ENOUGH.'
'What do you know about 'sex in a foreign atmosphere'?' the quartet-lover had asked Owen. Owen had not answered the guy. He surely knew the guy was a rival for Hester's affections; he also knew that rivals are best unmanned by being ignored.
'Hey!' the guy shouted at Owen. 'I'm talking to you. What makes you think you know there's not going to be a war?'
'OH, THERE'S GOING TO BE A WAR, ALL RIGHT,' said Owen Meany. 'BUT NOT NOW-NOT OVER CUBA. EITHER KHRUSHCHEV WILL PULL THE MISSILES OUT OF CUBA OR KENNEDY WILL OFFER HIM SOMETHING TO HELP HIM SAVE FACE.'
'This little man knows everything,' the guy said.
'Don't you call him 'little,' ' Hester said. 'He's got the biggest penis ever. If there's a bigger one, I don't want to know about it,' Hester said.
'THERE'S NO NEED TO BE CRUDE,' said Owen Meany. That was the last we ever saw of the guy who wanted Hester to read The Alexandria Quartet. I will confess that in the showers in the Gravesend Academy gym-after practicing the shot-I had noticed that Owen's doink was especially large; at least, it was disproportionately large. Compared to the rest of him, it was huge My cousin Simon, whose doink was rather small-perhaps owing to Hester's childhood violence upon it-once claimed that small doinks grew much, much bigger when they were erect; big doinks, Simon said, never grew much when they got hard. I confess: I don't know-I have no doink theory as adamant or hopeful as Simon's. The only time I saw Owen Meany with an erection, he was wrapped in swaddling clothes-he was only an eleven-year-old Baby Jesus; and although his hard-on was highly inappropriate, it didn't strike me as astonishing. As for the shot, Owen and I were guilty of lack of practice; by the end of our freshman year, by the summer of - when we were twenty-one, the legal drinking age at last!-we had trouble sinking the shot in under five seconds. We had to work at it all summer-just to get back to where we had been, just to break four seconds again. It was the summer the Buddhists in Vietnam were demonstrating-they were setting themselves on fire. It was the summer when Owen said, 'WHAT'S A CATHOLIC DOING AS PRESIDENT OF A COUNTRY OF BUDDHISTS?' It was the summer when President Diem was not long for this world; President John F. Kennedy was not long for this world, either. And it was the first summer I went to work for Meany Granite. It was my illusion that I worked for Mr. Meany; it was his illusion, too. It had been amply demonstrated to me-who bossed whom, in that family. I should have known, from the start, that Owen was in charge.
'MY FATHER WANTS TO START YOU OUT IN THE
MONUMENT SHOP,' he told me. 'YOU BEGIN WITH AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE FINISHED PRODUCT-IN THIS BUSINESS, IT'S EASIER TO BEGIN WITH THE FINE-TUNING. IT'S GETTING THE STUFF OUT OF THE GROUND THAT CAN BE TRICKY. I HOPE YOU DON'T THINK I'M CONDESCENDING, BUT WORKING WITH GRANITE IS A LOT LIKE WRITING A TERM PAPER-IT'S THE FIRST DRAFT THAT CAN KILL YOU. ONCE YOU GET THE GOOD STUFF INTO THE SHOP, THE FINE WORK IS EASY: CUTTING THE STONE, EDGING THE LETTERS-YOU'VE JUST GOT TO BE FUSSY. IT'S ALL SMOOTHING AND POLISHING-YOU'VE GOT TO GO SLOWLY.
'DON'T BE IN A HURRY TO WORK IN THE QUARRIES. AT THE MONUMENT-END, AT LEAST THE SIZE AND WEIGHT OF THE STONE ARE MANAGEABLE- YOU'RE WORKING WITH SMALLER TOOLS AND A SMALLER PRODUCT. AND IN THE SHOP, EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT; YOU NEVER KNOW HOW BUSY YOU'LL BE-MOST PEOPLE DON'T DIE ON SCHEDULE, MOST FAMILIES DON'T ORDER GRAVESTONES IN ADVANCE.'
I don't doubt that he was genuinely concerned for my safety, and I know he knew everything about granite; it was wise to develop a feeling for the stone-on a smaller, more refined scale-before one encountered the intimidating size and weight of it in the quarry. All the quarrymen-the signalman, the derrickman, the channel bar drillers, and the dynamiters-and even the sawyers who had to handle the rock before it was cut down to monument size ... a// the men who worked at the quarries were afforded a less generous margin for error than those of us who worked in the monument shop. Even so, I thought there was more than caution motivating Owen to keep me working in the monument shop for the entire summer of '. For one thing, I wanted muscles; and the physical work in the monument shop was a lot less strenuous than being a logger for my Uncle Alfred. For another thing, I envied Owen his tan-he worked in the quarries, unless it was raining; on rainy days, he worked in the shop with me. And we called him in from the quarries whenever there was a customer placing an order for a gravestone; Owen insisted that he be the one to handle that-and when the order was not placed by a funeral home, when the customer was a family member or a close Mend of the deceased, we were all grateful that Owen wanted to handle it. He was very good at that part of it-very respectful of grief, very tactful (while at the same time he managed to be very specific). I don't mean that this was simply a matter of spelling the name correctly and double-checking the date of birth, and the date of death; I mean that the personality of the deceased was discussed, in depth-Owen sought nothing less than a PROPER monument, a COMPATIBLE monument. The aesthetics of the deceased were taken into consideration; the size, shape, and color of the stone were only the rough drafts of the business; Owen wanted to know the tastes of those mourners who would be viewing the gravestone more than once. I never saw a customer who was displeased with the final product; unfortunately-for the enterprises of Meany Granite-I never saw very many customers, either.
'DON'T BE VAIN,' Owen told me, when I complained about the length of my apprenticeship in the monument shop. 'IF YOU'RE STANDING IN THE BOTTOM OF A QUARRY, THINKING ABOUT WHAT KIND OF TAN YOU'RE GETTING-OR YOUR STUPID MUSCLES- YOU'RE GOING TO END UP UNDER TEN TONS OF GRANITE. BESIDES, MY FATHER THINKS YOU'RE DOING A GREAT JOB WITH THE GRAVESTONES.'
