Choir Boy (18 page)

“We don’t have to buy a ton of stuff today. But you should wear the bra so my mom doesn’t get a coronary. Just kind of look around and see what else appeals to you.” Lisa kept running from rack to rack in junior misses. Every few moments, she’d whisk hangers aside to make a new gap and show off some discovery. Berry tried to pretend that he wasn’t doing this, but also that he did this all the time.

Berry found a dark concord skirt that felt churchy, with some white frills around the hem. He also found a slightly frilly white blouse that could almost have been a boy’s shirt. Some of the other stuff he noticed looked just like boys’ clothes.

Berry didn’t spend every moment in the department store feeling his fingernails itch with the feeling someone would notice a boy in the wrong place. That feeling came and went, but so did excitement. Trying on one dress, Berry twirled and giggled at his reflection.

Berry and Lisa only bought the one bra at that store. Then Lisa wanted to go to another store and look at jewelry. “We’re just talking a few bangles,” she reassured Berry. He shrugged. She thought he looked really nice with a big pink hoop around his neck and some plastic bands on his wrists. “It’s too bad your ears aren’t pierced.” Berry let her try stuff on him but not buy anything.

Lisa and Berry held hands and it was okay because they were two girls at the mall. They went to the bookstore and looked at
Sixteen and a Half
and
Teeneurosis
magazines together. “Hey look: ‘Eight Great Looks for Winter. Bad girls wear wool too’,” Lisa read.

Berry asked Lisa what she thought about Canon Moosehead’s absence from church that morning. “He was always a big jerk, but then he got spastic,” Lisa said.

“I think it was the pills,” Berry said. He flipped through page after perky page of girls whose hair and skirts spilled into text columns.

“What pills?”

“Oh, you know. The Bob Dole pills the altar boys spiked his coffee with. I never actually saw his willie rise in church, but he definitely went wiggy after that. He talked about Jung a lot. I mean, I’ve read some of Jung’s works and I’m not sure I get the link between the collective unconscious and the possessed pigs running off a cliff.” Berry stopped, afraid he sounded brainy
and
dorky. Anyway, Lisa wasn’t listening.

“What pills, now?”

Berry explained again.

“That’s so cruel. Making him think he was a nut or a perv.”

“I guess. I mean, he was anti-homeless people and hated the choir.”

“And you knew about this all along?”

“Well, I knew about the pills. But for a while I thought he was acting weird because this guy my parents made me visit told him to spy on me, and ...” Berry realized it sounded dumb.

“And you didn’t do anything about it?”

“Well, not really. But—”

Lisa dashed the teen magazines back on the racks. “We’ve got to save him! He needs to know what’s been going on! Then he can get his job back and everything will be all right.”

“Are you sure? I mean, he’ll kill everyone if he finds out.” “He’s a man of God. That means he’s obligated to forgive our trespasses and all that shit. Plus, he’s learned an important lesson from this and he’ll be grateful and all.”

“What lesson?”

“Who knows? Pm not a reverend. Come on!”

Lisa grabbed Berry’s hand again and they sped out of the bookstore. They ran to the food court, only to stand around the Entrailer Park restaurant soaking in the smell of frying intestines.

“I don’t know why we hurried,” Berry said. “Your mom won’t be back for another half hour.”

He bought Lisa and himself Cokes and they sat in the food court.

“We need a plan,” Lisa said after a long silence. “If we just tell the Canon the truth he won’t believe us.”

“We could tell the Dean,” Berry said.

They sat a while longer. Eventually Lisa’s mom came and found them. She was in a good mood because she’d bought some scarves. She drove a town car with calfskin leather on its cavernous back seat. Berry and Lisa held hands, so Berry didn’t think Lisa could be too disappointed in him. She said she’d call him and let him know about their project. Berry wasn’t sure which project she meant, but he just nodded.

Berry got home before his parents. He dashed to his room and resmushed his breasts. Then he called Maura. “I bought a bra today.”

“Great,” she said. “How’d it feel?”

“Okay, I guess. Like shopping.”

“Where did you go?”

“To the mall. With Lisa.”

“I’m glad you’re friends again. What did you talk about?” “Bob Dole.”

“The reason the mall thing didn’t rock your world was because you didn’t go all out,” Maura said. “You bought like one bra, right? You could have so much more fun if you’d let me show you.”

