The Treble Wore Trouble (The Liturgical Mysteries)

by Mark Schweizer

  I started to climb the stairs back into the loft when Joyce grabbed hold of my coattail.

  "What did they want?" she asked.

  "They were looking for their friend," I lied. "You know, the one that we found in the alley."

  "Oh," said Joyce, and considered my answer. "They certainly look scary."

  "Yes, they do," I replied. "But looks aren't everything."

  * * *

  "Back to work, everyone."

  "Who were those guys?" Rhiza Walker whispered. "Are they still here?"

  "They've left," I said, then gave the choir the same story that I'd just given Joyce. Friends of Johnny Talltrees. "Now let's get to the music, shall we?"

  By the time we'd sung through the short offertory anthem, corrected a few mistakes, then sung through it again, our jollity had returned and the visitors were forgotten. Since we had no Psalm to practice and no communion anthem to contend with, we were through in record time.

  "Now," I said, "it's time to rehearse our new service music." I took a stack of photocopied music off the top of the organ and passed it over to Bev Greene, who handed it down the rows of singers. As they looked at the title page, their mouths dropped open, and more than a few snorts and coughs uttered forth from the ranks.

  "Since this is new," I said, "the choir will be singing it alone this morning. Then next week, we'll have congregational copies as well, and they can sing along."

  "Has anyone seen this yet?" asked an incredulous Fred May, our Senior Warden. "And by 'anyone,' I mean Mother P?"

  "That's a good question," I said. "I admit that Meg made me feel a bit guilty about writing this. So, in a spate of Lenten remorse, I called Rosemary in this morning and played it for her."

  "It's true," said Meg sadly. "He did. I was there."

  "And?" said Fred.

  "She loved it," said Meg, and crossed herself. "God forgive us."

  "It's full steam ahead," I said. "Missa di Poli Woli Doodle with a tip o' the hat to Leon Redbone. Let's sing through it, shall we?"

  I played an introduction and the choir entered in four parts. It was a composition worthy of the best of the bad Renaissance composers. It began with a homophonic, or hymn-like, section, all the parts moving together, and then a lovely polyphonic ending of each stanza reminiscent of Palestrina. As in all traditional Kyries, there were three sections: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. The choir sang:

  Lord have mercy, now we pray,

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle, Kyrie;

  Lord have mercy, now we pray,

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle, Kyrie;

  Kyrie, Kyrie, Kyrie, I've gone astray;

  Hear my reverent confession,

  and forgive me my transgression,

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle, Kyrie.

  The second verse was the same, but now in a minor key and a little slower.

  Christ have mercy, now we pray,

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle, Kyrie;

  Christ have mercy, now we pray,

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle Kyrie.

  Kyrie, Kyrie, Kyrie, I've gone astray;

  When I hear my Lord a-calling,

  then I find my sins appalling,

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle, Kyrie.

  I had to stop playing at this point because several of the altos had succumbed to attacks of laughter and had fallen out of their chairs. "Very nice," I said as they struggled back into their seats. "Let's do this last verse unaccompanied, please."

  Lord have mercy, now we pray,

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle, Kyrie;

  Lord have mercy, now we pray,

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle, Kyrie;

  Kyrie, Kyrie, Kyrie, I've gone astray;

  And at last I know I'm shriven,

  and my sins have been forgiven.

  Singing Poli Woli Doodle, Kyrie.

  "Ow, ow, ow!" yelped Martha. "My side hurts! Stop singing!"

  "I like it," said Muffy. "It has some bounce to it and it's easy to learn."

  "You will have a lot to answer for on the Day of Judgement," said Bob Solomon. "I'm not sure even Jesus can get you out of this one."

  I bowed my head and placed my hand humbly over my heart. "Only doing my job." I looked across the choir and returned their collective smiles with one of my own. "Now let's sing through the Sanctus."

  * * *

  The service began, and the choir processed to our opening hymn, as per usual, and then climbed the stairs to the loft and found their seats. Mother P read the collect.

  "Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever."

  "Amen," answered the congregation.

