Berry walked out of his session and saw Maura in the waiting room again. “Okay,” he told her. “Tell me where to go.” She handed him an address.
The Harry Benjamin Clinic was a mile south of downtown in a former noodle-stretching factory. It offered hormones and other treatments for young transgender people on a sliding scale basis, nobody turned away for lack of funds— depending on whether it had funding this week. “Medicaid won’t touch trannies, but if you’re ‘at risk,’ there’s a safety net made out of old drawers,” Maura explained. Being “at risk” sounded sort of like a Goose intervention.
Berry called three times before he got an appointment, on a Friday afternoon. Even sprinting from school, Berry barely had time to visit the clinic before rehearsal. Berry almost missed the steel door set in one cement wall, with its tiny sign. Inside, a man at a bulletproof window took Berry’s name and glanced at the fake ID. Berry sat in a tiny waiting room where the television buzzed and the plastic bucket seats crunched his butt and made him glad he had no ass. All around him sat men with leather gear and swastikas tattooed on their heads and arms. Berry folded his arms and closed his eyes.
Maura had coached him on what to tell the triage nurse. “Just remember, you hate your manhood. Your body blows chunks. You were born the wrong shape. You want to live as a woman and wear the pretty. And if they don’t give you the hook up, you’re gonna get silicone injections from Tijuana.” As long as Berry said all that stuff, they’d give him the pills.
It only took a few moments of recitation before the nurse scheduled him for a “psychosocial intake.” Then the social worker, Marsha Joyce, listened blearily as Berry recited his spiel. “Blah, blah, blah, wrong body, black market, etc., etc.” Marsha nodded a lot. Then she started asking how long had Berry felt like this and did he know what these pills would do. Lots of unsafe sex questions. She scribbled notes. Then she made an appointment for Berry with the clinic’s staff physician, who weighed him and took blood and urine samples.
It took a few weeks before Berry clutched scrips for spironolactone and some other pills that Maura said were pure horse pee. “They get a mare pregnant so she’s pumping female hormones like a fucking faucet, then they collect her piss and use it to make these pills. No lie. Then they give her an abortion and start the whole shitty process all over again.” Maura stuck her tongue out. “But my boobs are worth a horse’s pain.”
To fill his prescriptions, Berry had to ride the bus even further south, to City General again. The waiting area had a floor that smelled like the Twelve Step room the time Jackie had drunk communion wine mixed with toilet cleaner and thrown up on the Temperance Shroud. Berry waited on a sticky chair, surrounded by people who looked homeless and who Berry imagined were there for HIV meds. Another collection of tattooed punks and skinny girls in Hot Topic knockoffs. He had to take a number and wait at one window to place his prescription. They wrote down stuff from Berry’s fake ID.
Then he had to wait at a second window to fork over his choir stipend. Then back to the first window to turn over the receipt and pick up a paper bag full of pill bottles. Berry thought the bag looked like a take away bag from a fast-food joint, except for the receipt stapled to it. He took the first set of pills with drinking-fountain water that tasted rusty, then ran to church.
5.
10.
13.
16.
5.
Berry masturbated in his bedroom and stared at his poster of the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, England. As he worked his grip on his half-hard dick, Berry imagined joining the incandescent boys in their frocks. Berry’s cock twitched slightly as he imagined a chapel full of people shivering in their seats, breathless and raw with the urge for Berry to sing some more, to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
Berry didn’t realize he was singing until he’d reached halfway through the treble solo to Edgar Bainton’s “And 1 Saw A New Heaven.” He projected, pushed his voice into his “mask,” the space between his eyes, and focused.
“And God shall wipe awaaaaaaay all tears ...” The world ended. Lovely sorrow orbited mere space. Berry’s voice soared through flaking paint and eroded brick. It had the chime of a good treble voice, but also a gospel warble on some high notes. “And there shall be no more pain, neither sorrow nor dying . . ,w' Berry lost himself in his vocal crescendo as his orgasm built. He slathered his now-erect dick with his own spit. In Berry’s mind, he stood out front in an enormous cathedral. Swathes of light bathed him from stained glass windows and a congregation gazed at him.
