related to 'politics in fiction.' Wasn't it Hardy had written about? she asked- implying 'merely' Hardy!-and wasn't it only my Master's I had written? And so I asked my old Mend Katherine Keeling: 'Do you suppose that God created Eleanor Pribst just to test me?'
'You're very naughty,' Katherine said. 'Don't you be wicked, too.'
When I want to be 'wicked,' I show the finger; correction-I show what's missing, I show not the finger. I shall save the missing finger for my next encounter with Ms. Pribst. I am grateful to Owen Meany for so many things; not only did he keep me out of Vietnam-he created for me a perfect teaching tool, he gave me a terrific attention-getter for whenever the class is lagging behind. I simply raise my hand; I point. It is the absence of my pointer that makes pointing an interesting and riveting thing for me to do. Instantly, I have everyone's attention. It works very well in department meetings, too.
'Don't you point that thing at me!' Hester was fond of saying. But it was not 'that thing,' it-was not anything that upset her; it was what was missing! The amputation was very clean-it was the cleanest cut imaginable. There's nothing grotesque, or mangled-or even raw-looking- about the stump. The only thing wrong with me is what's missing. Owen Meany is missing. It was after Owen cut off my finger-at the end of the summer of ', when he was home in Gravesend for a few days' leave-when Hester told Owen that she wouldn't attend his funeral; she absolutely refused.
'I'll marry you, I'll move to Arizona-I'll go anywhere with you, Owen,' Hester said. 'Can you see me as a bride on an Army base? Can you see us entertaining another couple of young marrieds-when you're not off escorting a body? Just call me Hester Huachuca!' she cried. 'I'll even get pregnant-if you'd like that, Owen. Do you want babies? I'll give you babies!' Hester cried.' 'I'd do anything for you-you know that. But I won't go to your fucking funeral.'
She was true to her word; Hester was not in attendance at
Owen Meany's funeral-Kurd's Church was packed, but Hester wasn't a part of the crowd. He'd never asked her to marry him; he'd never made her move to Arizona, or anywhere. 'IT WOULDN'T BE FAIR-I MEAN, IT WOULDN'T BE FAIR TO HER;' Owen had told me. In the fall of ', Owen Meany made a deal with Major General LaHoad; he was not appointed LaHoad's aide-decamp-LaHoad was too proud of the commendations that Owen received as a casualty assistance officer. The major general was scheduled for a transfer in eighteen months; if Owen remained at Fort Huachuca-as the casualty branch's 'best' body escort-LaHoad promised Owen 'a good job in Vietnam.' Eighteen months was a long wait, but First Lieutenant Meany felt the wait was worth it.
'Doesn't he know there are no 'good jobs' in Vietnam?' Hester asked me. It was October; we were in Washington with fifty thousand other antiwar demonstrators. We assembled opposite the Lincoln Memorial and marched to the Pentagon, where we were met by lines of U.S. marshals and military police; there were even marshals and police on the roof of the Pentagon. Hester carried a sign:
Support the GI's Bring Our Boys Home Now! I was carrying nothing; I was still a little self-conscious about my missing finger. The scar tissue was new enough so that any exertion caused the stump to look inflamed. But I tried to feel I was part of the demonstration; sadly, I didn't feel I was a part of it-I didn't feel I was part of anything. I had a -F deferment; I would never have to go to war, or to Canada. By the simple act of removing the first two joints of my right index finger, Owen Meany had enabled me to feel completely detached from my generation.
'If he was half as smart as he thinks he is,' Hester said to me as we approached the Pentagon,' 'he would have cut off his own finger when he cut off yours-he would have cut off as many fingers as he needed to. So he saved you-lucky you' she said. 'How come he isn't smart enough to save himself?'
What I saw in Washington that October were a lot of Americans who were genuinely dismayed by what their country was doing in Vietnam; I also saw a lot of other Americans who were self-righteously attracted to a most childish notion of heroism-namely, their own. They thought -that to force a confrontation with soldiers and policemen would not only elevate themselves to the status of heroes; this confrontation, they deluded themselves, would expose the corruption of the political and social system they loftily thought they opposed. These would t'e the same people who, in later years, would credit the antiwar 'movement' with eventually getting the U.S. armed forces out of Vietnam. That was not what I saw. I saw that the righteousness of many of these demonstrators simply helped to harden the attitudes of those poor fools who supported the war. That is what makes what Ronald Reagan would say-two years later, in -so ludicrous: that the Vietnam protests were'' giving aid and comfort to the enemy.'' What I saw was that the protests did worse than that; they gave aid and comfort to the idiots who endorsed the war-they made that war last longer. That's what / saw. I took my missing finger home to New Hampshire, and let Hester get arrested in Washington by herself; she was not exactly alone-there were mass arrests that October. By the end of ', there was trouble in California, there was trouble in New York; and there were five hundred thousand U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. More than sixteen thousand Americans had been killed there. That was when General Westmoreland said, 'We have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view.'
That was what prompted Owen Meany to ask: 'WHAT END?' The end of the war would not come soon enough to save Owen. They put him in a closed casket, of course; the casket was draped with the U.S. flag, and his medal was pinned to the flag. Like any first lieutenant on active duty, he
