New Hampshire outposts--what was then called Strawbery Banke, at the mouth of the Pascataqua (now Portsmouth), and the settlement in Dover.

He was eighty when he spoke at Harvard, seeking contributions to rebuild a part of the college destroyed by a fire--demonstrating that he bore the citizens of Massachusetts less of a grudge than anyone else from Gravesend would bear them.

According to Wall's History of Gravesend, there were "tracts of natural meadow" and "marshes bordering upon the tidewater."

By the time she came back, of course, we'd forgotten everything about whatever it was--because as soon as she left the room, we would fool around with a frenzy.

Given the biblical nature of her instructions to us: "to think very hard . . ." she might have imagined that by a supreme act of our combined and hardest thoughts we had succeeded in levitating Owen Meany.

Inevitably, Mrs. Walker would return to the room when Owen was in the air.

Together with the famous Mrs. Hutchinson, the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for disturbing "the civil peace"; in truth, he did nothing more seditious than offer some heterodox opinions regarding the location of the Holy Ghost--but Massachusetts judged him harshly.

Sometimes Owen grabbed hold of his chair the instant Mrs. Walker left the room; he'd cling like a bird to a swing in its cage, but he was easy to dislodge because he was ticklish.

Even if my father's identity and his story were painful to my mother--even if their relationship had been so sordid that any revelation of it would shed a continuous, unfavorable light upon both my parents--wasn't my mother being selfish not to tell me anything about my father?

His body was rigid; he wouldn't struggle.

Together with the famous Mrs. Hutchinson, the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for disturbing "the civil peace"; in truth, he did nothing more seditious than offer some heterodox opinions regarding the location of the Holy Ghost--but Massachusetts judged him harshly.

But Mrs. Walker's response was always the same--brutish and unimaginative and incredibly dense.

Now I'm convinced it was a voice not entirely of this world.

Wheelwright was a Cambridge graduate; he'd played foot- ball with Oliver Cromwell--whose estimation of Wheelwright (as a football player) was both worshipful and paranoid.

As vividly as any number of the stories in the Bible, Owen Meany showed us what a martyr was.

Even if my father's identity and his story were painful to my mother--even if their relationship had been so sordid that any revelation of it would shed a continuous, unfavorable light upon both my parents--wasn't my mother being selfish not to tell me anything about my father?

The Meany Granite Quarry was a big place, the equipment for blasting and cutting the granite slabs was heavy and dangerous-looking; granite itself is such a rough, substantial rock.

My selections from the Order for the Burial of the Dead are entirely conventional and can be found, in the order that I shall have them read--not sung--in The Book of Common Prayer.

According to Wall's History of Gravesend, there were "tracts of natural meadow" and "marshes bordering upon the tidewater."

We thought this name suited her because her method of teaching involved a lot of walking out of class.

And I have always appreciated the frankness expressed in that passage from Timothy, the one that goes ". . . we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out."

Opposing pitchers would threaten him.

1
The Foul Ball

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

But I skip a Sunday service now and then; I make no claims to be especially pious; I have a church-rummage faith--the kind that needs patching up every weekend.

But in several other versions of the totem ascribed to Watahantowet, the figure has a tomahawk in its mouth and looks completely crazy--or else, he is making a gesture toward peace: no arms, tomahawk in mouth; together, perhaps, they are meant to signify that Watahantowet does not fight.

We were both surprised; it was the last rock either of us threw that day, and we stood watching the circle of ripples extending from the point of entry until even the gulls were assured we had stopped our disturbance of their universe, and they returned to our side of the Squamscott.

My selections from the Order for the Burial of the Dead are entirely conventional and can be found, in the order that I shall have them read--not sung--in The Book of Common Prayer.

He was not a good baseball player, but he did have a very small strike zone and as a consequence he was often used as a pinch hitter--not because he ever hit the ball with any authority (in fact, he was instructed never to swing at the ball), but because he could be relied upon to earn a walk, a base on balls.

He was eighty when he spoke at Harvard, seeking contributions to rebuild a part of the college destroyed by a fire--demonstrating that he bore the citizens of Massachusetts less of a grudge than anyone else from Gravesend would bear them.

Owen Meany told me that my father would know that my mother was dead, and that--when I was old enough--he would identify himself to me.

It would be a better story, I think, if Mr. Fish had been killed by the diaper truck--but every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent.

We tortured him, I think, in order to hear his voice; I used to think his voice came from another planet.

Someone--I forget who started it--would get up, seize Owen, sit back down with him, pass him to the next person, who would pass him on, and so forth.

