Where could we go but back in the main door? Had someone locked the parish house out of fear that thieves would steal our real clothes? To our knowledge, there was no shortage of clothes like ours in Gravesend, and no robbers. And so we bucked against the grain; we fought against the congregation-they were coming out-in order that we might get back in. For Barb Wiggin, who wished that every worship service was as smooth as a flight free of bumpy air-and one that departs and arrives on time-the sight of the traffic jam in the nave of the church must have caused further upset. Smaller angels and shepherds darted between the grown-ups' legs; the more stately kings, clutching their toppled crowns-and the clumsier cows, and the donkeys now in halves-made awkward progress against the flow of bulky overcoats. The countenances of many a parishioner reflected shock and insult, as if the Lord Jesus had just spat in their faces-to deem them sacrilegious. Among the older members
of the congregation-with whom the jocular Captain Wiggin and his brash wife were not an overnight success-there was a stewing anger, apparent in their frowns and scowls, as if the shameful pageant they had just witnessed were the rector's idea of something 'modern.' Whatever it was, they hadn't liked it, and their reluctant acceptance of the ex-pilot would be delayed for a few more years. I found myself chin-to-chest with the Rev. Lewis Merrill, who was as baffled as the Episcopalian congregation- regarding what he and his wife were supposed to do next. They were nearer the nave of the church than was the rector, who was nowhere to be found, and if the Rev. Mr. Merrill continued to press, with the throng, toward the door, he might find himself out on the steps-in a position to shake hands with the departing souls-in advance of the Rev. Mr. Wiggin's appearance there. It was surely not Pastor Merrill's responsibility to shake hands with Episcopalians, following their botched pageant. God forbid that any of them might think that he was the reason for the pageant being so peculiarly wrecked, or that this was how the Congregationalists interpreted the Nativity.
'Your little friend?' Mr. Merrill asked in a whisper. 'Is he always so ... like that?'
Is he always like what? I thought. But in the crush of the crowd, it would have been hard to stand my ground while Mr. Merrill stuttered out what he meant.
'Yes,' I said. 'That's Owen, this was pure Owen today. He's unpredictable, but he's always in charge.'
'He's quite . . . miraculous,' the Rev. Mr. Merrill said, smiling faintly-clearly glad that the Congregationalists preferred caroling to pageants, and clearly relieved that Owen Meany had moved no farther down the Protestant rungs than the Episcopalians. The pastor was probably imagining what sort of damage Owen might accomplish at a Vesper service. Dan grabbed me in the connecting passage to the parish house; he said he'd wait for me to get my clothes, and Owen's-we could go back to the dorm together, then, or to Front Street. Mr. Fish was happy and agitated; if he thought that the Rev. Dudley Wiggin's 'slashing his throat' was a part of the rector's annual performance, he also imagined that everything Owen had done was in the script-and Mr. Fish had been quite impressed by the dramatic qualities of the story. 'I love the part when he tells what to say-that's brilliant,' Mr. Fish said. 'And how he throws his mother aside-how he starts right in with the criticism ... I mean, you get the idea, right away, that this is no ordinary baby. You know, he's the Lord! Jesus-from Day One. I mean, he's born giving orders, telling everyone what to do. I thought you told me he didn't have a speaking part! I had no idea it was so ... primitive a ritual, so violent, so barbaric. But it's very moving,' Mr. Fish added hastily, lest Dan and I be offended to hear our religion described as 'primitive' and 'barbaric.'
'It's not quite what the ... author . . . intended,' Dan told Mr. Fish. I left Dan explaining the deviations from the expected to the excited amateur actor-I wanted to get dressed, and find Owen's clothes, in a hurry, without encountering either of the Wiggins. But I was a while getting my hands on Owen's clothes. Mary Beth Baird had balled them up with her own in a corner of the vestibule, where she then lay down to weep-on top of them. It was complicated, getting her to relinquish Owen's clothes without striking her; and impossible to interrupt her sobbing. Everything that had upset the little Lord Jesus had been her fault, in her opinion; she had not only failed to soothe him-she'd been a bad mother in general. Owen hated her, she claimed. How she wished she understood him better! Yet, somehow-as she explained to me, through her tears-she was sure she 'understood' him better than anyone else did. At age eleven, I was too young to glimpse a vision of what sort of overwrought wife and mother Mary Beth Baird would make; there in the vestibule, I wanted only to hit her-to forcibly take Owen's clothes and leave her in a puddle of tears. The very idea of her understanding Owen Meany made me sick! What she really meant was that she wanted to take him home and lie on top of him; her idea of understanding him began and ended with her desire to cover his body, to never let him get up. Because I was slow in leaving the vestibule, Barb Wiggin caught me.
'You can give him this message when you give him his clothes,' she hissed to me, her fingers digging into my shoulder and shaking me. 'Tell him he's to come see me before he's allowed back in this church-before the next Sunday school class, before he comes to another service. He comes to see me first. He's not allowed here until he sees me!' she repeated, giving me one last shake for good measure.
I was so upset that I blurted it all out to Dan, who was hanging around the altar area with Mr. Fish, who, in turn, was staring at the scattered hay in the manger and at the few gifts abandoned by the Christ Child there, as if some meaning could be discerned from the arrangement of the debris. I told Dan what Barb Wiggin had said, and how she'd given Owen a hard-on, and how there had been virtual warfare between them-and now, I was sure, Owen would never be 'allowed' to be an Episcopalian again. If seeing her was a prerequisite for Owen to return to Christ Church, then Owen, I knew, would be as shunning of us Episcopalians as he was presently
