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“MISSUS LISH REVEALED TO US SOME

PARTICULARLY DAMNING AND UNPLEASANT GOSSIP,” Owen said. “SHE SEEMED PLEASED AT HOW THE NATURE OF THE GOSSIP UPSET ME.”

“That’s true, sir,” I said.

“What was the gossip?” asked Randy White. Owen was silent.

“Owen—in your own defense, for God’s sake!” I said.

“SHUT UP!” he told me.

“Tell me what she said to you, Owen,” the headmaster said.

“IT WAS VERY UGLY,” said Owen Meany, who actually thought he was protecting the president of the United States! Owen Meany was protecting the reputation of his commander-in-chief!

“Tell him, Owen!” I said.

“IT IS CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION,” Owen said. “YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE ME—SHE WAS UGLY. SHE DESERVED A JOKE—AT HER OWN EXPENSE,” Owen said.

“Missus Lish says that you crudely propositioned her in front of her son—I repeat, ‘crudely,’” said Randy White. “She says you were insulting, you were lewd, you were obscene—and you were anti-Semitic,” the headmaster said.

“IS MISSUS LISH JEWISH?” Owen asked me. “I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW SHE WAS JEWISH!”

“She says you were anti-Semitic,” the headmaster said.

“BECAUSE I PROPOSITIONED HER?” Owen asked.

“Then you admit that you ‘propositioned’ her?” Randy White asked him. “Suppose she’d said ‘Yes’?”

Owen Meany shrugged. “I DON’T KNOW,” he said thoughtfully. “I SUPPOSE I WOULD HAVE—WOULDN’T YOU?” he asked me. I nodded. “I KNOW YOU WOULDN’T!” Owen said to the headmaster—“BECAUSE YOU’RE MARRIED,” he added. “THAT WAS SORT OF THE POINT I WAS MAKING—WHEN SHE BEGAN TO MAKE FUN OF ME,” he told Randy White. “SHE ASKED ME IF I’D ‘DO IT’ WITH MARILYN MONROE,” Owen explained, “AND I SAID, ‘NOT IF I WERE MARRIED,’ AND SHE STARTED LAUGHING AT ME.”

“Marilyn Monroe?” the headmaster said. “How did Marilyn Monroe get involved in this?”

But Owen would say no more. Later, he told me, “THINK OF THE SCANDAL! THINK OF SUCH A RUMOR LEAKING TO THE NEWSPAPERS!”

Did he think that the downfall of President Kennedy might come from an editorial in The Grave?

“Do you want to get kicked out of school for protecting the president?” I asked him.

“HE’S MORE IMPORTANT THAN I AM,” said Owen Meany. Nowadays, I’m not sure that Owen was right about that; he was right about most things—but I’m inclined to think that Owen Meany was as worthy of protection as JFK.

Look at what assholes are trying to protect the president these days!

But Owen Meany could not be persuaded to protect himself; he told Dan Needham that the nature of Mrs. Lish’s incitement constituted “A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY”; not even to save himself from Randy White’s wrath would Owen Meany repeat what a slanderous rumor he had heard.

In faculty meeting, the headmaster argued that this kind of disrespect to adults—to school parents!—could not be tolerated. Mr. Early argued that there was no school rule against propositioning mothers; Owen, Mr. Early argued, had not broken a rule.

The headmaster attempted to have the matter turned over to the Executive Committee; but Dan Needham knew that Owen’s chances of survival would be poor among that group of (largely) the headmaster’s henchmen—at least, they comprised the majority in any vote, as The Voice had pointed out. It was not a matter for the Executive Committee, Dan argued; Owen had not committed an offense in any category that the school considered “grounds for dismissal.”

Not so! said the headmaster. What about “reprehensible conduct with girls”? Several faculty members hastened to point out that Mitzy Lish was “no girl.” The headmaster then read a telegram that had been sent to him from Mrs. Lish’s ex-husband, Herb. The Hollywood producer said that he hoped the insult suffered by his ex-wife—and the embarrassment caused his son—would not go unpunished.

“So put Owen on disciplinary probation,” Dan Needham said. “That’s punishment; that’s more than enough.”

But Randy White said there was a more serious charge against Owen than the mere propositioning of someone’s mother; did the faculty not consider anti-Semitism “serious”? Could a school of such a broadly based ethnic population tolerate this kind of “discrimination”?

But Mrs. Lish had never substantiated the charge that Owen had been anti-Semitic. Even Larry Lish, when questioned, couldn’t remember anything in Owen’s remarks that could be construed as anti-Semitic; Larry, in fact, admitted that his mother had a habit of labeling everyone who treated her with less than complete reverence as an anti-Semite—as if, in Mrs. Lish’s view, the only possible reason to dislike her was that she was Jewish. Owen, Dan Needham pointed out, hadn’t even known that the Lishes were Jewish.

“How could he not know?” Headmaster White cried.