Choir Boy (32 page)

Berry heard his mom breathe. Her hands twitched like a hard drinker’s. Her neck swelled like a weightlifter’s arm. Her jaw could barely unsnap enough to talk.

Berry put his arms around her. “Mom, I know this has been super scary. I’ve put you through a lot and I haven’t always explained. But I don’t think running away is the answer. Things are going to be all right now.”

“Well, that’s sure helpful. Is there room for tw
^r
o in your alternate reality?”

“I should call Mr. Allen. He can talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk to Ted. I’ll call him from my sister’s place.”

“What’s changed? This was always going to be weird. Now it’s going to be weird with signs and candles.”

“They’ll mobilize at that stupid cathedral and draw so much attention to you that school will be Hell, wherever you go around here. Our only hope was for you to find another school in the area where you could be low-key and people could accept you as a girl. Now you’ve sabotaged that plan. I’m sure whatever new town we move to will have a girls’ choir of some sort.”

“I can’t run away. I want to stand up before God and my friends and let them see me as I am. I need to rejoin the choir, at least one last time,”

“They’ll crucify you.”

Berry coughed up a depthless giggle. His mom glared down at him. “Sorry,” he said.

“Pack your bag. Girl’s clothes and stuff a girl could wear. We’ll do a Salvation Army run first thing.”

“Look mom, if you want us to blow town, I guess I can’t prevent it. But just let me go and sing tomorrow morning first, okay? I’ve been waiting a long time to go back. This means a lot to me. I’ve taken a lot of pain for this.”

Judy sighed. “You’re like your hair. Can’t style it, snarls every comb, and no matter how short I cut it, it grows like dandelions. It’s worse now you’re a girl and we’re going to want to braid or perm it.”

“Anna Conventional says conditioner is like spanking your hair. A little keeps order. Too much makes it sullen and resentful.”

“She’s a wise person. How do you find them?”

“I have good friends. It’s luck or something.”

“I hope you don’t lose it. Or drive your friends away like Marco did.”

Thinking of Marco made Berry’s soft palate burn. He still hadn’t ever heard the details of Marco’s downfall, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He was sure he’d hear plenty of evil of his dad in the fugitive days ahead. He no longer feared or wanted that information. Something had changed, Marco’s collapsed life now seemed Marco’s own and not so much a warning to Berry. Berry could end badly, but not in the same way as his dad. “It’s not like Marco’s dead,” Berry said aloud. “He could still turn his life around.”

“Maybe,” Judy said. Berry kept squeezing her stomach and lower back.

Berry wanted to talk more, about his dad, the choir, or the sketchy road trip Judy planned. But he felt too exhausted. His thoughts as he fell asleep in his room for maybe the last time were about God, an entity he’d only thought about in squalls before he’d met the born-again Bishop Bacchus. It seemed unfair for a spiritual experience to be derailed by candle maniacs who hated Berry for something he barely represented. Berry fell asleep before that thought could loop itself.

“The parents’ council saw it on television. They called around and got the ex-gays to show. The ex-gays got the Not Adam and Steve people—or whatever they’re called,” said Mr. Allen. “I doubt any of these people are Episcopalian. It’s just your bad luck nobody’s tried to perform a gay marriage or ordain a gay minister lately.”

“I’m not gay,” Berry said. “Although, I think I like girls and if I become one that would make me a lesbian according to Maura. Do you think they’d leave me alone if I said I’d only date boys from now on?”

Mr. Allen shook his head. He, Judy, and Berry sat in the pizza place across from the cathedral, the same one where Teddy had thrashed Berry the week before. Mr. Allen and Judy drank rank-smelling coffee. Berry had a smoothie. The pizza place served donuts for breakfast, but they looked greasy and dry. The three of them stared out the window at the mob—it really was a mob—outside the cathedral.

“I just don’t believe it,” Judy said. “I mean, I expected nuts, but this is insane.” She looked pale and lifeless. She’d been up packing nearly all night. She didn’t look to Berry like someone who should drive all day. She wore a too-bright floral dress to compensate for her pale face. “Something pushed their buttons,” Berry said.

“It’s the way you threaten to get mud all over their precious pure image,” Mr. Allen said. He wore a linen suit and the workaday glasses. “It’s like learning that angels like to do it with cherubs.” He touched Judy’s hand. She pulled hers away.

