"HELLO, MISSUS LISH," said Owen Meany. "IT'S NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN."
"Hello!" I said. "How are you?"
She was the kind of woman who drank nothing but vodka-tonics, because she cared about her breath; because of her smoking, she was extremely self-conscious about her breath. Nowadays, she'd be the kind of woman who'd carry one of those breath-freshening atomizers in her purse--gassing herself with the atomizer, all day long, just in case someone might be moved to spontaneously kiss her.
"Go on, tell him," Larry Lish said to his mother.
"My son says you doubt that the president fools around," Mrs. Lish said to Owen. When she said "fools around," she opened her fur--her perfume rushed out at us, and we breathed her in. "Well, let me tell you," said Mitzy Lish, "he fools around--plenty."
"WITH MARILYN MONROE?" Owen asked Mrs. Lish.
"With her--and with countless others," Mrs. Lish said; she wore a little too much lipstick--even for 1962--and when she smiled at Owen Meany, we could see a smear of lipstick on one of her big, upper-front teeth.
"DOES JACKIE KNOW?" Owen asked Mrs. Lish.
"She must be used to it," Mrs. Lish said; she appeared to relish Owen's distress. "What do you think of that?" she asked Owen; Mitzy Lish was the kind of woman who bullied young men, too.
"I THINK IT'S WRONG," said Owen Meany.
"Is he for real?" Mrs. Lish asked her son. Remember that? Remember when people used to ask if you were "for real"?
"Isn't he a classic?" Larry Lish asked his mother.
"This is the editor-in-chief of your school newspaper?" Mrs. Lish asked her son; he was laughing.
"That's right," Larry Lish said; his mother really cracked him up.
"This is the valedictorian of your class?" Mitzy Lish asked Larry.
"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.
"MISSUS LISH REVEALED TO US SOME PARTICULARLY DAMNING AND UNPLEASANT GOSSIP," Owen said. "SHE SEEMED PLEASED AT HOW THE NATURE OF THE GOSSIP UPSET ME."
"That's true, sir," I said.
"What was the gossip?" ask
ed Randy White. Owen was silent.
"Owen--in your own defense, for God's sake!" I said.
"SHUT UP!" he told me.
"Tell me what she said to you, Owen," the headmaster said.
"IT WAS VERY UGLY," said Owen Meany, who actually thought he was protecting the president of the United States! Owen Meany was protecting the reputation of his commander-in-chief!
"Tell him, Owen!" I said.
"IT IS CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION," Owen said. "YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE ME--SHE WAS UGLY. SHE DESERVED A JOKE--AT HER OWN EXPENSE," Owen said.
"Missus Lish says that you crudely propositioned her in front of her son--I repeat, 'crudely,'" said Randy White. "She says you were insulting, you were lewd, you were obscene--and you were anti-Semitic," the headmaster said.
"IS MISSUS LISH JEWISH?" Owen asked me. "I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW SHE WAS JEWISH!"
"She says you were anti-Semitic," the headmaster said.
"BECAUSE I PROPOSITIONED HER?" Owen asked.
"Then you admit that you 'propositioned' her?" Randy White asked him. "Suppose she'd said 'Yes'?"
Owen Meany shrugged. "I DON'T KNOW," he said thoughtfully. "I SUPPOSE I WOULD HAVE--WOULDN'T YOU?" he asked me. I nodded. "I KNOW YOU WOULDN'T!" Owen said to the headmaster--"BECAUSE YOU'RE MARRIED," he added. "THAT WAS SORT OF THE POINT I WAS MAKING--WHEN SHE BEGAN TO MAKE FUN OF ME," he told Randy White. "SHE ASKED ME IF I'D 'DO IT' WITH MARILYN MONROE," Owen explained, "AND I SAID, 'NOT IF I WERE MARRIED,' AND SHE STARTED LAUGHING AT ME."
"Marilyn Monroe?" the headmaster said. "How did Marilyn Monroe get involved in this?"
