A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

number of rides back to Gravesend;
return trips, to this day-from anywhere-are simply invitations to dull trances
or leaden slumber. But every time we rode the train to Sawyer Depot, my mother
and I weighed the advantages of sitting on the left-hand side of the train, so
that we could see Mt. Chocorua-or on the right-hand side, so that we could see
Ossipee Lake. Chocorua was our first indication of how much snow there would be
where we were going, but there's more visible activity around a lake than there
is on a mountain-and so we would sometimes "opt for Ossipee," as
Mother and I described our decision. We also played a game that involved
guessing where everyone was going to get off, and I always ate too many of
those little tea sandwiches that they served on board, the kind with the crusts
cut off; this overeating served to justify my inevitable trip to that lurching
pit with the railroad ties going by underneath me, in a blur, and the whoosh of
rank air that blew upward on my bare bottom.
        My mother would
always say, "We're almost at Sawyer Depot, Johnny. Wouldn't you be more
comfortable if you waited until we got to your Aunt Martha's?"
    Yes; and no. I could almost always have waited; yet it was not
only necessary to empty my bladder and bowels before encountering my cousins-it
was a needed test of courage to sit naked over that dangerous hole, imagining
lumps of coal and loosened railroad spikes hurtling up at me at bruising speed.
I needed the empty bladder and bowels because there was immediate, rough
treatment ahead; my cousins always greeted me with instant acrobatics, if not
actual violence, and I needed to brace myself for them, to frighten myself a
little in order to be ready for all the future terrors that the vacation held
in store for me. I would never describe my cousins as bullies; they were
good-natured, rambunctious roughnecks and daredevils who genuinely wanted me to
have fun-but fun in the north country was not what I was used to in my life
with the women at  Front Street, Gravesend. I did not wrestle with my
grandmother or box with Lydia, not even when she had both her legs. I did play
croquet with my mother, but croquet is not a contact sport. And given that my
best friend was Owen Meany, I was not inclined to much in the way of athletic
roughhousing. My mother loved her sister and brother-in-law; they always made
her feel special and welcome-they certainly made me feel that way-and my mother
doubtless appreciated a little time away from my grandmother's imperious
wisdom. Grandmother would come to Sawyer Depot for a few days at Christmas, and
she would make a grand appearance for one weekend every summer, but the north
country was not to Grandmother's liking. And although Grandmother was perfectly
tolerant of my solitary disruption of the adult life at  Front Street-and
even moderately tolerant of the games I would play in that old house with
Owen-she had scant patience for the disruption caused in any house by all her
grandchildren. For Thanksgiving, the Eastmans came to  Front Street, a
disturbance that my grandmother referred to in terms of "the
casualties" for several months after their visit. My cousins were active,
combative athletes-my grandmother called them "the warriors"-and I
lived a different life whenever I was with them. I was both crazy about them
and terrified of them; I couldn't contain my excitement as the time to see them
drew near, but after several days, I couldn't wait to get away from them-I
missed the peace of my private games, and I missed Owen Meany; I even missed
Grandmother's constant but consistent criticism. My cousins-Noah, Simon, and
Hester (in order of their ages)-were all older than I: Hester was older by less
than a year, although she would always be bigger; Simon was older by two years;
Noah, by three. Those are not great differences in age, to be sure, but they
were great enough in all those years before I