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“DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE FUNERAL,” Owen told her. “WHERE’S THE TALL BOY? WHAT’S HIS NAME?” There was a closed door off a narrow hall, and the girl cautiously pointed to it.

“Don’t tell him I told you,” she whispered.

“WHAT’S HIS NAME?” Owen asked her.

She looked around, to make sure no one was watching her; there was a gob of mustard on the swollen belly of her wrinkled dress. “Dick!” she said; then she moved away.

Owen knocked on the door.

“Watch yourself, Meany,” Major Rawls said. “I know the police, at the airport—they never take their eyes off this guy.”

Owen knocked on the door a little more insistently.

“Fuck you!” Dick shouted through the closed door.

“YOU’RE TALKING TO AN OFFICER!” said Owen Meany.

“Fuck you, sir!” Dick said.

“THAT’S BETTER,” Owen said. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE—BEATING OFF?”

Major Rawls pushed Owen and me out of the path of the door; we were all standing clear of the door when Dick opened it. He was wearing a different pair of fatigue pants, he was barefoot and bare-chested, and he’d blackened his face with something like shoe polish—as if, after the merrymakers all settled down, he planned to engage in undercover activities in the dangerous neighborhood. With the same black marker, he had drawn circles around his nipples—like twin bull’s-eyes on his chest.

“Come on in,” he said, stepping back into his room, where—no doubt—he dreamed without cease of butchering the Viet Cong.

The room reeked of marijuana; Dick finished the small nub of a roach he held with a pair of tweezers—not offering us the last toke. The dead helicopter pilot, the warrant officer, was named Frank Jarvits—but Dick preferred to call him by his “Cong killer name,” the name his buddies in ’Nam had given him, which was “Hubcap.” Dick showed us, proudly, all the souvenirs that Hubcap had managed to smuggle home from Vietnam. There were several bayonets, several machetes, a collection of plastic-encased “water beetles,” and one helmet with an overripe sweatband—with the possessive “Hubcap’s Hat” written on the band in what appeared to be blood. There was an AK-47 assault rifle that Dick broke down into the stock group, the barrel, the receiver, the bolt—and so forth. Then he quickly reassembled the Soviet-made weapon. His stoned eyes flickered with a passing, brief excitement in gaining our approval; he’d wanted to show us how Hubcap had broken down the rifle in order to smuggle it home. There were two Chicom grenades, too—those bottle-shaped grenades, with the fat part serrated and the fuse cord at the pipelike end of the bottleneck.

“They don’t blow as good as ours, but you can get sent to Leaven-worth for sneakin’ home an M-sixty-seven—Hubcap told me,” Dick said. He stared sadly at the two Chinese-made grenades; then he picked up one. “Fuckin’ Chink Commie shit,” he said, “but it’ll still do a job on ya.” He showed us how the warrant officer had taped up the end of the grenade, where the firing-pin cord is; then Hubcap had taped up the whole grenades in cardboard, placing one of them in a shaving kit and the other in a combat boot. “They just come home like carry-on luggage,” Dick told us.

Apparently, various “buddies” had been involved in bringing home the AK-47 assault rifle; different guys brought home different parts. “That’s how it’s done,” Dick said wisely—his head still nodding to whatever tune the pot was playing to him. “It got tough after sixty-six, ’cause of the drug traffickin’—everyone’s gear got inspected more, you know,” he said.

The walls of the room were festooned with hanging cartridge belts and an assortment of fatigues and unmatching parts of uniforms. The ungainly boy lived for reaching the legal age for legal slaughter.

“How come you ain’t in ’Nam?” Dick asked Owen. “You too small—or what?”

Owen chose to ignore him, but Major Rawls said: “Lieutenant Meany has requested transfer to Vietnam—he’s scheduled to go there.”

“How come you ain’t over there?” Dick asked the major.

“‘HOW COME YOU AIN’T OVER THERE,’ SIR!” said Owen Meany.

Dick shut his eyes and smiled; he dozed off, or dreamed away, for a second or two. Then he said to Major Rawls: “How come you ain’t over there, sir?”

“I’ve already been there,” Rawls said.

“How come you ain’t back there?” Dick asked him. “Sir…” he added nastily.

“I’ve got a better job here,” Major Rawls told the boy.

“Well, someone’s got to have the dirty jobs—ain’t that how it is?” Dick said.

“WHEN YOU GET IN THE ARMY, WHAT KIND OF JOB DO YOU THINK YOU’LL HAVE?” Owen asked the boy. “WITH YOUR ATTITUDE, YOU WON’T GET TO VIETNAM—YOU WON’T GO TO WAR, YOU’LL GO TO JAIL. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE SMART TO GO TO WAR,” said Owen Meany. “BUT YOU HAVE TO BE SMARTER THAN YOU.”

The boy closed his eyes and smiled again; his head nodded a little. Major Rawls picked up a pencil and tapped it on the barrel of the assault rifle. That brought Dick, momentarily, back to life.

“You better not bring this baby to the airport, pal,” Major Rawls said. “You better never show up there with the rifle, or with the grenades,” the major said. When the boy shut his eyes again, Rawls tapped him on his forehead with the pencil. The boy’s eyes blinked open; hatred came and went in them—a drifting, passing hatred, like clouds or smoke. “I’m not even sure those bayonets or machetes are legal—you understand me?” Major Rawls said. “You better be sure you keep them in their sheaths,” he said.

“Sometimes the cops take ’em from me—sometimes they give ’em back the same day,” Dick said. I could count each of his ribs, and his stomach muscles. He saw me staring at him and he said: “Who’s the guy outta uniform?”