Berry’s voice splintered like a toothpick. That worried him until he saw pearl soup splash onto his stomach. Berry had been so focused on the sound of his own voice, he’d almost missed the intensifying pleasure when he came. His voice wasn’t breaking like George’s. It was okay. The drugs were working. Berry’s heart sounded like a metronome on top speed, either because of his orgasm or because of the fear for his voice. He stewed in sweat, sperm, and rallentando.
Berry wiped himself off with last Sunday’s church program and pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans. The sweatshirt more than hid Berry’s chest buds. When Berry came out the front door of his parents’ apartment, Mrs. Franklin came out of the next-door apartment beaming. She’d obviously lain in wait for his approach. Her gray hair hung loose and she wore a big apron. “Your voice is so lovely, Berry,” she said. “You’re like a little angel.” Berry looked down at Mrs. Franklin’s bunny slippers and smiled. He mumbled something.
Mrs. Franklin talked a bit more, but Berry was too busy thinking about that word “angel.” AH of a sudden, it was like all his hopes and fantasies crystallized around that one word. Berry desperately wanted to be an angel. Berry decided to tell Marsha Joyce at the Benjamin clinic he’d been called an angel. She’d like that.
Berry skipped into his follow-up interview with Marsha Joyce and talked to her about his life in the choir: “Mr. Allen said I had to look at him when he’s directing me. Mr. Allen liked my posture and intonation. Mr. Allen kept yelling at me for coming in late and finishing early.” It was only when Marsha started asking questions that Berry realized she thought Berry was a prostitute and Mr. Allen his pimp.
“Does Mr. Allen want you to be happy?” Marsha asked. She wore granny glasses and had her blonde hair tied back around a number two pencil.
“Mr. Allen wants me in tune,” Berry said.
Marsha knew that Berry lived with his parents, and that Berry’s parents didn’t know about the hormones. Marsha spent a lot of their second session prodding Berry to tell his parents the truth. “You have to be able to live as your new gender, and that means being honest with the people around you,” Marsha said. Berry nodded without promising anything.
Two days after his second session with Marsha Joyce, Berry went back to Dr. Tamarind. He didn’t tell Dr. Tamarind about the pills or the tits he was growing. Dr. Tamarind talked about “staring your destiny in the face and making choices. You can’t will yourself to stay dulcet and hairless forever.” Berry jerked his head a lot and hoped it looked like nodding. He wished he could lock Marsha Joyce and Dr. Tamarind in a room together and go for pizza.
The first few days on spironolactone, Berry felt woozy and like he needed to pee all the time. He’d felt panicky, either because of the estrogen or because of the new secret. A couple of times he felt like he’d throw up and pass out at the same time. But he only felt really woozy when he ran fast, and that made his crotch lacerations angry anyway. He hardly talked most of the time, so now he hardly moved either. He just stayed close to the boys’ room between classes and squirmed through Rat and Toad’s lectures, until finally the hot bladder cooled off after a couple of weeks.
Berry folded his arms or turned his back whenever people paid attention to him. He slid down so far in his chair at school that his chin grazed the speech balloon of desk. The girls at school used tank tops and tubes to display their own personal growth, which didn’t look much bigger than Berry’s. He hunched his bac
k in the school hallways. In the locker room, he avoided showers and cringed whenever he had to change into gym clothes. The locker room air felt stickier than summer.
Wherever Berry went, boys talked breasts. They compared the different girls’ developments. Marc said Jee was a “fucking milk cow already,” but Lisa was “stuck with slivers.” Randy liked to cup his thick hands over his own chest and jerk them up and down. None of the girls had jugs like the strippers Berry had seen.
With only cassock and surplice to cover them, Berry thought everybody must be able to see his buds. On Sundays, he had to walk upright and tilt his chest slightly. He looked up at the cathedral’s ceiling fans as he marched into church. His music folder didn’t cover anything. Everyone in church must be staring at Berry’s chest. The thought sickened and thrilled him. Berry felt hazy, pee-blinded and alarmed, like the night he’d drunk a three-liter Coke before bedtime.
Finally he had to ask Wilson, after a service where he’d hardly been able to read notes. “I gotta know. Has anyone noticed?” They leaned against the cathedral wall watching for Lisa. Berry’s question came in the middle of Wilson’s lecture about NASCAR.
