the actual time that Canon Campbell and I shared, and we were both caught up in it. If Canon Campbell were alive, if he were still rector of Grace Church, perhaps he would be no more sympathetic to me than Canon Mackie is sympathetic today.
Canon Campbell was alive on January 21, 1977. That was the day President Jimmy Carter issued a pardon to the "draft-dodgers." What did I care? I was already a Canadian citizen.
Although Canon Campbell cautioned me about my anger, too, he understood why that "pardon" made me so angry. I showed Canon Campbell the letter I wrote to Jimmy Carter. "Dear Mr. President," I wrote. "Who will pardon the United States?"
Who can pardon the United States? How can they be pardoned for Vietnam, for their conduct in Nicaragua, for their steadfast and gross contribution to the proliferation of nuclear arms?
"John, John," Canon Mackie said. "Your little speech about Christmas--at the Parish Council meeting? I doubt that even Scrooge would have chosen a Parish Council meeting as the proper occasion for such an announcement."
"I merely said that I found Christmas depressing," I said.
"'Merely'!" said Canon Mackie. "The church counts very heavily on Christmas--for its missions, for its livelihood in this city. And Christmas is the focal point for the children in our church."
And what would the canon have said if I'd told him that the Christmas of '53 put the finishing touches on Christmas for me? He would have told me, again, that I was living in the past. So I said nothing. I hadn't wanted to talk about Christmas in the first place.
Is it any wonder how Christmas--ever since that Christmas--depresses me? The Nativity I witnessed in '53 has replaced the old story. The Christ is born--"miraculously," to be sure; but even more miraculous are the demands he succeeds in making, even before he can walk! Not only does he demand to be worshiped and adored--by peasants and royalty, by animals and his own parents!--but he also banishes his mother and father from the house of prayer and song itself. I will never forget the inflamed color of his bare skin in the winter cold, and the hospital white-on-white of his swaddling clothes against the new snow--a vision of the little Lord Jesus as a born victim, born raw, born bandaged, born angry and accusing; and wrapped so tightly that he could not bend at the knees at all and had to lie on his parents' laps as stiffly as someone who, mortally wounded, lies upon a stretcher.
How can you like Christmas after that? Before I became a believer, I could at least enjoy the fantasy.
That Sunday, feeling the wind cut through my Joseph-robe out on Elliot Street, contributed to my belief in--and my dislike of--the miracle. How the congregation straggled out of the nave; how they hated to have their rituals revised without warning. The rector was not on the steps to shake their hands because so many of the congregation had followed our triumphant exit, leaving the Rev. Mr. Wiggin stranded at the altar with his benediction unsaid--he was supposed to have delivered his benediction from the nave, where the recessional should have led him (and not us).
And what was Barb Wiggin supposed to do with the "pillar of light," now that she had craned the light to follow the Lord Jesus and his tribe to the door? Dan Needham told me later that the Rev. Dudley Wiggin made a most unusual gesture for the rector of Christ Church to make from the pulpit; he drew his forefinger across his throat--a signal to his wife to kill the light, which (only after we'd departed) she finally did. But to many of the bewildered congregation, who took their cues from the rector--for how else should they know what their next move should be, in this unique celebration?--the gesture of the Rev. Dudley Wiggin slashing his own throat was particularly gripping. Mr. Fish, in his inexperience, imitated the gesture as if it were a command--and then looked to Dan for approval. Dan observed that Mr. Fish was not alone.
And what were we supposed to do? Our gang from the manger, ill-dressed for the weather, huddled uncertainly together after the granite truck turned onto Front Street and out of sight. The revived hind part of one donkey ran to the door of the parish-house vestibule, which he found locked; the cows slipped in the snow. Where could we go but back in the main door? Had someone locked the parish house out of fear that thieves would steal our real clothes? To our knowledge, there was no shortage of clothes like ours in Gravesend, and no robbers. And so we bucked against the grain; we fought against the congregation--they were coming out--in order that we might get back in. For Barb Wiggin, who wished that every worship service was as smooth as a flight free of bumpy air--and one that departs and arrives on time--the sight of the traffic jam in the nave of the church must have caused further upset. Smaller angels and shepherds darted between the grown-ups' legs; the more stately kings, clutching their toppled crowns--and the clumsier cows, and the donkeys now in halves--made awkward progress against the flow of bulky overcoats. The countenances of many a parishioner reflected shock and insult, as if the Lord Jesus had just spat in their faces--to deem them sacrilegious. Among the older members of the congregation--with whom the jocular Captain Wiggin and his brash wife were not an overnight success--there was a stewing anger, apparent in their frowns and scowls, as if the shameful pageant they had just witnessed were the rector's idea of something "modern." Whatever it was, they hadn't liked it, and their reluctant acceptance of the ex-pilot would be delayed for a few more years.
