blood-soaked towel. He was precisely the sort of north country lunatic who gave Hester great disdain for Sawyer Depot, and led her to maintain her residence in the college community of Durham year 'round.
'Did you hear about Marilyn Monroe?' the ski bum asked us. We were prepared for a dirty joke-an absolutely filthy joke. The ski bum's smile was a bleeding gash in his face; his smile was the repulsive equal to his gaping wound in his cheek. He was lascivious, depraved-our much-appreciated holiday in the emergency room had taken a nasty turn. We tried to ignore him.
'Did you hear about Marilyn Monroe?' he asked us again. Suddenly, it didn't sound like a joke. Maybe it's about the Kennedys! I thought.
'No. What about her?' I said.
'She's dead,' the ski bum said. He took such a sadistic pleasure in his announcement, his smile appeared to pump the blood out of his mouth and the hole in his cheek; I thought that he was as pleased by the shock value of what he had to say as he was thrilled by the spectacle of wringing his own blood from the sodden gauze pad into the sodden towel. Forever after, I would see his bleeding face whenever I imagined how Larry Lish and his mother must have responded to this news; how eagerly, how greedily they must have spread the word! 'Have you heard? You mean, you haven't heard!' The rapture of so much amateur conjecturing and surmising would flush their faces as irrepressibly as blood!
'How?' I asked the ski bum.
'An overdose,' he said; he sounded disappointed-as if he'd been hoping for something bloodier. 'Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was suicide,' he said. Maybe it was the Kennedys, I thought. It made me feel afraid; at first, that summer, it was something vague that had made me feel afraid. Now something concrete made me feel afraid-but my fear itself was still vague: what could Marilyn Monroe's death ever have to do with me!
'IT HAS TO DO WITH ALL OF US,' said Owen Meany, when I called him that night. 'SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR
WHOLE COUNTRY-NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, BUT NOT OLD EITHER; A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE A LITTLE STUPID, MAYBE A LOT SMARTER THAN SHE SEEMED. AND SHE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING-I THINK SHE WANTED TO BE GOOD. LOOK AT THE MEN IN HER LIFE-JOE DIMAG-GIO, ARTHUR MILLER, MAYBE THE KENNEDYS. LOOK AT HOW GOOD THEY SEEMl LOOK AT HOW DESIRABLE SHE WAS! THAT'S WHAT SHE WAS: SHE WAS DESIRABLE. SHE WAS FUNNY AND SEXY-AND SHE WAS VULNERABLE, TOO. SHE WAS NEVER QUITE HAPPY, SHE WAS ALWAYS A LITTLE OVERWEIGHT. SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY,' he repeated; he was on a roll. I could hear Hester playing her guitar in the background, as if she were trying to improvise a folk song from everything he said. 'AND THOSE MEN,' he said. 'THOSE FAMOUS, POWERFUL MEN-DID THEY REALLY LOVE HER? DID THEY TAKE CARE OF HER? IF SHE WAS EVER WITH THE KENNEDYS, THEY COULDN'T HAVE LOVED HER-THEY WERE JUST USING HER, THEY WERE JUST BEING CARELESS AND TREATING THEMSELVES TO A THRILL. THAT'S WHAT POWERFUL MEN DO TO THIS COUNTRY-IT'S A BEAUTIFUL, SEXY, BREATHLESS COUNTRY, AND POWERFUL MEN USE IT TO TREAT THEMSELVES TO A THRILL! THEY SAY THEY LOVE IT BUT THEY DON'T MEAN IT. THEY SAY THINGS TO MAKE THEMSELVES APPEAR GOOD-THEY MAKE THEMSELVES APPEAR MORAL. THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT KENNEDY WAS: A MORALIST. BUT HE WAS JUST GIVING US A SNOW JOB, HE WAS JUST BEING A GOOD SEDUCER. I THOUGHT HE WAS A SAVIOR. I THOUGHT HE WANTED TO USE HIS POWER TO DO GOOD. BUT PEOPLE WILL SAY AND DO ANYTHING JUST TO GET THE POWER; THEN THEY'LL USE THE POWER JUST TO GET A THRILL. MARILYN MONROE WAS ALWAYS LOOKING FOR THE BEST MAN-MAYBE SHE WANTED THE MAN WITH THE MOST INTEGRITY, MAYBE SHE WANTED THE MAN WITH THE MOST ABILITY TO DO GOOD. AND SHE WAS SEDUCED, OVER AND OVER AGAIN-SHE GOT FOOLED, SHE WAS TRICKED, SHE GOT USED, SHE WAS USED UP. JUST LIKE THE COUNTRY. THE COUNTRY WANTS A SAVIOR. THE COUN- TRY IS A SUCKER FOR POWERFUL MEN WHO LOOK GOOD. WE THINK THEY'RE MORALISTS AND THEN THEY JUST USE US. THAT'S WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU AND ME,' said Owen Meany. 'WE'RE GOING TO BE USED.'
Georgian Bay: July , -The Toronto Star says that President Reagan 'actually led the first efforts to conceal essential details of his secret arms-for-hostages program and keep it alive after it became public.' The Toronto Star added that 'the President subsequently made misleading statements about the arms sales'-on four separate occasions'. Owen used to say that the most disturbing thing about the antiwar movement-against the Vietnam War-was that he suspected self-interest motivated many of the protesters; he thought that if the issue of many of the protesters being drafted was removed from the issue of the war, there would be very little protest at all. Look at the United States today. Are they drafting young Americans to fight in Nicaragua? No; not yet. Are masses of young Americans outraged at the Reagan administration's shoddy and deceitful behavior? Ho hum; not hardly. I know what Owen Meany would say about that; I know what he did say-and it still applies.
'THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET AMERICANS TO NOTICE ANYTHING IS TO TAX THEM OR DRAFT THEM OR KILL THEM,' Owen said. He said that once-when Hester proposed abolishing the draft. 'IF YOU ABOLISH THE DRAFT,' said Owen Meany, 'MOST AMERICANS WILL SIMPLY STOP CARING ABOUT WHAT WE'RE DOING IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD.'
I saw a mink run under the boathouse today; it had such a slender body, it was only slightly larger than a weasel-with a weasel's undulating movement. It had such a thick, glossy coat of fur, I was instantly reminded of Larry Lish's mother. Where is she now? I wondered. I know where Larry Lish is; he's a well-known journalist in New York-'an investigative reporter' is what he's called. I've read a few of his pieces; they're not bad-he was always clever-and I notice that he's acquired a necessary quality in his voice ('necessary,' I think, if a journalist is going to make a name for himself, and gain an audience, and so forth). Larry Lish has become
