Choir Boy (2 page)

Mrs. Gartner, a doughy woman in plaid, got up and read a passage from the Old Testament about toads or honey or something. Mrs. Gartner’s daughter Lisa watched her mom from near the front, wheat-colored hair catching the light. It was the first Sunday of Pentecost, the season that starts in early June and ends in late November. Someone read from the Bible about the apostles and then the choir sang a hymn, “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.” Someone else got up and read about Jesus.

Then Canon Moosehead rose to read his sermon. Berry heard Marc hiss two seats away. The Canon started by reading the ledgers of the cathedral’s Bell Tower Restoration Fund, which had fallen behind target. He talked for twenty minutes about assets and liabilities, interest-bearing CDs and municipal bonds. “How can we give witness from a high place if it crumbles below our feet?”

“Fucker,” Marc muttered. “Baby eater.” Canon Moosehead heard noise from the choirstalls and turned to glare. The Canon’s eyes narrowed and his mouth opened in a clear threat. Teddy whacked Marc, who looked away from the Canon and went silent. The Canon talked about tithing. “Show you’re a witness. Make this pillar of worship strong and a strut to the community.”

At last it was anthem time. Mr. Allen smiled briefly from behind the organ, as if to say it would be all right after all.

The St. Luke’s choir thundered, entreated, and extolled as one. Where Berry wandered, Teddy or Marc steadied him, and they all bolstered the younger boys. The weave of music that had terrified the younger Berry now held him. Berry’s mind stilled and time stretched.

Then it was time for George to take his solo, to beg the people to offer themselves, clean, to God. The choir stilled. Berry imagined laying himself bare to show the frills and vestments inside his body, displaying an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord. George’s pale round face ignited with passion, and he opened his mouth to beseech.

A roar came out. No, a braying. It sounded like one of the goat impressions Teddy did before rehearsals. But George didn’t laugh. He looked scared of the noise coming from his own mouth. Mr. Allen scowled, and Berry feared he’d stop playing and cancel church after all. But Mr. Allen just plowed through the wreckage. The choir held its breath as George hit a few notes in his lower range, then lifted back into bagpipe-land. Berry covered his face, then uncovered it just in time for the return to full chorus. George clapped his mouth as soon as his solo ended. In between reading the music and watching Mr. Allen, Berry stole glances at George, who blinked scarlet.

As soon as the boys filed out of the cathedral and reached the side entrance out of sight of the congregation, Teddy grabbed George by the scruff of his cassock and slammed him into the wall. “What the fuck?” Teddy hissed. “What were you trying to do, motherfucker? Was that some kind of joke?” The rest of the choir stood in the side entrance of the cathedral singing verse three of the recessional hymn. Wilson gestured to Teddy to shut up. Teddy slapped George so hard he yelped in his goat voice. That only made Teddy slap him again. His cheeks looked extra rosy.

The hymn ended. The choirboys waited for Mr. Allen to come and kill George. But Mr. Allen had to play some Scarlatti piece as the postlude, so the boys had time to stoke George’s terror.

Wilson tugged Berry’s sleeve. “Cookies,” he muttered.

Berry followed Wilson across the alley to the cathedral’s office building. The big auditorium just past the main door had plates of butter cookies on one table, with little cocktail napkins in lieu of plates. Urns of coffee and punch left wet rings on trays. The congregation already buzzed around the cookies, but Wilson and Berry grabbed a few with no trouble. After the first half cookie, Berry craved punch.

He scooted to the urns, but a livery mountain blocked his path. Canon Moosehead squeezed Berry’s shoulder. “Whoa. Somebody is moving much too fast in an adult space, and creating commotion.”

“I’m sorry.” Berry tried to shrink away. “I won’t come here again.”

But the Canon didn’t let go of Berry. “You’d best not.” Still clenching Berry’s collarbone, he turned to face a group of men and women in crisp suits. “This is one of our choirboys. Benny, say hello to Mr. Finch and—” Berry squirmed while Canon Moosehead introduced him as “Benny” to thousands of people in suits. “It’s so important,” Canon Moosehead told the wool-and-cotton spiral, “to nurture the children and give them a role in our community here at St. Luke’s. I believe that children have so much to teach us. Tell me, Benny, what did you think of my sermon?”