I found myself chin-to-chest with the Rev. Lewis Merrill, who was as baffled as the Episcopalian congregation--regarding what he and his wife were supposed to do next. They were nearer the nave of the church than was the rector, who was nowhere to be found, and if the Rev. Mr. Merrill continued to press, with the throng, toward the door, he might find himself out on the steps--in a position to shake hands with the departing souls--in advance of the Rev. Mr. Wiggin's appearance there. It was surely not Pastor Merrill's responsibility to shake hands with Episcopalians, following their botched pageant. God forbid that any of them might think that he was the reason for the pageant being so peculiarly wrecked, or that this was how the Congregationalists interpreted the Nativity.
"Your little friend?" Mr. Merrill asked in a whisper. "Is he always so ... like that?"
Is he always like what? I thought. But in the crush of the crowd, it would have been hard to stand my ground while Mr. Merrill stuttered out what he meant.
"Yes," I said. "That's Owen, this was pure Owen today. He's unpredictable, but he's always in charge."
"He's quite ... miraculous," the Rev. Mr. Merrill said, smiling faintly--clearly glad that the Congregationalists preferred caroling to pageants, and clearly relieved that Owen Meany had moved no farther down the Protestant rungs than the Episcopalians. The pastor was probably imagining what sort of damage Owen might accomplish at a Vesper service.
Dan grabbed me in the connecting passage to the parish house; he said he'd wait for me to get my clothes, and Owen's--we could go back to the dorm together, then, or to 80 Front Street. Mr. Fish was happy and agitated; if he thought that the Rev. Dudley Wiggin's "slashing his throat" was a part of the rector's annual performance, he also imagined that everything Owen had done was in the script--and Mr. Fish had been quite impressed by the dramatic qualities of the story. "I love the part when he tells the angel what to say--that's brilliant," Mr. Fish said. "And how he throws his mother aside--how he starts right in with the criticism ... I mean, you get the idea, right away, that this is no ordinary baby. You know, he's the Lord! Jesus--from Day One. I mean, he's born giving orders, telling everyone what to do. I thought you told me he didn't have a speaking part! I had no idea it was so ... primitive a ritual, so violent, so barbaric. But it's very moving," Mr. Fish added hastily, lest Dan and I be offended to hear our religion described as "primitive" and "barbaric."
"It's not quite what the ... author ... intended," Dan told Mr. Fish. I left Dan explaining the deviations from the expected to the excited amateur actor--I wanted to get dressed, and find Owen's clothes, in a hurry, without encountering either of the Wiggins. But I was a while getting my hands on Owen's clothes. Mary Beth Baird had balled them up with her own in a corner of the vestibule, where she then lay down to weep--on top of them. It was complicated, getting her to relinquish Owen's clothes without striking her; and impossible to interrupt her sobbing. Everything that had upset the little Lord Jesus had been her fault, in her opinion; she had not only failed to soothe him--she'd been a bad mother in general. Owen hated her, she claimed. How she wished she understood him better! Yet, somehow--as she explained to me, through her tears--she was sure she "understood" him better than anyone else did.
At age eleven, I was too young to glimpse a vision of what sort of overwrought wife and mother Mary Beth Baird would make; there in the vestibule, I wanted only to hit her--to forcibly take Owen's clothes and leave her in a puddle of tears. The very idea of her understanding Owen Meany made me sick! What she really meant was that she wanted to take him home and lie on top of him; her idea of understanding him began and ended with her desire to cover his body, to never let him get up.
Because I was slow in leaving the vestibule, Barb Wiggin caught me.
