war.' Personal anguish-that's the key! I could convey a lot of personal anguish in regard to my anger 'against the war'-next thing you know, I'll get laid!' Hester didn't even crack a smile.
'I've heard that one,' she said. I wrote Owen that I had selected Thomas Hardy as the subject for my Master's thesis; I doubt he was surprised. I also told him that I had given much thought to his advice to me: that I should gather the courage to make a decision about what to do when faced with the loss of my draft deferment. I was trying to determine what sort of decision I might make-I couldn't imagine a very satisfying solution; and I was puzzled about what sort of COURAGE he'd imagined would be required of
me. Short of my deciding to go to Vietnam, the other available decisions didn't strike me as requiring a great deal in the way of courage.
'You're always telling me I don't have any faith,' I wrote to Owen. 'Well-don't you see?-that's a part of what makes me so indecisive. I wait to see what will happen next-because I don't believe that anything I might decide to do would matter. You know Hardy's poem 'Hap'-I know you do. You remember . . . 'How arrives it joy lies slain,/And why un-blooms the best hope ever sown?/-Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,/And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . . /These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown/ Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.' I know you know what that means: you believe in God but I believe in 'Crass Casualty'-in chance, in luck. That's what I mean. You see? What good does it do to make whatever decision you're talking about? What good does courage do-when what happens next is up for grabs?'' Owen Meany wrote to me: 'DON'T BE SO CYNICAL- NOT EVERYTHING IS 'UP FOR GRABS.' YOU THINK THAT ANYTHING YOU DECIDE TO DO DOESN'T MATTER? LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE BODIES. SAY YOU'RE LUCKY-SAY YOU NEVER GO TO VIETNAM, SAY YOU NEVER HAVE A WORSE JOB THAN MY JOB. YOU HAVE TO TELL THEM HOW TO LOAD THE BODY ON THE AIRPLANE, AND HOW TO UNLOAD IT_YOU HAVE TO BE SURE THEY KEEP THE HEAD HELD HIGHER THAN THE FEET. IT'S PRETTY AWFUL IF ANY FLUID ESCAPES THROUGH THE ORIFICES-PROVIDED THERE ARE ANY ORIFICES.
'THEN THERE'S THE LOCAL MORTICIAN. PROBABLY HE NEVER KNEW THE DECEASED. EVEN SUPPOSING THAT THERE'S A WHOLE BODY-EVEN SUPPOSING THAT THE BODY ISN'T BURNED, AND THAT IT HAS A WHOLE NOSE, AND SO FORTH- NEITHER OF YOU KNOWS WHAT THE BODY USED TO LOOK LIKE. THE MORTUARY SECTIONS BACK AT THE COMMAND POSTS IN VIETNAM ARE NOT KNOWN FOR THEIR ATTENTION TO VERISIMILITUDE. IS THAT FAMILY GOING TO BELIEVE IT'S EVEN HIM! BUT IF YOU TELL THE FAMILY THAT THE BODY ISN'T 'SUITABLE FOR VIEWING,' HOW MUCH WORSE IS IT GOING TO BE FOR THEM?-JUST IMAGINING WHAT A HOR- RIBLE THING IS UNDER THE LID OF THAT CASKET. SO IF YOU SAY, 'NO, YOU SHOULDN'T VIEW THE BODY,' YOU FEEL YOU SHOULD ALSO SAY, 'LISTEN, IT ISN'T REALLY THAT BAD.' AND IF YOU LET THEM LOOK, YOU DON'T WANT TO BE THERE. SO IT'S A TOUGH DECISION. YOU'VE GOT A TOUGH DECISION, TOO- BUT IT'S NOT THAT TOUGH, AND YOU BETTER MAKE IT SOON.'
In the spring of , when I received the notice from the local Gravesend draft board to report for my preinduction physical, I still wasn't sure what Owen Meany meant. 'You better call him,' Hester said to me; we kept reading the notice, over and over. 'You better find out what he means-in a hurry,' she said.
'DON'T BE AFRAID,' he told me. 'DON'T REPORT FOR YOUR PHYSICAL-DON'T DO ANYTHING,' he said. 'YOU'VE GOT A LITTLE TIME. I'M TAKING A LEAVE. I'LL BE THERE AS SOON AS I CAN MAKE IT. ALL YOU'VE GOT TO KNOW IS WHAT YOU WANT. DO YOU WANT TO GO TO VIETNAM?'
'No,' I said.
'DO YOU WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IN CANADA-THINKING ABOUT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY DID TO YOU?' he asked me.
'Now that you put it that way-no,' I told him.
'FINE. I'LL BE RIGHT THERE-DON'T BE AFRAID. THIS TAKES JUST A LITTLE COURAGE,' said Owen Meany.
'''What takes 'just a little courage'?' Hester asked me. It was a Sunday in May when he called me from the monument shop; U.S. planes had just bombed a power plant in Hanoi, and Hester had only recently returned from a huge antiwar protest rally in New York.
'What are you doing at the monument shop?' I asked him; he said he'd been helping his father, who had fallen behind on a few crucial orders. Why didn't I meet him there?
'Why don't we meet somewhere nicer-for a beer?' I asked him.
'I'VE GOT PLENTY OF BEER HERE,' he said. It was odd to meet him in the monument shop on a Sunday. He was alone in that terrible place. He wore a surprisingly clean apron-and the safety goggles, loosely, around his neck. There was an unfamiliar smell in the shop-he had already
opened a beer for me, and he was drinking one himself; maybe the beer was the unfamiliar smell.
'DON'T BE AFRAID,' Owen said.
'I'm not really afraid,' I said. 'I just don't know what to do.'
'I KNOW, I KNOW,' he said; he put his hand on my shoulder. Something was different about the diamond wheel.
'Is that a new saw?' I asked him.
