downstairs, or whether he suffered the spasms after his spectacular accident . . . well, this is academic, isn't it? Suffice it to say that the students in the foyer fled from the wildly approaching little vehicle. No doubt, the melted snow and ice were on the Beetle's tires, too-and marble, as everyone knows, is slippery. This way and that way, the dynamic little car hopped down the staircase; great slabs of marble appeared to leap off the polished handrails of the stairway-the result of the Volkswagen's gouging out hunks of marble as it skidded from side to side. There's an old New Hampshire phrase that is meant to express extreme fragility-and damage: 'Like a robin's egg rollin' down the spout of a rain gutter!'
Thus did the headmaster descend the marble staircase from The Great Hall to the foyer of the Main Academy Building- except that he didn't quite arrive at his destination. The car nipped and landed on its roof, and jammed itself sideways- and upside down-in the middle of the stairway. The doors could not be opened-nor could the headmaster be removed from the wreckage; such spasms assailed his lower back that he could not contort himself into the necessary posture to make an exit from the car through the space where the windshield had been. Randy White, sitting upside down and holding fast to the steering wheel, cried out that there was a 'conspiracy of students and faculty' who were-clearly- 'against' him. He said numerous, unprintable things about Dr. Dolder's 'fussy-fucking drinking habits,' about all German-manufactured cars, about what 'wimps and pussys' were masquerading as 'able-bodied' among the faculty-and their wives!-and he shouted and screamed that his back was 'killing' him, until his wife, Sam, could be brought to the scene, where she knelt on the chipped marble stairs and gave
her upside-down husband what comfort she could. Professionals were summoned to extricate him from the destroyed Volkswagen; later-long after morning meeting was over-they finally rescued the headmaster by removing the driver's-side door of Dr. Dolder's poor car with a torch. The headmaster was confined to the Hubbard Infirmary for the remainder of the day; the nurses, and the school doctor, wanted to keep him-for observation-overnight, but the headmaster threatened to fire all of them if he was not released. Over and over again, Randy White was heard to shout or cry out or mutter to his wife: 'This has Owen Meany's name written all over it!'
It was an interesting morning meeting, that morning. We were more than twice as long being seated, because only one staircase ascending to The Great Hall was available for our passage-and then there was the problem of the front-row bench being smashed; the boys who regularly sat there had to' find places for themselves on the floor, or onstage. There were crushed beads of glass, and chipped paint, and puddles of engine and transmission oil everywhere-and except for the opening and closing hymn, which drowned out the cries of the trapped headmaster, we were forced to listen to the ongoing drama on the stairway. I'm afraid this distracted us from the Rev. Mr. MerriU's prayer, and from Mr. Early's annual pep talk to the seniors. We should not allow our anxieties about our pending college admission (or our rejection) to keep us from having a good spring holiday, Mr. Early advised us.
'Goddamn Jesus Fucking Christ-keep that blowtorch away from my/ace!' we all heard the headmaster cry. And at the end of morning meeting, the headmaster's wife, Sam, shouted at those students who attempted to descend the blocked staircase by climbing over the ruined Volkswagen-in which the headmaster was still imprisoned.
'Where are your manners!' Mrs. White shouted. It was after morning meeting before I had a chance to speak to Owen Meany.
'I don't suppose you had anything to do with all of that?' I asked him.
'FAITH AND PRAYER,' he said. 'FAITH AND PRAYER-THEY WORK, THEY REALLY DO.'
Toronto: July , -Katherine invited me to her island; no more stupid newspapers; I'm going to Georgian Bay! Another stinking-hot day. Meanwhile-on the front page of The Globe and Mail (it must be a slow day)-there's a story about Sweden's Supreme Court making 'legal history'; the Supreme Court is hearing an appeal in a custody case involving a dead cat. What a world! MADE FOR TELEVISION! I haven't been to church in more than a month; too many newspapers. Newspapers are a bad habit, the reading equivalent of junk food. What happens to me is that I seize upon an issue in the news-the issue is the moral/philosophical, political/intellectual equivalent of a cheeseburger with everything on it; but for the duration of my interest in it, all my other interests are consumed by it, and whatever appetites and capacities I may have had for detachment and reflection are suddenly subordinate to this cheeseburger in my life! I offer this as self-criticism; but what it means to be 'political' is that you welcome these obsessions with cheeseburgers-at great cost to the rest of your life. I remember the independent study that Owen Meany was conducting with the Rev. Lewis Merrill in the winter term of . I wonder if those cheeseburgers in the Reagan administration are familiar with Isaiah :. As would say: 'WOE UNTO THEM THAT CALL EVIL GOOD AND GOOD EVIL.'
After me, Pastor Merrill was the first to ask Owen if he'd had anything to do with the 'accident' to Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen; the unfortunate little car would spend our entire spring vacation in the body shop.
'DO I UNDERSTAND CORRECTLY THAT THE SUBJECT OF OUR CONVERSATION IS CONFIDENTIAL?' Owen asked Pastor Merrill.' 'YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN-LIKE YOU'RE THE PRIEST AND I'M THE CONFESSOR; AND, SHORT OF MURDER, YOU WON'T REPEAT WHAT I TELL YOU?' Owen Meany asked him.
'You understand correctly, Owen,' the Rev. Mr. Merrill said.