Berry’s parents came home and he had to hang up. Marco and Judy seemed unusually cheerful. They both laughed a lot, and Judy even danced. They’d been to a party and brought food home to Berry.

“Everything’s going to be different now,” Marco told Berry as he unpacked the doggie bag of General Whoever’s chicken and broccoli. “We got our shit together.”

Marco and Judy put on music and danced like movie newlyweds or two of the ten most romantic people in
Teeneurosis
magazine. Berry left them and fell into bed. The moment before he fell asleep, he felt the kind of pain in his crotch and chafed torso that’s comforting instead of disturbing because it means things are healing as you rest.

12
.

The choir drilled nonstop until the day before the Fall Concert. Then everybody had the day off with orders to rest his voice. Berry didn’t talk for nearly forty-eight hours between the Tuesday evening rehearsal and Thursday’s preconcert warmup. He would just nod and maybe smile if people tried to talk to him. Marco and Judy tried to bond with Berry now that they’d sewn things up with each other. He just blessed their remastered relationship in silence.

At school, Berry pretended to have laryngitis. He got through a whole morning with Rat and the Swans without making a sound. This wasn’t too hard since Berry seldom spoke in class. Rat wanted to have a lively free-floating discussion on Shakespeare and called on Berry, who mimed his opinion that Rosalind was a cocktease who deserved to be stuck in the woods forever reading dumb tree-poems. It took a while for Rat to decode this input.

In the afternoon, Berry had a rough moment with Toad, who really wanted Berry to explain some of his answers on a biology quiz. Berry just shook his head when Toad demanded to know why Berry thought all birds photosynthesized except for pigeons. Berry shrugged and pointed to his throat with a karate-chop hand until Toad gave up. Some of the Geese wanted to beat Berry up for his mute act, but Randy and Marc let it be known Berry was extra off limits today. Nobody even chased Berry home after school. He enjoyed walking slowly.

Berry’s Trappist day broke when Lisa called. “Hey,” she said. “Guess what?”

“Can’t talk,” Berry whispered.

“Then listen. My mom really, really liked you. As a girl, of course. I think she thinks of you as a project I’ve taken on—no offense, it’s just the way her brain works. Anyway, she wants me to take you under my wing in a big way and make sure you never lack for training bras.”

“Um.” Berry managed to convey doubt, confusion, annoyance, and hunger in a syllable.

“Don’t worry, no struggle sessions for you. She saves that stuff for me. Probably no bake sales in your honor, either. But she’s very much for us hanging out.”

“Um.”

“My dad won’t recognize you even if he does see you. You guys only met once, it was dark, and you wore that robe thing which totally distracts the eye. So anyway, when’s our next girl date?”

“Dunno. Fall Concert’s tomorrow night.”

“I know. I’m there. Speaking of which, I figured the solution to the Canon Moosehead sitch. I wrote an anonymous note to him and Dean Jackson saying what happened. I said if they needed proof, they’d find a pill bottle under the wine cabinet in the vestry.”

“How did you know they’d find it there?”

“I put it there. Stole my dad’s.”

“Oh.”

Lisa talked a while longer, about the cruelty of making Canon Moosehead doubt his own mind. You don’t get to be a minister without spending a lot of time in your own head, and the Canon had probably felt comfy there until somebody had sprayed sewage inside. People could be so cruel, especially in religious contexts where you’d expect otherwise.

Berry wanted to know exactly what Lisa had written on that note, but didn’t want to use his voice. He tried asking the question in the form of a cough, but didn’t even break through her flood.

“Sometimes it’s good to be able to live inside your head. I know you know what I’m talking about. In class. Or when I’m stuck in that swimming pool with just my nose above water, sometimes I imagine I’m swimming back to a warm beach or something. I mean, inside your head you’re safe from the mean people, except if they find a way to get past the plastic cover into your airspace. You know, Berry, you are possibly the only person I’ve met with no cruelty in you. That’s one thing you’ll have to learn about real girls, they can be meaner than soldiers. Girls have to cut each other down. You’ll get the hang of it. I mean, I know you don’t want to, but you’ll pick it up either way. But that’s kind of the point. The crudest people are often the ones who live in their own heads the most. I could be deadly mean and not know it. But you’d tell me, right?”

When Lisa was ready to hang up, Berry whispered, “Bye.” She wished him luck on the big day.