  The choir sang the new Kyrie to stunned silence.

  "Now, will the children please come forward for the Children's Moment?" said Mother P, smiling happily.

  Children's Moments had never gone particularly well at St. Barnabas. In fact, we'd done away with them, sending the kids out to their own service in the chapel during the second hymn and having them return in time for communion. This seemed to work well for our previous rector and had been Mother P's practice during her first few months in residence. Now it seemed that Kimberly Walnut, an outspoken proponent of the Children's Moment, had persuaded the rector to give it a go once again.

  Ten or so preschool and kindergarten children wandered haplessly up to the front of the church and stood in front of Mother P. When Moosey and Bernadette and their crew were young enough to take part in the Children's Moment, every Sunday was a new exercise in terror for the priest and an opportunity for hilarity across the congregation. Now that those kids had graduated to the upper grades, and not having had a "Children's Moment" for a number of years, we didn't know what to expect. Still, the congregation was hopeful, and all leaned forward in their seats, vying for a good view of the festivities.

  "How many of you know what this is?" said Mother P, pointing at the giant bird on the altar.

  "Well, duh!" said a towheaded kid whom I recognized as Charlie Whitman. I knew his mother and father quite well. "It's a squirrel, of course."

  At this the other kids giggled, and the congregation sat back in their pews, content in the knowledge that this was only going to get better.

  "No," said Mother P, "I mean the eagle."

  "An eagle got my kitty, I think," said a little preschool girl whom I didn't know. She was dressed in a light-pink pinafore over a white dress with loads of ruffles. "That's what Daddy said."

  "Yes, well, eagles are large birds, and they sometimes do catch ... um ... smaller animals ... er ... for sustenance."

  "To eat them?" asked the little girl in horror.

  "Of course to eat them!" said Charlie, pointing at the eagle. The raptor's white-tipped wings spread across the entire width of the altar. Its white head was horrifying, and its eyes and beak bespoke metaphoric death to anything that might fall into the grasp of its fearsome talons, from America's most powerful enemies to rodents with dental issues.

  "Look at that squirrel!" Charlie continued. "That eagle's not takin' him to a picnic, y'know!" The little girl started to whimper.

  "Wait," said Mother P, trying to salvage her story. "God is like an eagle. He'll carry you up ... "

  "Like that?" interrupted another little boy, pointing at the taxidermied rodent, its terror so vividly and excellently interpreted by Bear Niederman: eyes wide, lips peeled back in a horrific grimace. "No, thanks!"

  "Daddy says that my kitty went to heaven," sniffed the little girl. "Will I see her when I get to heaven?"

  "Yeah," said another, younger boy. "What about my dead gerbil? Will I get to see my gerbil? It wasn't an eagle that got him, though. Mom said it was parasites."

  "Well, we don't believe that animals go to heaven," said
Mother P, now looking around but unable to escape. "Heaven is just for people." This was a theological can of worms that she didn't want to open, not during the Children's Moment. "But let's get back to the eagle ... "

  "So my kitty's not in heaven?" sobbed the girl. "Daddy told me the eagle took her to heaven."

  "Just like God'll do," said Charlie, nodding grimly. "He'll swoop down and snatch you up when you least expect it."

  Mother P glared at Charlie, then turned back to the girl. "No, sweetie, your kitty's not in heaven. And God won't take you to heaven either." She looked confused for a moment. "No, wait," she said. "He will, someday. What I mean is ..."

  "If that cat's not in heaven, then it's in hell, right?" said Charlie, coming to the obvious conclusion and willing to pin down the rector on the unshakable tenets of her faith. He spun on his heel, pointed at the younger boy and yelled, "Along with your stupid gerbil!"

  "My gerbil is not in hell!" yelled the boy. "You take that back!" He lunged across the carpeted aisle at Charlie, his fists clenched and murder in his eyes. The other boys chose sides in a heartbeat and didn't hesitate to leap into the fray in support of their comrades. By the looks of it, this was a long-standing feud between the two boys and any excuse to renew their animosity would be acted upon.