But Owen would say no more. Later, he told me, "THINK OF THE SCANDAL! THINK OF SUCH A RUMOR LEAKING TO THE NEWSPAPERS!"
Did he think that the downfall of President Kennedy might come from an editorial in The Grave?
"Do you want to get kicked out of school for protecting the president?" I asked him.
"HE'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN I AM," said Owen Meany. Nowadays, I'm not sure that Owen was right about that; he was right about most things--but I'm inclined to think that Owen Meany was as worthy of protection as JFK.
Look at what assholes are trying to protect the president these days!
But Owen Meany could not be persuaded to protect himself; he told Dan Needham that the nature of Mrs. Lish's incitement constituted "A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY"; not even to save himself from Randy White's wrath would Owen Meany repeat what a slanderous rumor he had heard.
In faculty meeting, the headmaster argued that this kind of disrespect to adults--to school parents!--could not be tolerated. Mr. Early argued that there was no school rule against propositioning mothers; Owen, Mr. Early argued, had not broken a rule.
The headmaster attempted to have the matter turned over to the Executive Committee; but Dan Needham knew that Owen's chances of survival would be poor among that group of (largely) the headmaster's henchmen--at least, they comprised the majority in any vote, as The Voice had pointed out. It was not a matter for the Executive Committee, Dan argued; Owen had not committed an offense in any category that the school considered "grounds for dismissal."
Not so! said the headmaster. What about "reprehensible conduct with girls"? Several faculty members hastened to point out that Mitzy Lish was "no girl." The headmaster then read a telegram that had been sent to him from Mrs. Lish's ex-husband, Herb. The Hollywood producer said that he hoped the insult suffered by his ex-wife--and the embarrassment caused his son--would not go unpunished.
"So put Owen on disciplinary probation," Dan Needham said. "That's punishment; that's more than enough."
But Randy White said there was a more serious charge against Owen than the mere propositioning of someone's mother; did the faculty not consider anti-Semitism "serious"? Could a school of such a broadly based ethnic population tolerate this kind of "discrimination"?
But Mrs. Lish had never substantiated the charge that Owen had been anti-Semitic. Even Larry Lish, when questioned, couldn't remember anything in Owen's remarks that could be construed as anti-Semitic; Larry, in fact, admitted that his mother had a habit of labeling everyone who treated her with less than complete reverence as an anti-Semite--as if, in Mrs. Lish's view, the only possible reason to dislike her was that she was Jewish. Owen, Dan Needham pointed out, hadn't even known that the Lishes were Jewish.
"How could he not know?" Headmaster White cried.
Dan suggested that the headmaster's remark was more anti-Semitic than any remark attributed to Owen Meany.
And so he was spared; he was put on disciplinary probation--for the remainder of the winter term--with the warning, understood by all, that any offense of any kind would be considered "grounds for dismissal"; in such a case, he would be judged by the Executive Committee and none of his friends on the faculty could save him.
The headmaster proposed--in addition to Owen's probation--that he be removed from his position as editor-in-chief of The Grave, or that The Voice should be silenced until the end of the winter term; or both. But this was not approved by the faculty.
In truth, Mrs. Lish's charge of anti-Semitism had backfired with a number of the faculty, who were quite belligerently anti-Semitic themselves. As for Randy White: Dan and Owen and I suspected that the headmaster was about as anti-Semitic as anyone we knew.
And so the incident rested with Owen Meany receiving the punishment of disciplinary probation for the duration of the winter term; aside from the jeopardy this put him in--in regard to any other trouble he might get into--disciplinary probation was no great imposition, especially for a day boy. Basically, he lost the senior privilege to go to Boston on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons; if he'd been a boarder, he would have lost the right to spend any weekend away from school, but since he was a day boy, he spent every weekend at home--or with me--anyway.
