But this time, when I looked, there was one second left on the clock.
:
He had sunk the shot in under four seconds!
'YOU SEE WHAT A LITTLE FAITH CAN DO?' said Owen Meany. The brain-damaged janitor was applauding. 'SET THE CLOCK TO THREE SECONDS!' Owen told him.
'Jesus Christ!' I said.
'IF WE CAN DO IT IN UNDER FOUR SECONDS, WE CAN DO IT IN UNDER THREE,' he said. 'IT JUST TAKES A LITTLE MORE FAITH.'
'It takes more practice,' I told him irritably.
'FAITH TAKES PRACTICE,' said Owen Meany. Nineteen sixty-one was the first year of our friendship that was marred by unfriendly criticism and quarreling. Our most basic dispute began in the fall when we returned to the academy for our senior year, and one of the privileges extended to seniors at Gravesend was responsible for an argument that left Owen and me feeling especially uneasy. As seniors, we were permitted to take the train to Boston on either Wednesday or Saturday afternoon; we had no classes on those afternoons; and if we told the Dean's Office where we were going, we were allowed to return to Gravesend on the Boston & Maine-as late as : P.M. on the same day. As day boys, Owen and I didn't really have to be back to school until the Thursday morning meeting-or the Sunday service at Kurd's Church, if we chose to go to Boston on a Saturday. Even on a Saturday, Dan and my grandmother frowned upon the idea of our spending most of the night in the 'dreaded' city; there was a so-called milk train that left Boston at two o'clock in the morning-it stopped at every town between Boston and Gravesend, and it didn't get us home until : A.M. (about the time the school dining hall opened for breakfast)-but Dan and my grandmother said that Owen and I should live this 'wildly' on only the most special occasions. Mr. and Mrs. Meany didn't make any rules for Owen, at all; Owen was content to abide by the rules Dan and Grandmother made for me. But he was not content to spend his time in the dreaded city in the manner that most Gravesend seniors spent their time. Many Gravesend graduates attended Harvard. A typical outing for a Gravesend senior began with a subway ride to Harvard Square; there-with the use of a fake draft card, or with the assistance of an older Gravesend graduate (now attending Harvard)-booze was purchased in abundance and consumed with abandon. Sometimes-albeit, rarely-girls were met. Fortified by the former (and never in the company of the latter), our senior class then rode the subway back to Boston, where-once again, falsifying our age-we gained
admission to the striptease performances that were much admired by our age group at an establishment known as Old Freddy's. I saw nothing that was morally offensive in this rite of passage. At nineteen, I was a virgin. Caroline O'Day had not permitted the advance of even so much as my hand-at least not more than an inch or so above the hem of her pleated skirt or her matching burgundy knee socks. And although Owen had told me that it was only Caroline's Catholicism that prevented me access to her favors-'ESPECIALLY IN HER SAINT MICHAEL'S UNIFORM!'-I had been no more successful with Police Chief Ben Pike's daughter, Lorna, who was not Catholic, and not wearing a uniform of any kind when I snagged my lip on her braces. Apparently, it was either my blood or my pain-or both-that disgusted her with me. At nineteen, to experience lust-even in its shabbiest forms at Old Freddy's-was at least to experience something; and if Owen and I had at first imagined what love was at The Idaho, I saw nothing wrong in lusting at a burlesque show. Owen, I imagined, was not a virgin; how could he have remained a virgin with Hester? So I found it sheer hypocrisy for him to label Old Freddy's DISGUSTING and DEGRADING. At nineteen, I drank infrequently-and entirely for the maturing thrill of becoming drunk. But Owen Meany didn't drink; he disapproved of losing control. Furthermore, he had interpreted Kennedy's inaugural charge-to do something for his country-in a typically single-minded and literal fashion. He would falsify no more draft cards; he would produce no more fake identification to assist the illegal drinking and burlesque-show attendance of his peers-and he was loudly self-righteous about his decision, too. Fake draft cards were WRONG, he had decided. Therefore, we walked soberly around Harvard Square-a part of Cambridge that is not necessarily enhanced by sobriety. Soberly, we looked up our former Gravesend schoolmates- and, soberly, I imagined the Harvard community (and how it might be morally altered) with Owen Meany in residence. One of our former schoolmates even told us that Harvard was a depressing experience-when sober. But Owen insisted that our journeys to the dreaded city be conducted as joyless research; and so they were. To maintain sobriety and to attend the striptease perfor- mances at Old Freddy's was a form of unusual torture; the women at Old Freddy's were only watchable to the blind drunk. Since Owen had made fake draft cards for himself and me before his lofty, Kennedy-inspired resolution not to break the law, we used the cards to be admitted to Old Freddy's.
'THIS IS DISGUSTING!' Owen said. We watched a heavy-breasted woman in her forties remove her pasties with her teeth; she then spat them into the eager audience.
'THIS IS DEGRADING!' Owen said. We watched another unfortunate pick up a tangerine from the dirty floor of the stage; she lifted the tangerine almost to knee level by picking it up from the floor with the labia of her vulva-but she could raise it no higher. She lost her grip on the tangerine, and it rolled off the stage and into the crowd-where two or three of our schoolmates fought over it. Of course it was DISGUSTING and DEGRADING-we were sober I
'LET'S FIND A NICE PART OF TOWN,' Owen said.
'And do what' I asked him.
