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“The Cenozoic is an era, right?” I asked him.

“WHO CARES?” said Owen Meany. “YOU CAN FORGET THAT PART. AND YOU CAN FORGET ABOUT ANYTHING AS BROAD AS THE TERTIARY OR THE QUATERNARY—THAT’S TOO BROAD, TOO. WHAT YOU’VE GOT TO KNOW IS MORE SPECIFIC, YOU’VE GOT TO KNOW WHAT CHARACTERIZED AN EPOCH—FOR EXAMPLE, WHICH EPOCH IS CHARACTERIZED BY THE TRIUMPH OF BIRDS AND PLACENTAL MAMMALS?”

“Jesus, how’d I ever let you talk me into this?” I said.

“PAY ATTENTION,” said Owen Meany. “THERE ARE WAYS TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING. THE WAY TO REMEMBER PLEISTOCENE IS TO REMEMBER THAT THIS EPOCH WAS CHARACTERIZED BY THE APPEARANCE OF MAN AND WIDESPREAD GLACIAL ICE—REMEMBER THE ICE, IT RHYMES WITH PLEIS IN PLEISTOCENE.”

“Jesus Christ!” I said.

“I’M JUST TRYING TO HELP YOU REMEMBER,” Owen said. “IF YOU’RE CONFUSING THE BLOSSOMING OF BIRDS AND PLACENTAL MAMMALS WITH THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF MAN, YOU’RE ABOUT SIXTY MILLION YEARS OFF—YOU’RE MAKING A PRETTY BIG MISTAKE!”

“The biggest mistake I made was to take Geology!” I said. Suddenly, Ethel was in my room; we hadn’t heard her knock or open the door—I don’t remember ever seeing Ethel in my room before (or since).

“Your grandmother wishes to see you in the TV room,” Ethel said.

“IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE TV?” Owen asked her.

“Something is wrong with the president,” Ethel said.

When we found out what was wrong with Kennedy—when we saw him shot, and, later, when we learned he was dead—Owen Meany said, “IF WE FIRST APPEAR IN THE PLEISTOCENE, I THINK THIS IS WHEN WE DISAPPEAR—I GUESS A MILLION YEARS OF MAN IS ENOUGH.”

What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the beginning of television’s dominance of our culture—for television is at its most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden. It is as witness to the butchery of heroes in their prime—and of all holy-seeming innocents—that television achieves its deplorab

le greatness. The blood on Mrs. Kennedy’s clothes and her wrecked face under her veil; the fatherless children; LBJ taking the oath of office; and brother Bobby—looking so very much the next in line.

“IF BOBBY WAS NEXT IN LINE FOR MARILYN MONROE, WHAT ELSE IS HE NEXT IN LINE FOR?” said Owen Meany.

Not even five years later, when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, Hester would say, “Television gives good disaster.” I suppose this was nothing but a more vernacular version of my grandmother’s observation of the effect of TV on old people: that watching it would hasten their deaths. If watching television doesn’t hasten death, it surely manages to make death very inviting; for television so shamelessly sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have missed something—just by staying alive.

At 80 Front Street, that November of ’63, my grandmother and Owen Meany and I watched the president be killed for hours; for days we watched him be killed and re-killed, again and again.

“I GET THE POINT,” said Owen Meany. “IF SOME MANIAC MURDERS YOU, YOU’RE AN INSTANT HERO—EVEN IF ALL YOU WERE DOING IS RIDING IN A MOTORCADE!”

“I wish some maniac would murder me,” my grandmother said.

“MISSUS WHEELWRIGHT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” Owen said.

“I mean, why can’t some maniac murder someone old—like me?” Grandmother said. “I’d rather be murdered by a maniac than have to leave my home—and that’s what will happen to me,” she said. “Maybe Dan, maybe Martha—maybe you,” she said accusingly to me. “One of you, or all of you—either way, you’re going to force me to leave this house. You’re going to put me in a place with a bunch of old people who are crazy,” Grandmother said. “And I’d rather be murdered by a maniac instead—that’s all I mean. One day, Ethel won’t be able to manage—one day, it will take a hundred Ethels just to clean up the mess I make!” my grandmother said. “One day, not even you will want to watch television with me,” she said to Owen. “One day,” she said to me, “you’ll come to visit me and I won’t even know who you are. Why doesn’t someone train the maniacs to murder old people and leave the young people alone? What a waste!” she cried. A lot of people were saying this about the death of President Kennedy—with a slightly different meaning, of course. “I’m going to be an incontinent idiot,” my grandmother said; she looked directly at Owen Meany. “Wouldn’t you rather be murdered by a maniac?” she asked him.

“IF IT WOULD DO ANY GOOD—YES, I WOULD,” said Owen Meany.

“I think we’ve been watching too much television,” I said.

“There’s no remedy for that,” my grandmother said.

But after the murder of President Kennedy, it seemed to me that there was “no remedy” for Owen Meany, either; he succumbed to a state of mind that he would not discuss with me—he went into a visible decline in communication. I would often see the tomato-red pickup parked behind the vestry of Hurd’s Church; Owen had kept in touch with the Rev. Lewis Merrill, whose silent and extended prayer for Owen had gained him much respect among the faculty and students at Gravesend. Pastor Merrill had always been “liked”; but before his prayer he had lacked respect. I’m sure that Owen, too, was grateful for Mr. Merrill’s gesture—even if the gesture had been a struggle, and not of the minister’s own initiative. But after JFK’s death, Owen appeared to see more of the Rev. Mr. Merrill; and Owen wouldn’t tell me what they talked about. Maybe they talked about Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys. They talked about “the dream,” I suppose; but I had not yet been successful in coaxing that dream out of Owen Meany.

“What’s this I hear about a dream you keep having?” I asked him once.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE HEARD,” he said.

And shortly before that New Year’s Eve, I asked Hester if she knew anything about any dream. Hester had had a few drinks; she was getting into her throwing-up mood, but she was rarely caught off-guard. She eyed me suspiciously.

“What do you know about it?” she asked me.

“I just know that he has a dream—and that it bothers him,” I added.

“I know that it bothers me,” she said. “It wakes me up—when he has it. And I don’t like to look at him when he’s having it, or after it’s over. Don’t ask me what it’s about!” she said. “I can tell you one thing: you don’t want to know.”