"You can give him this message when you give him his clothes," she hissed to me, her fingers digging into my shoulder and shaking me. "Tell him he's to come see me before he's allowed back in this church--before the next Sunday school class, before he comes to another service. He comes to see me first. He's not allowed here until he sees me!" she repeated, giving me one last shake for good measure.
I was so upset that I blurted it all out to Dan, who was hanging around the altar area with Mr. Fish, who, in turn, was staring at the scattered hay in the manger and at the few gifts abandoned by the Christ Child there, as if some meaning could be discerned from the arrangement of the debris.
I told Dan what Barb Wiggin had said, and how she'd given Owen a hard-on, and how there had been virtual warfare between them--and now, I was sure, Owen would never be "allowed" to be an Episcopalian again. If seeing her was a prerequisite for Owen to return to Christ Church, then Owen, I knew, would be as shunning of us Episcopalians as he was presently shunning of Catholics. I became quite exercised in relating this scenario to Dan, who sat beside me in a front-row pew and listened sympathetically.
Mr. Fish came and told us that the angel was still "on-high." He wondered if this was a part of the script--to leave Harold Crosby hanging in the rafters long after the manger and the pews had emptied? Harold Crosby, who thought both his God and Barb Wiggin had abandoned him forever, swung like the victim of a vigilante killing among the mock flying buttresses; Dan, an accomplished mechanic of all theatrical equipment, eventually mastered the angel-lowering apparatus and returned the banished angel to terra firma, where Harold collapsed in relief and gratitude. He had thrown up all over himself, and--in attempting to wipe himself with one of his wings--he'd made quite an unsalvageable mess of his costume.
That was when Dan carried out his responsibilities as a stepfather in most concrete, even heroic terms. He carried the sodden Harold Crosby to the parish-house vestibule, where he asked Barb Wiggin if he might have a word with her.
"Can't you see ..." she asked him, "that this isn't the best of times?"
"I should not want to bring up the matter--of how you left this boy hanging--with the Vestry members," Dan said to her. He held Harold Crosby with some difficulty--not only because Harold was heavy and wet, but because the stench of vomit, especially in the close air of the vestibule, was overpowering.
"This isn't the best of times to bring up anything with me," Barb Wiggin cautioned, but Dan Needham was not a man to be bullied by a stewardess.
"Nobody cares what sort of mess-up happens at a children's pageant," Dan said, "but this boy was left hanging--twenty feet above a concrete floor! A serious accident might have occurred--due to your negligence." Harold Crosby shut his eyes, as if he feared Barb Wiggin was going to hit him--or strap him back in the angel-raising apparatus.
"I regret--" Barb Wiggin began, but Dan cut her off.
"You will not lay down any laws for Owen Meany," Dan Needham told her. "You are not the rector, you are the rector's wife. You had a job--to return this boy, safely, to the floor--and you forgot all about it. I will forget all about it, too--and you will forget about seeing Owen. Owen is allowed in this church at any time; he doesn't require your permission to be here. If the rector would like to speak with Owen, have the rector call me." And here Dan Needham released the slippery Harold Crosby, whose manner of groping for his clothes suggested that the angel apparatus had cut off all circulation to his legs; he wobbled unsteadily about the vestibule--the other children getting out of his way because of his smell. Dan Needham put his hand on the back of my neck; he pushed me gently forward until I was standing directly between Barb Wiggin and him. "This boy is not your messenger, Missus Wiggin," Dan said. "I should not want to bring up any of this with the Vestry members," he repeated.
Stewardesses have, at best, marginal authority; Barb Wiggin knew when her authority had slipped. She looked awfully ready-to-please, so ready-to-please that I was embarrassed for her. She turned her attention, eagerly, to the task of getting Harold Crosby into fresher clothes. She was just in time; Harold's mother entered the vestibule as Dan and I were leaving the parish house. "My, that looked like fun!" Mrs. Crosby said. "Did you have fun, dear?" she asked him. When Harold nodded, Barb Wiggin spontaneously hugged him against her hip.
Mr. Fish had found the rector. The Rev. Dudley Wiggin was occupying himself with the Christmas candles, measuring them to ascertain which were still long enough to be used again next year. The Rev. Dudley Wiggin had a pilot's healthy instinct for looking ahead; he did not dwell on the present--especially not on the disasters. He would never call Dan and ask to speak to Owen; Owen would be "allowed" at Christ Church without any consultation with the rector.