Yet Owen was not grateful for the leniency shown to him by the school; he was outraged that he had been punished at all. His hostility, in turn, was not appreciated by the faculty--including many of his supporters. They wanted to be congratulated for their generosity, and for standing up to the headmaster; instead, Owen cut them dead on the quadrangle paths. He greeted no one; he wouldn't even look up. He wouldn't speak--not even in class!--unless spoken to; and when forced to speak, his responses were uncharacteristically brief. As for his duties as editor-in-chief of The Grave, he simply stopped contributing the column that had given The Voice his name and his fame.
"What's happened to The Voice, Owen?" Mr. Early asked him.
"THE VOICE HAS LEARNED TO KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT," Owen said.
"Owen," Dan Needham said, "don't piss off your friends."
"THE VOICE HAS BEEN CENSORED," said Owen Meany. "JUST TELL THE FACULTY AND THE HEADMASTER THAT THE VOICE IS BUSY--REVISING HIS VALEDICTORY! I GUESS NO ONE CAN THROW ME OUT OF SCHOOL FOR WHAT I SAY AT COMMENCEMENT!"
Thus did Owen Meany respond to his punishment, by threatening the headmaster and the faculty with The Voice--only momentarily silenced, we all knew; but full of rage, we all were sure.
It was that numbskull from Zurich, Dr. Dolder, who proposed to the faculty that Owen Meany should be required to talk with him.
"Such hostility!" Dr. Dolder said. "He has a talent for speaking out--yes? And now he is withholding his talent from us, he is denying himself the pleasure of speaking his mind--why? Without expression, his hostility will only increase--no?" Dr. Dolder said. "Better I should give him the opportunity to vent his hostility--on me!" the doctor said. "After all, we would not want a repeated incident with another older woman. Maybe this time, it's a faculty wife--yes?" he said.
And so they told Owen Meany that he had to see the school psychiatrist.
"'FATHER, FORGIVE THEM; FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO,'" he said.
Toronto: July 14, 1987--still waiting for my invitation to Georgian Bay; it can't come soon enough. The New York Times appears to have reduced the Iran-contra affair to the single issue of whether or not President Reagan "knew" that profits from the secret a
rms sales to Iran were being diverted to support the Nicaraguan contras. Jesus Christ! Isn't it enough to "know" that the president wanted and intended to continue his support of the contras after Congress told him what was enough?
It makes me sick to hear the lectures delivered to Lt. Col. Oliver North. What are they lecturing him for? The colonel wants to support the contras--"for the love of God and for the love of country"; he's already testified that he'd do anything his commander-in-chief wanted him to do. And now we get to listen to the senators and the representatives who are running for office again; they tell the colonel all he doesn't know about the U.S. Constitution; they point out to him that patriotism is not necessarily defined as blind devotion to a president's particular agenda--and that to dispute a presidential policy is not necessarily anti-American. They might add that God is not a proven right-winger! Why are they pontificating the obvious to Colonel North? Why don't they have the balls to say this to their blessed commander-in-chief?
If Hester has been paying attention to any of this, I'll bet she's throwing up; I'll bet she's barfing her brains out. She would remember, of course, those charmless bumper stickers from the Vietnam era--those cunning American flags and the red, white, and blue lettering of the name of our beloved nation. I'll bet Colonel North remembers them.
AMERICA!
said the bumper stickers.
LOVE IT OR
LEAVE IT!
That made a lot of sense, didn't it? Remember that?
And now we have to hear a civics lecture--the country's elected officials are instructing a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps on the subject that love of country and love of God (and hatred of communism) can conceivably be represented, in a democracy, by differing points of view. The colonel shows no signs of being converted; why are these pillars of self-righteousness wasting their breath on him? I doubt that President Reagan could be converted to democracy, either.
I know what my grandmother used to say, whenever she saw or read anything that was just a lot of bullshit. Owen picked up the phrase from her; he was quite lethal in its application, our senior year at Gravesend. Whenever anyone said anything that was a lot of bullshit to him, Owen Meany used to say, "YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS? THAT'S MADE FOR TELEVISION--THAT'S WHAT THAT IS." And that's what Owen would have said about the Iran-contra hearings--concerning what President Reagan did or didn't "know."