Thursday went harder. Rat called on Berry a few times and he had to gesture his disdain of Courtly Love, romantic heroines, and that “mewling, puking” speech. Then Toad wanted him to get up and do a presentation on the periodic table. Berry tried to whisper that he’d lost his voice. Toad asked if he had a note. Berry shook his head. “Then you have a voice,” Toad said. Berry got up and pointed at different points on the elemental chart while whistling and making other sound effects by blowing through his clasped hands. Helium was a bunch of whistles and clicks. Argon was a duck call. Oxygen was the sound of Berry rubbing his palms together very quickly. Toad scowled but let Berry sit down.

Then after school Berry had to run uptown to Dr. Tamarind’s office and sit for an hour, then run back downtown for the pre-concert rehearsal. It wasn’t strange for Berry to give Dr. Tamarind the silent treatment for a whole session, so he figured this time would be no challenge. But Dr. Tamarind seemed determined to make Berry talk at all costs. “Do you know how much your parents are paying for this? Your dad is having to take on extra gardening work part time to pay my fees. Your parents really care about you. Do you think they’ll divorce for real?”

Berry shrugged. He hadn’t told Dr. Tamarind about his parents’ reconciliation.

“You know, maybe your problem is just that you’re not such a good singer,” Dr. Tamarind said, eyes on Berry’s face. “Maybe you like to pretend you have talent because it gives you pride. But in reality, you’re just not very good. I mean, if you really were good, why would you want so much to hold on to your fleeting moment? You could bask in it while it lasted. But maybe there’s nothing to bask in. Maybe there’s just a fantasy that you’re hiding behind and the reality is too hard on you, not to mention other people’s ears.” “Solos,” Berry whispered.

“What? You’ve been given solos to sing? That’s great news. When is that?”

“Tonight. Concert at cathedral.”

“Congratulations! I take it all back. I’m sure you’re excellent. So the concert’s this evening? Around eight? I might be able to go. Would you mind? I won’t disturb you.”

Berry shrugged.

Dr. Tamarind switched back to needling Berry about his parents and their dismal relationship. By the time Berry escaped he felt as though he’d spent a year under torture.

Berry tried to forget Dr. Tamarind’s goading but it scratched at the underside of his skull as he rode the bus back downtown. If he really wasn’t any good, what the fuck was he doing? The cost of saving his voice grew higher all the time, and he couldn’t bear to think it could be for nothing. Berry knew Mr. Allen liked him. Berry was the only boy who sat and talked with Mr. Allen outside of rehearsals. Maybe Mr. Allen was giving him solos to be nice to him. Berry pictured the others grimacing every time they heard his voice. Maybe the choirboys laughed behind their hands or sat around the Twelve Step room when Berry wasn’t there and joked about his squawks.

But two days of not speaking seemed to have done wonders for Berry’s voice, which Tuesday’s marathon rehearsal had left demoralized. He felt and heard the difference as soon as Mr. Allen started with some scales. His “head voice” sounded as trumpet-like as it ever had. For a moment, Berry forgot his doubts from Dr. Tamarind’s session and sang right into his mask, making it light up.

But the fears returned when they started in on some of the hardest parts of the concert. Berry could tell for sure he was hitting the notes. And he was using every technique Mr. Allen had taught him. He breathed from below his ribs and sang into the space between his eyes and around his nose. He kept his mouth and eyes open, his posture straight. But maybe his voice shrilled instead of chiming? What if he was just good enough instead of great? When Berry’s solo came, he took a deep breath and sang. All of a sudden, his voice sounded harsh in his own ears. The notes were off a hair, he was sharping, no, flatting. His high notes crunched like one of Marco’s vinyl albums. Mr. Allen waved his hand halfway through the solo. “That’s fine,” he said. “Let’s move on and spare Berry’s voice.” The rest of the rehearsal, Berry trembled and tried not to hear himself among the other voices.

“Berry, what in Hell’s best hotel room is going on?” Mr. Allen asked once the rehearsal ended.

“Nervous,” Berry said with a shrug. Then, as Mr. Allen turned away, Berry touched his arm. He swallowed and said, “Am I really a good singer? I’m not just, you know, okay?” “Berry much as I like you—I put the choir and my own career above all else. I’d never give a solo to anyone who wasn’t the best kid for it. And there are some very good trebles in this choir besides you right now. I wouldn’t want you to get a swelled head, but you’re probably the best treble to come through here in the last few years, if not longer. I want to keep training that voice—even after it changes. We need to think about your future as a singer.”