“I can’t believe you’re letting him sing in spite of all this,” Judy said. “It’s like you don’t care about anything but the choir sounding good.”

The hastily prepared signs said things like
aids cures GAY choirboys
and
choirboys, not queerboys.

“It’s not that,” Mr. Allen said, “I can’t let these hooligans tell me how to run my choir—it’s bad enough when the diocese rides me for having anthems in Latin.” He looked out the window. “You don’t have to skip town over this, it’ll blow over.”

“We need to start over,” Judy said.

“Just give it a few days first,” the choirmaster urged. Berry had heard him threaten and implore sarcastically, but he’d never heard Mr. Allen plead before. Judy didn’t answer. “Give yourself a little time to think.”

The only sound for a while was the inner edges of donuts curling from their own staleness. Berry watched the protesters. He didn’t see Lisa, but it was a decent-sized crowd.

“Who are Adam and Steve anyway?” Berry said at last. “Is it a sitcom I missed?”

Wilson ran into the pizza place, choir blazer over his head as if it rained shit. “There you guys are,” he said. “Rehearsal in half an hour, right? God, I’m scared to death. I can’t bring myself to walk through that lynching party.”

“They won’t know,” Berry whispered in Wilson’s ear. “I haven’t told. People will never suspect. You’re into cars and stuff.”

“I’m supposed to live another three or four years,” Wilson protested. “I can’t die today. What if they think I’m you?”

“Do you have tits?”

“This is going to make it weird for everyone.”

“I wish it were different. I’m not sorry. But I wish it were different.”

They heard martial rhythms and brass instruments at odds with each other. Someone had dosed John Philip Sousa with acid and then told him to come up with a new arrangement for “Soul Man.” And then the musicians had decided to improvise over his arrangement. Berry ran to the pizza place’s door and poked his head out. Just at the crest of the hill where Fairview met Main, a group of men and women in Renfair drag and hippy costumes waved instruments as they marched on St. Luke’s. Berry squinted into the early sun and saw a gold lame mitre at the head of the group. “It’s Bishop Bacchus! He’s back in uniform! And he brought some people.”

“Just what we needed,” Judy muttered. “More crazies.” Berry hugged her. He stroked her hair the way she always had when he’d been sick or scared. He kissed her forehead.

“Maybe we’d better get to the rehearsal room before they get here,” Mr. Allen said. “I get the feeling it’s going to be a zoo soon.”

Berry felt the terror he saw on Wilson’s face walking through the tall grass between the street and the church. Berry tried to cross his arms over his breasts, but one of the protesters spotted him. “It’s the queer freak! It’s among us!” People waved crucifixes and tracts in Berry’s face. Someone shoved a Bible at him with their finger holding it open and pointing to a particular passage that Berry couldn’t make out. Someone knelt and gripped the hem of Berry’s shirt and prayed loudly for God to look down upon this unfortunate creature and do Berry wasn’t sure what. He’d lost track of Mr. Allen and Wilson, maybe they’d made it through. His mom had stayed behind. On all sides, people in black and white pressed against Berry and screamed. Berry put his hands over his ears and closed his eyes, then he felt a gentle tug on one of his upraised sleeves. He opened his eyes and looked into Lisa’s. Contusions surrounded her eyes and her lips pushed inward. He couldn’t see her mom. He wanted to say something to Lisa but couldn’t make himself heard in the crush.

Berry couldn’t even tell what direction St. Luke’s was. He could see nothing but much taller people all around him and a little sky. For once, he wished for the mother of growth spurts. He shrank into an acorn of self-embrace, hoping to let the ministrations wash over him.

Then he heard “Beat It” and the “Star-Spangled Banner” play at once over a new set of chanting voices, and the giants encircling Berry turned to face the marching band of Bishop Bacchus. Lisa yanked on Berry’s arm again and he gave her his hand and they ran through the orchard of believers to the front door of St. Luke’s.

After the darkness at the center of the rally, St. Luke’s shone brighter inside than ever. The rays from the stained glass looked still sunny after passing through the likenesses of saints. Lisa and Berry ran up the aisle still holding hands, until they reached the altar.

“Thanks,” Berry said.

“You’re not a monster,” Lisa said. “I should know.”

“I’m really sorry about your dad. I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“For a moment, I thought you’d killed him. Then I was sorry you hadn’t.”

“I was glad I hadn’t.”

“That’s why Pm a monster and you’re not.”