Berry wriggled and tried to ease the pain of the Canon’s nerve pinch. He wanted to say something brilliant about the duty of the church to the least among us, or quote a smack-down from scripture. Instead he mumbled that the sermon had been okay, he guessed, but that he didn’t really think financial statements belonged in church.

The Canon laughed, which had the effect of shaking Berry. “That’s why we need the young among us. Here, Benny. Why don’t you help yourself to some punch and then run off to your choir friends?” Berry filled a Styrofoam cup and then dashed back to Wilson.

“That was painful to watch,” Wilson said.

“He wanted to toss me out a window,” Berry said. “Good thing he couldn’t get away with it.”

“He’s seen choirboys come and go,” Wilson said. “He doesn’t need a window.”

They walked down the main stairs of the cathedral office building, ringed with pictures of bishops. Back in the alleyway, they looked around but didn’t see the other choirboys. “I can’t believe about George,” Berry said.

“It happened so fast,” Wilson said. “Usually they crack before they croak.”

Teddy and some of the other choirboys clustered around the closed door to the choir room. Teddy had his ear against the thick wood panel. “Mr. Allen’s in there with George,” Teddy told Berry and Wilson. “Some flaying going on after that performance.”

“What’s the worst he can do?” Berry asked. He thought George must already be suffering enough as it was.

“Yo, Mr. Allen can flay with a look,” Marc said. He pulled his ear away from the door just before it opened.

George and Mr. Allen walked out together. George looked both crushed and relieved. Mr. Allen looked resigned to a friend’s death. The boys parted to let Mr. Allen pass, but he stopped in front of the group and said, “George’s voice has broken. Happened faster than expected—but there’s no way to put off the inevitable. George will move to the men’s section and sing alto from now on.” Then Mr. Allen walked out into the parking lot to see if any homeless people had peed on his car today.

“A man,” George said through phlegm. “I’m a man now.” Everybody looked at him as if he were an alien.

Berry poured his punch all over the tie Marco had given him. He glanced down at the spreading stain on tie and white shirt. “Shit.” He pointed the mess out to Wilson, who was too busy watching Lisa Gartner walk past.

“There are still things to look forward to,” Wilson said without taking his eyes off Lisa. Her church skirts formed lacunae around her slender legs, almost down to her sandals. Wilson’s gaze followed her until she reached her mother’s car. “So like happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” Berry said. He sipped punch dregs and thought about manhood.

2
.

The station wagon loaded with ruckus crawled up the winding mountain roads. The boys in the back seat heckled the driver, a bass named Maurice, to speed up. They made revving noises and called Maurice “feather foot.” A large man with a pointy beard, Maurice turned up his Puccini tape to drown the commotion. He’d given up on drawing his choirboy crew into a game of “name that anthem” with a different tape.

In the Dodge’s “way back,” Berry hunched between backpacks and gym bags. He watched the road twist downward and tried to forget his soul-shriveling summer. The full choir had just sung together for the first time in six weeks, to thank the congregation for raising money to send it to camp. Every August, the choir rented the Peterman School, three hours from the city. The choir had use of Peterman’s dorms, soccer fields, swimming pool, and most importantly, chapel for a week.

Berry pretended he was a prisoner of war, his will broken by torture. He’d spent the summer break alone, since Marco and Judy couldn’t afford to send him to any other camps. Berry’d had the whole summer to contemplate George’s voice-dive. He’d wandered his parents’ crumbling neighborhood, kicking garbage and singing to himself. Every day, he’d done vocal exercises and monitored every notch in the scale for blemishes. Treble voices die from the middle and the decay spreads both ways. The bottom of the upper “head voice” range is the first to go. Promoting George to alto only showcased how bad his mid-treble had gotten, since that was the peak of the alto range.

That summer had scorched away Berry’s hope. Berry had looked at his life to come and had seen boredom and revulsion. Marco had broken the television in May, and Berry’s allowance could handle only one or two movies a month. So he’d read any books he could find at the library or in his parents’ bookshelves. He’d listened endlessly to the same dozen or so used CDs:
Choral Fugue State, Blissed Out Boys Sing Britten,
etc.

And he’d locked his door. He’d ignored his mom saying things like, “The only reason you don’t physically abuse me is it would require concentration.” And his dad saying, “Your animal guide told me to burn all your pantyhose.” Berry had gotten so strung out he’d considered getting a job. Somewhere in the middle of that awful asphalt-cracking, benzine-scented, sandmouthed permanent headache of a summer, Berry had come across the phrase in a book: “Boredom is a valid reason to kill yourself.” He knew it was true.