“Noticed what?” Wilson scratched his head.
“Nothing.” Berry grinned like a puppy.
“Yes, Berry, we’ve all noticed you’re a retard. Anyway, the point is full-face helmets are for wusses.”
One day after school, Berry didn’t have choir practice or a session with one of his two therapists. He met Maura at a juice bar downtown. She perched on a stool, pastel clad like the world’s smoothest virgin pina colada. Berry wondered if Maura ever got sick of people looking at her, or whether it would bug her if they stopped.
“You keep hugging yourself and bowing like a chilly geisha,” Maura said. “Are you all right?”
“Side effects. Dizzy. Plus, umm . . . these spook me.” Berry unfolded his arms and straightened enough to show contours.
“Trust me, nobody will notice unless they get way bigger. Maybe not even then. People don’t see what they don’t expect. And you can always bind them—get bandages at the drug store. I’ve known trannies who hid breasts C cup and over. And once you look female enough, you can go stealth. Most folks aren’t used to wondering if somebody’s what they seem, so as long as no alarm bells go off, you’re fine.”
“Do you think truth is beauty?” Berry was studying Keats for Rat’s class. “I think you have to believe in the beauty of truth if you present a game show, even more than you have to treasure the prizes and getaways.”
Maura just shrugged.
“I just can’t keep track of who people think I am any more.” Berry slurped his banana-mango smoothie. “Marsha at the Benjamin Clinic thinks I’m a ho.”
“What would be wrong with that?” Maura suddenly sounded upset. It was the first time Berry had seen her anything but breezy.
“What? What did I say? I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings ... What’s wrong?” Panic opened Berry’s arms wide, spilled his secrets into his shirt.
Maura laughed.
“I guess I’m still kind of defensive about it. But seriously, didn’t you ever wonder what I did for a living?”
“I thought you were a student.”
“I go to Hoochie Mama U. I learn on the job,” Maura giggled. “Seriously, I like my job. It’s nice to be appreciated for being different, instead of hated. And I get to meet interesting people and fuck them.” She gave a too-much-infor-mation laugh and tilted her styrofoam cup to let the obstinate clump at the bottom slide down her long, canted neck,
• • •
“Show me what you got,” Marco ordered Berry the next afternoon. “I never hear you sing anymore.”
Berry had his back to Marco, who sat on the couch with his legs spread and his shirt half open. A Roiling Rock sweated in his hand.
Marco sang, in the shower, along with TV commercials before he broke the TV, when he drove Judy’s car, and when he summoned spirits for a client. In the right light, Marco could look like an Italian tenor. He swore his voice had sparkled once. Now it grumbled like a deep fat fryer.
“You never come to church,” Berry told the mandala on the wall.
“Fuck church. I wouldn’t be able to tell anything from hearing a million people singing,” Marco said. “I want to hear your voice by itself.”
“I don’t feel like singing,” Berry mumbled.
“Aw, come on. Anything from Bach to Sinatra to those Backdoor Boys. I’m not picky. I just want to hear your pipes before they get all rusty like mine.”
Sometimes Berry fantasized he’d had an older sister named Sylvia or Mary. Berry’s imaginary sister had been a delicate maiden with hair a shade redder than Berry’s. Her eyes had shone like pulled-over cop car lights—now white, now blue. Sylvia/Mary had looked after Berry while his mom was never home and his dad abnormaled. But then Berry’s dad had scared her off/upset her/thrown her out. Sometimes Berry actually believed Sylvia/Mary had existed and imagined her speeding-ticket eyes watching Marco and him.
“Sorry,” Berry said. “Gotta save my voice for church.” “Okay.” Marco stared at his son’s slender back for a few minutes. His beer went flat against one thigh. “So you want to do something? I’ve got a few hours until my next client. She’s a twofer.”
“What kind?” Berry watched some younger kids play in the empty lot below the window. One boy found Berry’s family’s old ice cream maker and threatened to throw a handful of rust-coated ice cream residue at the other kids.
“Investment and spiritual. She wants to cherry-pick genomics stocks and find her animal guide. We ditched the word ‘totem’ because it makes everybody think of sequoia trunks with Larry King carved into them.”