His vocal cords had not developed fully, or else his voice had been injured by the rock dust of his family's business.

According to Wall's History of Gravesend, there were "tracts of natural meadow" and "marshes bordering upon the tidewater."

And later still, our town fell under Massachusetts authority--which may, to this day, explain why residents of Gravesend detest people from Massachusetts.

We didn't know what the system was, but obviously Owen had a system, because when Mrs. Walker came back to the room--when Owen returned to his chair and we passed his nickels and dimes and his baseball cards back to him--he would sit shuffling through the cards with a grim, silent fury.

Gravesend (the British Gravesend) is in Kent--a fair distance from Wheelwright's stamping ground.

As for my ancestor John Wheelwright, he landed in Boston in 1636, only two years before he bought our town.

He was the color of a gravestone; light was both absorbed and reflected by his skin, as with a pearl, so that he appeared translucent at times--especially at his temples, where his blue veins showed through his skin (as though, in addition to his extraordinary size, there were other evidence that he was born too soon).

He was not a good baseball player, but he did have a very small strike zone and as a consequence he was often used as a pinch hitter--not because he ever hit the ball with any authority (in fact, he was instructed never to swing at the ball), but because he could be relied upon to earn a walk, a base on balls.

But I skip a Sunday service now and then; I make no claims to be especially pious; I have a church-rummage faith--the kind that needs patching up every weekend.

"YOUR DAD CAN HIDE FROM YOU," Owen said, "BUT HE CAN'T HIDE FROM GOD."

And with that announcement, Owen Meany grunted as he released a stone that reached the water.

Some said it was how it made the sagamore feel to give up all that land--to have his arms cut off--and others pointed out that earlier "marks" made by Watahantowet revealed that the figure, although armless, held a feather in his mouth; this was said to indicate the sagamore's frustration at being unable to write.

The Meany Granite Quarry was a big place, the equipment for blasting and cutting the granite slabs was heavy and dangerous-looking; granite itself is such a rough, substantial rock.

The Meany Granite Quarry was a big place, the equipment for blasting and cutting the granite slabs was heavy and dangerous-looking; granite itself is such a rough, substantial rock.

We managed this while remaining seated in our chairs--that was the challenge of the game.

We were both surprised; it was the last rock either of us threw that day, and we stood watching the circle of ripples extending from the point of entry until even the gulls were assured we had stopped our disturbance of their universe, and they returned to our side of the Squamscott.

Maybe he had larynx damage, or a destroyed trachea; maybe he'd been hit in the throat by a chunk of granite.

Given the biblical nature of her instructions to us: "to think very hard . . ." she might have imagined that by a supreme act of our combined and hardest thoughts we had succeeded in levitating Owen Meany.

But Mrs. Walker's response was always the same--brutish and unimaginative and incredibly dense.

He was the color of a gravestone; light was both absorbed and reflected by his skin, as with a pearl, so that he appeared translucent at times--especially at his temples, where his blue veins showed through his skin (as though, in addition to his extraordinary size, there were other evidence that he was born too soon).

Later, there was some dispute--not very interesting--regarding the Indian deed, and more interesting speculation regarding why Watahantowet's totem was an armless man.

But in several other versions of the totem ascribed to Watahantowet, the figure has a tomahawk in its mouth and looks completely crazy--or else, he is making a gesture toward peace: no arms, tomahawk in mouth; together, perhaps, they are meant to signify that Watahantowet does not fight.

I feel that my own religious confusion, and stubbornness, owe much to my ancestor, who suffered not only the criticisms of the English church before he left for the new world; once he arrived, he ran afoul of his fellow Puritans in Boston.

The town where I was born was purchased from an Indian sagamore in 1638 by the Rev. John Wheelwright, after whom I was named.

It was as if Owen Meany had been born without realistic joints.

He had no known contact with the British Gravesend, although that is surely where the name of our town came from.

The canine Sagamore was killed by a diaper truck, and I now believe that the gods of those troubled waters of that much-abused lake were responsible.

We thought it was a miracle: how little he weighed.

But in several other versions of the totem ascribed to Watahantowet, the figure has a tomahawk in its mouth and looks completely crazy--or else, he is making a gesture toward peace: no arms, tomahawk in mouth; together, perhaps, they are meant to signify that Watahantowet does not fight.

I used to be a Congregationalist--I was baptized in the Congregational Church, and after some years of fraternity with Episcopalians (I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, too), I became rather vague in my religion: in my teens I attended a "nondenominational" church.