On the road to Choir Camp, Berry forgot the summer’s details. What stayed was bleakness he couldn’t investigate. It was tarmac-flat pain with a choral soundtrack, two months without ritual, companionship, or the sung word in person.

The road leveled and forest became meadow. Finally, Maurice pulled up in front of the Peterman School with a sigh. Berry jumped out of the back of the station wagon and lay on the grass comparing the country sky with the city sky. All around Berry, pebble pathways sliced the tree-specked grass into triangles and rhomboids. It felt good to bust out of the POW cage. The country sky looked bluer and wider.

The buildings reached with pillar hands and brick legs to embrace Berry.

Teddy and pals started an Ultimate Frisbee game on the biggest grassy space. Some of the girls went for a nature walk. The men cracked beers. The choir had an hour and a half before Mr. Allen drilled it on Hindemuth and Handel.

Wilson sat next to Berry on the grass. “I want to go to a high school like this,” he said. “Seems like a good place to spend my last few years.”

“What made you decide on seventeen?” Berry snared one fat cloud with his eyes and held it.

“It’s an estimate. I’m all shroudy, like mortality is my jockstrap. Seventeen is the oldest I can imagine living to. It sucks: I get one year when I can drive. I’ll probably be stuck with mom’s ten-year-old Geo. I want to die behind the wheel of a black Monte Carlo like Dale Earnhardt.”

Lisa Gartner passed. Death and cars fled Wilson’s mind. So thin she wafted instead of walking, she was all long brown hair and linen. She hadn’t joined the other girls on their nature walk.

Berry waved at Lisa. Wilson just stared. “Hey, you guys. How’s it going?” she said.

“Good to be back,” Berry said. “I hate summer break. Wilson was just telling me which car he’d like to die driving. How about you?”

“Some miracle flying car, decades from now.” “Optimist,” Berry said.

After dinner, the choir had another chance to explore the Peterman campus before bedtime. Berry wanted to be rested for rehearsals, which would start at eight AM and continue all day when the choir wasn’t playing or swimming.

One change from the previous Choir Camp became obvious the first night. George had become an authority figure. He paid a special visit to the room whose bunks Teddy, Berry, Marc, and Randy occupied. “Okay, you fuckin’ worms. Last year, you just had those pushovers Maurice and Tony watching you. Tony’s only a tenor, for fuck’s sake, and Maurice thinks Puccini is some macho shit. This year it’s gonna be different. You’ve got me to deal with. I know all your little tricks and schemes because I planned most of them last year. This year, no bra-huntin’ on the girls’ floor, no midnight rock climbing, no skinny dipping in the pool or anywhere else. And no talking after lights out. Is that clear?”

Nobody said anything.

“Next year, you’ll all be in my shoes, or most likely not in the choir at all,” George reminded the four of them, then killed their lights.

Teddy yawned. “Won’t be as much of a prick as you.” The next day everyone swam after morning rehearsals. Lisa refused to swim, so Wilson stayed out of the pool too. They sat in folding chairs, her in tennis clothes and him in swimwear like everyone else. She never explained, and people stopped asking. Wilson brought her Cokes and chips, and even used his body to block splashes. Randy and Marc tried to drown Maurice, who clutched a beach ball from their game of keepaway. “Somebody else get on his head,” Marc shouted. “We can’t keep him down by ourselves!” Wilson courted Lisa hard because she was too popular to talk to him at the Quaker day school they both attended in the burbs. “She’s the hot favorite for student body president this year,” Wilson explained to Berry in the boys’ locker room after swimming. “If I don’t get bouncy with her at camp, I’ll be stymie boy at school for sure.”

“I never talk to popular people,” Berry said. “That makes it easy.”

As soon as Berry had his clothes on, Teddy, Marc, and Randy grabbed his arms and legs. They jogged him back to the pool and tossed him in. They laughed. Berry sloshed. Three times he climbed out, and each time they plunged him back in. Finally he stayed in the water until they left.

Berry still got dry and dressed for the next rehearsal. Mr. Allen hauled them through Herbert Howells’s “Like As The Hart,” full of melancholy quavers. Berry had always hated this piece, but now it made sense. The parched deer wanders the desert or dry glade. If the deer found water, it would throw itself in up to its neck and soak, inside and out. Howells’s piece never finds water, it just fades in the desert.