One of the kids threw the ice cream maker at the wall. Berry remembered when he and his parents had played with that machine, vying to see who could invent the silliest flavor. The winner, Berry’s pistachio anchovy bubble gum, had clogged the works beyond cleaning. Some time later, Marco had thrown the machine through the window mid-tantrum. Berry’s parents had fixed the glass but not the appliance.
Berry glanced over his shoulder at his dad, guessing what bribe the old man would offer. He was torn between what he wanted and what he knew he should want. Teddy would have told Berry to demand porn or another visit to a strip bar. Berry wanted to watch the new Disney movie. He knew he was too old for Disney, and it was better to skew old than young in his tastes. He tried to envision what a grown-up Berry would want. It made Berry sad.
“Take me to the mall,” Berry told the mandala.
Berry and his dad went to the big shopping center a few miles out of town. They parked Judy’s rusty Corolla between SUVs and walked half a mile to the Citadel on the Hill shopping center. “It’s like a church,” Berry told his dad. He looked around the two-tiered structure heaped with clothing stores, accessories, shoes, and game show prizes. Berry imagined getting a makeover here. What would it take to make him look like Maura? Berry pictured continents moving, seas vanishing, to make his face a girl’s. Berry wondered if his dad would consider a makeover male bonding.
“This place doesn’t have any of the things that give a church meaning,” Berry’s dad said.
“Church has meaning because it’s pretty,” Berry said without thinking.
Berry’s dad laughed and said millions of people in history had killed each other over whether that was true. But Berry shouldn’t say that prettier churches meant more than plainer ones or people who went to the plain churches would get mad. Berry sometimes felt his dad still talked to him like a kid. He resented and enjoyed it.
“Do you ever miss being a choirboy?” Berry asked his dad.
“I miss singing. I’ve thought of joining a group. I don’t think I could deal with church. Anyway, I still sing sometimes.” Marco swept his arms wide, as if about to serenade the food court.
“Lots of people sing,” Berry said. “Only a few are choirboys.” They were silent for a while. Berry p
ictured a photo he’d seen of his dad three decades earlier—a tousled blackhaired boy with a ruffled collar, robe and white mantle, a soulful look in his deep-set eyes.
“I guess I miss it a little,” Marco said.
Berry dragged his dad into the Warner Brothers store. He picked up a pewter Wonder Woman. “Grown men don’t get too many chances to dress up and act fancy.”
“Unless you become a minister. Preachers get to wear pretty things and get all the attention,” said Marco.
“That’s true. They can’t sing, though. But yeah, it must rock pretty hard to be a minister. If I were a dean or a bishop, I’d just have fun and wear the sharpest robes all the time.” Berry’s voice, now boyish, now grown, chirped happily. Wonder Woman languished, forgotten, in Berry’s left hand as he imagined a life of high church fashion. “I wouldn’t worry about anything.”
• • •
“It sounds ludicrous,” Canon Moosehead’s oratorical voice came through Dr. Tamarind’s supposedly soundproof door. “You seem to think Jung is the solution to all my problems.” Berry had rescheduled his appointment with Dr. Tamarind at the last moment, from Thursday to Tuesday because he was being a Pickled Boy in a local production of Britten’s “St. Nicholas Cantata”. So he’d ended up right after Canon Moosehead once again.
Dr. Tamarind spoke too quietly for Berry to hear, then the Canon again: “I know spirituality and sexuality are connected, but. . . no. No. No, I don’t think my anima is overwhelming my animus. I don’t need a what, an anima enema. Yes. Yes, I get your point. I’ll try and think about Jung’s ideas next time I feel my ... getting out of hand. I mean, I’ve tried everything else.”
Berry went downstairs and hid so he wouldn’t be there when Canon Moosehead’s session ended. He wasn’t sure if he did this to spare the Canon or himself.
Berry returned late for his own session. Dr. Tamarind wanted to talk about ritual. “It’s what being a man or woman is all about, the performance, the pageantry, signs and symbols, tokens and types blah blah blah. Tell me, Berry, what do you know about ritual?”
Choir Boy Page 6