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“THAT IS A TRULY TASTELESS LIE!” said Owen Meany.
“It’s the truth,” Larry Lish said, smirking.
“SOMEONE WHO SPREADS THAT KIND OF RUMOR OUGHT TO BE IN JAIL!” Owen said.
“Can you see my mother in jail?” Lish asked. “This is no rumor. The truth is, the prez makes Ladies’ Man Meany look like a virgin—the prez gets any woman he wants.”
“HOW DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW THIS?” Owen asked Lish.
“She knows all the Kennedys,” Lish said, after a moderately tense silence. “And my dad knows Marilyn Monroe,” he said.
“I SUPPOSE THEY ‘DO IT’ IN THE WHITE HOUSE?” Owen asked.
“I know they’ve done it in New York,” Lish said. “I don’t know where else they’ve done it—all I know is, they’ve been doing it for years. And when the prez isn’t interested in her anymore, I hear that Bobby’s going to get her.”
“YOU’RE DISGUSTING!” said Owen Meany.
“The world’s disgusting!” Larry Lish said cheerfully. “Do you think I’m lying?”
“YES, I DO,” Owen said.
“My mother’s going to pick me up and take me skiing—next weekend,” Lish said. “You can ask her yourself.”
Owen shrugged.
“Do you think she’s lying?” Lish asked; Owen shrugged again. He hated Lish—and Lish’s mother; or, at least, he hated the kind of woman he imagined Larry Lish’s mother was. But Owen Meany wouldn’t have called anyone’s mother a liar.
“Let me tell you, Sarcasm Master,” Larry Lish said. “My mother’s a gossip, and she’s a bitch, but she’s not a liar; she doesn’t have enough imagination to make anything up!”
It was one of the more painful things about our peers at Gravesend Academy; it hurt Owen and me to hear how many of our schoolmates commonly put their parents down. They took their parents’ money, and they abused their parents’ summer houses and weekend retreats—when their parents weren’t even aware that the kids had their own keys! And they frequently spoke of their parents as if they thought their parents were trash—or, at least, ignorant beyond saving.
“DOES JACKIE KNOW ABOUT MARILYN MONROE?” Owen asked Larry Lish.
“You can ask my mother,” Lish said.
The prospect of conversation with Larry Lish’s mother was not relaxing to Owen Meany. He brooded all week. He avoided the editorial offices of The Grave, a hangout in which Owen was regularly king. Owen, after all, had been inspired by JFK; although the subject of the president’s personal (or sexual) morality would not have dampened everyone’s enthusiasm for his political ideals and his political goals, Owen Meany was not “everyone”—nor was he sophisticated enough to separate public and private morality. I doubt that Owen ever would have become “sophisticated” enough to make that separation—not even today, when it seems that the only people who are adamant in their claim that public and private morality are inseparable are those creep-evangelists who profess to “know” that God prefers capitalists to communists, and nuclear power to long hair.
Where would Owen fit in today? He was shocked that JFK—a married man!—could have been “diddling” Marilyn Monroe; not to mention “countless others.” But Owen would never have claimed that he “knew” what God wanted; he always hated the sermon part of the service—of any service. He hated anyone who claimed to “know” God’s opinion of current events.
Today, the fact that President Kennedy enjoyed carnal knowledge of Marilyn Monroe and “countless others”—even during his presidency—seems only moderately improper, and even styli
sh, in comparison to the willful secrecy and deception, and the unlawful policies, so broadly practiced by the entire Reagan administration. The idea of President Reagan getting laid, at all—by anyone!—comes only as welcome and comic relief alongside all his other mischief!
But 1962 was not today; and Owen Meany’s expectations for the Kennedy administration were ripe with the hopefulness and optimism of a nineteen-year-old who desired to serve his country—to be of use. In the previous spring, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba had upset Owen; but although that was a disturbing error, it was not adultery.
“IF KENNEDY CAN RATIONALIZE ADULTERY, WHAT ELSE CAN HE RATIONALIZE?” Owen asked me. Then he got angry and said: “I’M FORGETTING HE’S A MACKEREL-SNAPPER! IF CATHOLICS CAN CONFESS ANYTHING, THEY CAN FORGIVE THEMSELVES ANYTHING, TOO! CATHOLICS CAN’T EVEN GET DIVORCED; MAYBE THAT’S THE PROBLEM. IT’S SICK NOT TO LET PEOPLE GET DIVORCED!”
“Look at it this way,” I told him. “You’re president of the United States; you’re very good-looking. Countless women want to sleep with you—countless and beautiful women will do anything you ask. They’ll even come to the linen-service entrance of the White House after midnight!”
“THE LINEN-SERVICE ENTRANCE?” said Owen Meany.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “If you could fuck absolutely any woman you wanted to fuck, would you—or wouldn’t you?”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOUR UPBRINGING AND YOUR EDUCATION HAVE BEEN WASTED ON YOU,” he said. “WHY STUDY HISTORY OR LITERATURE—NOT TO MENTION RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE AND SCRIPTURE AND ETHICS? WHY NOT DO ANYTHING—IF THE ONLY REASON NOT TO IS NOT TO GET CAUGHT?” he asked. “DO YOU CALL THAT MORALITY? DO YOU CALL THAT RESPONSIBLE? THE PRESIDENT IS ELECTED TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION; TO PUT THAT MORE BROADLY, HE’S CHOSEN TO UPHOLD THE LAW— HE’S NOT GIVEN A LICENSE TO OPERATE ABOVE THE LAW, HE’S SUPPOSED TO BE OUR EXAMPLE!”
Remember that? Remember then?
I remember what Owen said about “Project 100,000,” too—remember that? That was a draft program outlined by the secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, in 1966. Of the first 240,000 taken into the military between 1966 and 1968, 40 percent read below sixth-grade level, 41 percent were black, 75 percent came from low-income families, 80 percent had dropped out of high school. “The poor of America have not had the opportunity to earn their fair share of this nation’s abundance,” Secretary McNamara said, “but they can be given an opportunity to serve in their country’s defense.”