  "Waaaahhh!" cried the kitten girl, and the other three girls in the group loudly joined her in loud pangs of sympathetic grief for the poor cat, forever doomed to scratch in the flaming litter-box of eternal damnation. "Waaaahhh!"

  As soon as Mother P had pronounced that all pets would, in fact, not be going to heaven, a couple of mothers had begun moving unobtrusively to the front of the church via the side aisles, sensing that this Children's Moment, like so many others, was not going to end well. Now, with Mother P frozen in disbelief at the sobs and at the brawl in front of her, the two parents waded into the mob and separated the warring youngsters. Julie Whitman, Charlie's mother, grabbed Charlie and the other boy both by an ear, pulled them apart, and marched them down the center aisle to the youngsters' squealing protests.

  "You just wait until I get you home, Charlie Whitman!" she hissed. "And you, too, Howard! Your mother is going to hear about this!"

  The girls and the other combatants were corralled, pacified, and herded out the side door into the choir robing area, finally heading, we presumed, back to their classrooms. Mother P stood at the top of the chancel steps. She raised her arms in a sort of pathetic gesture and muttered, "God is like this eagle."

  "Nice!" said Bev, crossing her arms and giving herself a little hug.

  * * *

  It was during communion that the unspeakable happened. Muffy had disappeared from the choir loft during the Prayers of the People to ready herself for her Special Music. On Eagle's Wings, written by Michael Jonas, had been around since the 70s. It is now considered a "standard" in most Praise and Worship services. Muffy and Varmit had no trouble in procuring the accompaniment track recorded in the correct key by the Nashville Philharmonic Digital Orchestra and backed up by the Holy Faith Word of God Tabernacle Choir.

  The communion elements, the bread and wine, had been placed in front of the eagle — the only place for them, really — and this meant that Mother P had to do her celebrating in front of the altar with her back to the congregation, rather than vice-versa. It wasn't difficult to hear her — she had a loud and authoritative voice and the flat mic on the altar had been turned around to accommodate her — but it was a bit disconcerting nevertheless and reminiscent of the old pre-Vatican II days. The choir sang the PWD Sanctus at the appropriate spot and headed down to take communion. I stayed up in the choir loft, noodling around on the hymn tune Aberystwyth, planning to play until Muffy was ready to begin her tribute. I did notice that neither the children nor Kimberly Walnut had come back in for communion. As the choir came back up the side aisles toward the loft, Muffy stepped up beside the eagle, took the microphone from where it had been hidden under the tail feathers, draped the black cord artistically around her other hand and waited for the music to begin.

  It was a sound that hadn't been heard in St. Barnabas for twenty years, at least as far as I knew. We didn't sing with taped music, and we didn't sing with microphones. The rector and the lay readers did use mics and they were placed where they'd do the most good: on the two lecterns and on the altar. We'd had a clip-on mic for the priest at one point, but it went horribly wrong in a bathroom incident when the priest forgot to turn it off. Since then, and because St. Barnabas is fairly small and acoustically well designed, the stationary mics have been more than adequate. Our architect, however, did allow for the fact that we might want other mics on occasion, and so jacks had been placed in auspicious points in the chancel. Varmit had plugged Muffy's mic cord into one of these. She clicked the microphone on with an audible pop that echoed through the building as the music swelled. The speakers that had been put in the church were first rate. The amplification was state-of-the-art. Unfortunately, the orchestra was a bad imitation done with computer generated sounds, and the excellent sound system did nothing to disguise that fact.

  The performance was something that Muffy had obviously rehearsed. It was staged as well as any country music video choreographer could have done. Muffy waited for the introduction, then sang the opening verse, all her choral training thrown to the wind, her Loretta Lynn twang echoing forth in all its rural splendor.

  She closed her eyes in prayer, both hands clasping the microphone in front of her, then she opened her eyes and moved slowly down left, away from the altar and toward the baptismal font.

  And he will raise you up on eagle's wings,

  Bear you on the breath of dawn ...

