'No, I don't,' I admitted. It was the spring of our senior year, ; I'd already been accepted into the graduate school at the University of New Hampshire-for the next year, at least, I wouldn't be going anywhere; I had my -S deferment and was hanging on to it. Owen had already filled out his Officer Assignment Preference Statement-his DREAM SHEET, he called it. On his Personnel Action Form, he'd noted that he was 'volunteering for oversea service.' On both forms, he'd specified that he wanted to go to Vietnam: Infantry, Armor, or Artillery-in that order. He was not optimistic; with his number-two ranking in his ROTC unit, the Army was under no obligation to honor his choice. He admitted that no one had been very encouraging regarding his appeal to change his assignment from the Adjutant General's Corps to a combat branch-not even Colonel Eiger had encouraged him.
'THE ARMY OFFERS YOU THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE-THE SAME CHOICE AS EVERYONE ELSE,' Owen said. While he was hoping to be reassigned, he would toss around all the bullshit phrases favored by the Department of the Army Headquarters: RANGER TRAINING, AIRBORNE TRAINING, SPECIAL FORCES TRAINING-one day when he said he wished he'd gone to JUMP SCHOOL, or to JUNGLE SCHOOL, Hester threw up.
'Why do you want to go-at all?' I screamed at him.
'I KNOW THAT I DO GO,' he said. 'IT'S NOT NECESSARILY A MATTER OF WANTING TO.'
'Let me make sure I get this right,' I said to him. 'You 'know' that you go whereT'
'TO VIETNAM,' he said.
'I see,' I said.
'No, you don't 'see,' ' Hester said. 'Ask him how he 'knows' that he goes to Vietnam,' she said.
'How do you know, Owen?' I asked him; I thought I knew how he knew-it was the dream, and it gave me the shivers. Owen and I were sitting in the wooden, straight-backed chairs in Hester's roach-infested kitchen. Hester was making a tomato sauce; she was not an exciting cook, and the kitchen retained the acidic, oniony odor of many of her previous tomato sauces. She wilted an onion in cheap olive oil in a cast-iron skillet; then she poured in a can of tomatoes. She added water-and basil, oregano, salt, red pepper, and sometimes a leftover bone from a pork chop or a lamb chop or a steak. She would reduce this mess to a volume that was less than the original can of tomatoes, and the consistency of paste. This glop she would dump over pasta, which had been boiled until it was much too soft. Occasionally, she would surprise us with a salad-the dressing for which was composed of too much vinegar and the same cheap olive oil she had employed in her assault of the onion. Sometimes, after dinner, we would listen to music on the living-room couch-or else Hester would sing something to Owen and me. But the couch was at present uninviting, the result of Hester taking pity on one of Durham's stray dogs; the mutt had demonstrated its gratitude by bestowing upon Hester's living-room couch an infestation of fleas. This was the life that Hester and I thought Owen valued too little.
'I DON'T WANT TO BE A HERO,' said Owen Meany. 'IT'S NOT THAT I WANT TO BE-IT'S THAT I AM A HERO. I KNOW THAT'S WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO BE.'
'How do you know?' I asked him.
'IT'S NOT THAT I WANT TO GO TO VIETNAM-IT'S WHERE I HAVE TO GO. IT'S WHERE I'M A HERO. I'VE GOT TO BE THERE,' he said.
'Tell him how you 'know' this, you asshole!' Hester screamed at him.
'THE WAY YOU KNOW SOME THINGS-YOUR OBLIGATIONS, YOUR DESTINY OR YOUR FATE,' he said. 'THE WAY YOU KNOW WHAT GOD WANTS YOU TO DO.'
'God wants you to go to Vietnam?' I asked him. Hester ran out of the kitchen and shut herself in the bathroom; she started running the water in the bathtub. 'I'm not listening to this shit, Owen-not one more time, I told you!' she cried. When Owen got up from the kitchen table to turn the flame down under the tomato sauce, we could hear Hester being sick in the bathroom.
'It's this dream, isn't it?' I asked him. He stirred the tomato sauce as if he knew what he was doing. 'Does Pastor
Merrill tell you that God wants you to go to Vietnam?' I asked him. 'Does Father Findley tell you that?'
'THEY SAY IT'S JUST A DREAM,' said Owen Meany.
'That's what / say-I don't even know what it is, but I say it's just a dream,' I said.
'BUT YOU HAVE NO FAITH,' he said. 'THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM.'
In the bathroom, Hester was sounding like New Year's Eve; the tomato sauce just simmered. Owen Meany could manifest a certain calmness that I had never quite liked; when he got like that when we were practicing the shot, I didn't want to touch him-when I passed him the ball, I felt uneasy; and when I had to put my hands on him, when I actually lifted him up, I always felt I