“You’re wrong.” Berry couldn’t explain to Lisa why she was wrong. He heard the choir warm up. Scales and exercises, melodies that led nowhere but to the same melody half a step higher or lower. Berry hugged Lisa, then turned to the huge statue of Christ crucified at the cathedral’s rear.

It seemed a long walk from the altar around the side and down the hall to the choir room. The vocal exercise had gone up a major third by the time Berry got into the room.

Nobody stopped singing. Berry noticed in the mirror his hair looked disarrayed and his lip swelled after a jab from a protester's elbow. He looked too rough-and-tumble to be a choirboy. Berry wondered, if the Devil offered him five extra years as a choirboy for his soul, would he take it? Maybe once he would have. Berry felt the stares of everyone, from Maurice and ancient Bill in the basses to little Jackie. He took his place in front. Mr. Allen didn’t scold him for lateness.

After warm-ups, Mr. Allen closed the piano lid. “This is the part where I threaten to cancel church if you losers don’t pull your shit together. Not today. This time nothing could make me yank the plug. We’re going to show those fuckers what a professional men-and-boys choir sounds like. I don’t give a flying fuck if those shitheads want to outlaw double beds or install close-circuit cameras in every motel room. But when they dick around with my choir— they’re asking to get their asses kicked. Now let’s make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

The service leaflet called for the choir to perform something Stanfordy. But Mr. Allen substituted “Hear My Prayer” by Mendelssohn, which belongs to a single treble soloist who kicks it off alone. It had been George’s centerpiece in the spring concert, and now Mr. Allen gave it to Berry. Berry sensed the choirmaster wanted to rub the congregation’s faces in his gift. Berry had never sung the long solo portion before, but he knew it by heart from listening to records and George. It contained few vocal gymnastics, but you needed the purest sound to let the plaintive melody flow through you. It started with a bright tune, which turned into a twisty maze of half steps and then one shocking upward interval. When the choir jumped in and answered the soloist, the piece went frenetic. “Anybody feeling rusty on this piece?” Mr. Allen said. “We’ve got time for a couple of run-throughs.” The choir shuffled in fear of a standing jump back into the piece. George stared at Berry. Berry hummed to himself, inventorying every note in his range.

The mob outside brought its noise around to the alley near the choir room, so it got harder for the choir to hear itself sing.

The second time through the solo, Berry shook so hard the music in his hands blurred. He knew for sure he couldn’t go out and sing in front of so many who wished him dead or neutered. He tried to keep his voice even, but it only took on more vibrato, like the women sopranos Mr. Allen disdained. About the time the full choir came in, Berry dropped his music. When he bent to pick it up he felt sick. “Excuse me,” he muttered to the boys around him. He made his way past his row, all still singing, then headed for the boy’s room. At the last moment he changed direction and ran into the hallway. He stood there, bent over and hands clasped to face, listening to “Hear My Prayer” and the chaos outside. He could see dark figures through the window at the hallway’s end, jostling like gears in a grinding machine.

Berry looked back through wet eyes into stained-glass trails. He saw a figure coming from behind the altar into the hallway. It was tall but hunched over, and it had bandages on its head, partially covered by a cocked fedora. As it approached, the figure crackled like a sick dog.

The creature rasped something that sounded like Berry’s name and raised a fist. Berry backed away. He felt for the door to the choir room, but he’d already backed up past it. The monster got between the choir room and Berry. It wore black silk and leather, and its eyes squinted behind its bandage mask. Berry was driven back, almost to the door leading to the alley outside, where the people waited to smother him with prayer. He saw one other door, to his left.

Berry opened that door and ran through a dark space with beams and ropes jutting on all sides. At the end of the dark narrow corridor was the thin wooden spiral staircase Berry had seen on his first day in the choir. The gaps between the steps seemed enormous. Every step up the staircase meant leaping half Berry’s leg-span. He heard the rasping pursuer close behind as he jumped from step to crumbling step. The staircase went around and around and over and over, until an enormous corkscrew trapped Berry. Below was space and the masked creature. Finally, the staircase ended at a wooden ceiling. Berry felt around it without seeing any way through. He heard the breathing, hoarser than ever, behind him. He found a metal latch. It was already unsnapped. He pushed upwards and the wooden trap door flipped over. Berry pulled himself into the bell tower. He saw a half dozen big ropes attached to levers the size of his torso. They were labeled with the names of notes.