'Not really,' Dan admitted.
'What if we saw his face-from the beginning?' Mr. Fish suggested.
'If you don't pull his hood off, we'll never see his face,' Dan pointed out to Mr. Fish. 'I think that will be better.'
'Yes, much better,' Mr. Fish agreed. Mr. Meany dropped Owen off at Front Street-so he could spend the night. Mr. Meany knew that my grandmother resented the racket his truck made in the driveway; that was why we didn't hear him come and go-he let Owen out of the cab on Front Street. It was quite magical; I mean, the timing: Mr. Fish saying good night, opening the door to leave-precisely at the same time as Owen was reaching to ring the doorbell. My grandmother, at that instant, turned on the porch light; Owen blinked into the light. From under his red-and-black-checkered hunter's cap, his small, sharp face stared up at Mr. Fish-like the face of a possum caught in a flashlight. A dull, yellowish bruise, the sheen of tarnished silver, marked Owen's cheek-where the Brinker-Smiths' mobile bed had struck him-giving him a cadaver's uneven color. Mr. Fish leaped backward, into the hall.
'Speak of the Devil,' Dan said, smiling. Owen smiled back-at us all.
'I GUESS YOU HEARD-I GOT THE PART!' he said to my grandmother and me.
'I'm not surprised, Owen,' my grandmother said. 'Won't you come in?' She actually held the door open for him; she even managed a charming curtsy-inappropriately girlish, but Harriet Wheelwright was gifted with those essentially regal properties that make the inappropriate gesture work . . . those being facetiousness and sarcasm. Owen Meany did not miss the irony in my grandmother's voice; yet he beamed at her-and he returned her curtsy with a confident bow, and with a little tip of his red-and-black-checkered hunter's cap. Owen had triumphed, and he knew it; my grandmother knew it, too. Even Harriet Wheelwright- with her Mayflower indifference toward the Meanys of this world-even my grandmother knew that there was more to The Granite Mouse than met the eye. Mr. Fish, perhaps to compose himself, was humming the tune to a familiar Christmas carol. Even Dan Needham
knew the words. As Owen finished knocking the snow off his boots-as the little Lord Jesus stepped inside our house- Dan half-sang, half-mumbled the refrain we knew so well: 'Hark! the her-ald an-gels sing, 'Glo-ry to the new-born King!' '
THE GHOST OF THE FUTURE
THUS DID OWEN MEANY remodel Christmas. Denied his long-sought excursion to Sawyer Depot, he captured the two most major, non-speaking roles in the only dramatic productions offered in Gravesend that holiday season. As the Christ Child and as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, he had established himself as a prophet-disquietingly, it was our future he seemed to know something about. Once, he thought, he had seen into my mother's future; he had even become an instrument of her future. I wondered what he thought he knew of Dan's or my grandmother's future-or Hester's, or mine, or his own. God would tell me who my father was, Owen Meany had assured me; but, so far, God had been silent. It was Owen who'd been talkative. He'd talked Dan and me out of the dressmaker's dummy; he'd stationed my mother's heartbreaking figure at his bedside-to stand watch over him, to be his angel. Owen had talked himself down from the heavens and into the manger-he'd made me a Joseph, he'd chosen a Mary for me, he'd turned turtledoves to cows. Having revised the Holy Nativity, he had moved on; he was reinterpreting Dickens-for even Dan had to admit that Owen had somehow changed A Christmas Carol. The silent Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come had stolen the penultimate scene from Scrooge.
Even The Gravesend News-Letter failed to recognize that Scrooge was the main character; that Mr. Fish was the principal actor was a fact that entirely eluded The News-Letter's drama critic, who wrote, 'The quintessential Christmas tale, the luster of which has been dulled (at least, for this reviewer) by its annual repetition, has been given a new sparkle.' The critic added, 'The shopworn ghost-story part of the tale has been energized by the brilliant performance of little Owen Meany, who- despite his diminutive size-is a huge presence onstage; the miniature Meany simply dwarfs the other performers. Director Dan Needham should consider casting the Tiny Tim-sized star as Scrooge in next year's A Christmas Carol!'
There was not a word about this year's Scrooge, and Mr. Fish fumed over his neglect. Owen responded crossly to any criticism.
'WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO REFER TO ME AS 'LITTLE,' AS 'DIMINUTIVE,' AS 'MINIATURE'?' Owen raved. 'THEY DON'T MAKE SUCH QUALIFYING REMARKS ABOUT THE OTHER ACTORS!'
'You forgot 'Tiny Tim-sized,' ' I told him.
'I KNOW, I KNOW,' he said. 'DO THEY SAY, 'FORMER DOG-OWNER FISH' IS A SUPERB SCROOGE? DO THEY SAY, 'VICIOUS SUNDAY-SCHOOL TYRANT WALKER' MAKES A CHARMING MOTHER FOR TINY TIM?'
'They called you a 'star,' ' I reminded him. 'They called you 'brilliant'-and a 'huge presence.' '