"I like the way Joseph and Mary carry the Baby Jesus out of the manger," Mr. Fish was saying.
"Ah, do you? Ah, yes," the rector said.
"It's a great ending--very dramatic," Mr. Fish pointed out.
"Yes, it is, isn't it?" the rector said. "Perhaps we'll work out a similar ending--next year."
"Of course, the part requires someone with Owen's presence," Mr. Fish said. "I'll bet you don't get a Christ Child like him every year."
"No, not like him," the rector agreed.
"He's a natural," Mr. Fish said.
"Yes, isn't he?" Mr. Wiggin said.
"Have you seen A Christmas Carol?" Mr. Fish asked.
"Not this year," the rector said.
"What are you doing on Christmas Eve?" Mr. Fish asked him.
I knew what I wished I was doing on Christmas Eve: I wished I was in Sawyer Depot, waiting with my mother for Dan to arrive on the midnight train. That's how our Christmas Eves had been, since my mother had gotten together with Dan. Mother and I would enjoy the Eastmans' hospitality, and I would exhaust myself with my violent cousins, and Dan would join us after the Christmas Eve performance of The Gravesend Players. He would be tired when he got off the train from Gravesend, at midnight, but everyone in the Eastman house--even my grandmother--would be waiting up for him. Uncle Alfred would fix Dan a "nightcap," while my mother and Aunt Martha put Noah and Simon and Hester and me to bed.
At a quarter to twelve, Hester and Simon and Noah and I would bundle up and cross the street to the depot; the weather in the north country on a Christmas Eve, at midnight, was not inviting to grown-ups--the grown-ups all approved of letting us kids meet Dan's train. We liked to be early so we could make plenty of snowballs; the train was always on time--in those days. There were few people on it, and almost no one but Dan got off in Sawyer Depot, where we would pelt him with snowballs. As tired as he was, Dan put up a game fight.
Earlier in the evening, my mother and Aunt Martha sang Christmas carols; sometimes my grandmother would join in. We children could remember most of the words to the first verses; it was in the later verses of the carols that my mother and Aunt Martha put their years in the Congregational Church Choir to the test. My mother won that contest; she knew every word to every verse, so that--as a carol progressed--we heard nothing at all from Grandmother, and less and less from Aunt Martha. In the end, my mother got to sing the last verses by herself.
"What a waste, Tabby!" Aunt Martha would say. "It's an absolute waste of your memory--knowing all those words to the verses no one ever sings!"
"What else do I need my memory for?" my mother asked her sister; the two women would smile at each other--my Aunt Martha coveting that part of my mother's memory that might tell her the story of who my father was. What really irked Martha about my mother's total recall of Christmas carols was that my mother got to sing those last verses solo; even Uncle Alfred would stop what he was doing--just to listen to my mother's voice.
I remember--it was at my mother's funeral--when the Rev. Lewis Merrill told my grandmother that he'd lost my mother's voice twice. The first time was when Martha got married, because that was when both girls started spending Christmas vacations in Sawyer Depot--my mother would still practice singing carols with the choir, but she was gone to visit her sister by the Sunday of Christmas Vespers. The second time that Pastor Merrill lost my mother's voice was when she moved to Christ Church--when he lost it forever. But I had not lost her voice until Christmas Eve, 1953, when the town I was born in and grew up in felt so unfamiliar to me; Gravesend just never was my Christmas Eve town.
Of course, I was grateful to have something to do. Although I'd seen every production of A Christmas Carol--including the dress rehearsal--I was especially glad that the final production was available to take up the time on Christmas Eve; I think both Dan and I wanted our time taken up. After the play, Dan had scheduled a cast party--and I understood why he'd done that: to take up every minute until midnight, and even past midnight, so that he wouldn't be thinking of riding the train to Sawyer Depot (and my mother in the Eastmans' warm house, waiting for him). I could picture the Eastmans having a hard time on Christmas Eve, too; after the first verse, Aunt Martha would be struggling with each carol.
Dan had wanted to have the cast party at 80 Front Street--a