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whereat "the student shall bear the
laboring oar"-and learn heartily from his labor! As for the rest of his
money, Emery Hurd left it for "the education and christianization of the
American Indians." In his waning years-ever watchful that Gravesend
Academy devote itself to "pious and charitable purposes"-the Rev. Mr.
Hurd was known to patrol Water Street in downtown Gravesend, looking for
youthful offenders: specifically, young men who would not doff their hats to
him, and young ladies who would not curtsy. In payment for such offense, Emery
Hurd was happy to give these young people a piece of his mind; near the end, only
pieces were left. I saw my grandmother lose her mind in pieces like that; when
she was so old that she could remember almost nothing-certainly not Owen Meany,
and not even me-she would occasionally reprimand the whole room, and anyone
present in it. "What has happened to tipping the hat?" she would
howl. "Bring back the bow!" she would croon. "Bring back the
curtsy!"
     
    "Yes, Grandmother," I would say.
    "Oh, what do you know?" she would say. "Who are
you, anyway?" she would ask.
    "HE IS YOUR GRANDSON, JOHNNY," I would say, in my best
imitation of Owen Meany's voice. And my Grandmother would say, "My God, is
he still here? Is that funny little guy still here? Did you lock him in the
passageway, Johnny?"
    Later, in that summer when we were ten, Owen told me that my
mother had been to the quarry to visit his parents.
    "What did they say about it?" I asked him. They hadn't
mentioned the visit, Owen told me, but he knew she'd been there. "I COULD
SMELL HER PERFUME," Owen said. "SHE MUST HAVE BEEN THERE QUITE A
WHILE BECAUSE THERE WAS ALMOST AS MUCH OF HER PERFUME AS THERE IS IN YOUR
HOUSE. MY MOTHER DOESN'T WEAR PERFUME," he added. This was unnecessary to
tell me. Not only did Mrs. Meany not go outdoors; she refused to look outdoors.
When I saw her positioned in the various windows of Owen's house, she was
always in profile to the window, determined not to be observing the world-yet
making an obscure point: by sitting in profile, possibly she meant to suggest
that she had not entirely turned her back on the world, either. It occurred to
me that the Catholics had done this to her-whatever it was, it surely qualified
for the unmentioned UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE that Owen claimed his father and mother
had suffered. There was something about Mrs. Meany's obdurate self-imprisonment
that smacked of religious persecution-if not eternal damnation.
    "How did it go with the Meanys?" I asked my mother.
    "They told Owen I was there?" she asked.
    "No, they didn't tell him. He recognized your
perfume."
    "He would," she said, and smiled. I think she knew
Owen had a crash on her-all my friends had crashes on my mother. And if she had
lived until they'd all been teenagers, their degrees of infatuation with her
would doubtless have deepened, and worsened, and been wholly unbearable-both to
them, and to me. Although my mother resisted the temptation of my
generation-that is to say, she restrained herself from picking up Owen
Meany-she could not resist touching Owen. You simply had to put your hands on
Owen. He was mortally cute; he had a furry-animal attractiveness-except for the
nakedness of his nearly transparent ears, and the rodentlike way they protruded
from his sharp face. My grandmother said that Owen resembled an embryonic fox.
When touching Owen, one avoided his ears; they looked as if they would be cold
to the touch. But not my mother; she even rubbed warmth into his rubbery ears.
She hugged him, she kissed him, she touched noses with him. She did all these
things as naturally as if she were doing them to me, but she did none of these
things to my other friends-not even to my cousins. And Owen responded to her
quite affectionately; he'd blush sometimes, but he'd always smile. His
standard, nearly constant frown would disappear; an embarrassed beam would
overcome his face. I