  Mother P's sermon did have something about Living Water in it. I wasn't sure of her point or what it had to do with the eagle and the squirrel, but it was my Lenten Discipline to give her the benefit of the doubt. Besides, she had more than enough explaining to do to the vestry after this service was over. It didn't occur to me that anything was amiss as Muffy went over to the font and began another verse, the one that she'd written to go with the sermon.

  For to his people he's given a command

  to walk in his footsteps always:

  Come to the Living Water,

  Come and be restored.

  She closed her eyes again, this time holding the mic in her right hand and reaching into the font with the other.

  And he will raise you up on eagle's wings,

  She dipped into the water and raised a handful of liquid grace shoulder high, letting it spill dramatically from her fingers back into the font. She reached down into the pool again.

  Bear you on the breath of dawn ...

  That's as far as she got. There was a loud, horrible buzzing sound followed by a loud bang, a bright flash that silhouetted Muffy for a split second, and then the lights in the sanctuary went dark. Although there was daylight coming in through the stained glass, the sudden change in the ambient light inside the church made it difficult to see. The emergency lights popped on a second later and the fire alarm started buzzing loudly. Some smoke was visible in the front of the church, by the chancel steps.

  "Everyone outside!" shouted Fred from the balcony. "Don't push. Leave by the nearest exit."

  I was already down the stairs and racing for the baptismal font.

  Chapter 19

  Muffy was dead.

  Kent, the coroner, put the cause of death as electrocution. I contacted my electrical contractor that Sunday afternoon and had him come and look at equipment. Terry Shager had been doing electrical work all his life. He'd lost all his left toes and the hair on the left side of his head to a high voltage accident a decade ago, but he was the best electrician in town. Terry came in the front door of St. Barnabas wearing his faded blue bib overalls and a button-down, long-sleeved white shirt with a yellow tie. He listed slightly to the left as he marched down the aisle in his heavy, rubber-soled work boots. His gray hair was cut short on the right side of his head and he was still ho
peful, after these ten long years, that the missing hair might grow back on the left. In anticipation of this, and under Noylene's supervision, he rubbed his scalp every night with a healthy dose of Italian vinaigrette salad dressing. His blue eyes twinkled and he was usually smiling, although his walrus mustache hung down past his lower lip so sometimes it was tough to tell.

  "Hayden," he said as he limped in. "How you doin'?"

  "I'm okay, Terry. Did you hear what happened this morning?"

  "Sure did. Sorry about Muffy. I worked for her and Varmit over at the fur farm when they were setting up."

  "Yeah," I said. "Terrible thing. Could you take a look? Be careful, though."

  "I'm always careful," Terry said, "these days. Only a year 'til retirement, and I need all the hair I've got left. There's this woman I'm thinking about asking out. Stacey."

  "Stacey down at the Ag Center?"

  "Nah. Stacey down at St. Germaine Federal Bank." He got a sly look in his eye. "Gives me a lollipop every time I come in."

  I nodded. "I know Stacey. Redhead, right? Want me to put in a good word for you?"

  Terry's shoulders shook with an embarrassed chuckle. "Well, okay. If you wouldn't mind." He looked around the church and said, "So what's the deal?"

  I pointed toward the baptismal font. "Muffy was singing into the microphone, then dipped her hand in the water and that was it." I thought for a moment. "She didn't get the jolt until she dipped her hand into the water the second time."

  "I'll find out what happened," promised Terry. "Gimme a half-hour or so."

  He was as good as his word. Terry's verdict was that the wiring in the amp was improperly done: one extraneous wire that should have been grounded, providing an energized connection to the mic cable shielding, and since we hadn't ever used the amp with a corded microphone, no one had any idea of the problem. Because the outer casing of the mic was hard plastic, it was the metal on/off switch that got all the juice. When Muffy reached into the font the second time, her thumb came in contact with the switch and the electrical circuit was complete. It was a terrible accident. The amp hadn't been plugged into a GFCI plug — a ground fault circuit interrupter — because the electrician hadn't seen the need to install one. Not his fault, said Terry. The outlet was nowhere near any water and the building code didn't require one.