Choir Boy

by Unknown Author

  “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.

  Lisa stood near the big window, looking down at the sign-waving people far below. Her face glowed red and her hair blew in her eyes. “You can see why Canon Moosehead wants to fix this tower,” Lisa said. “I nearly killed myself climbing, and this masonry teeters if you lean on it.” “Please don’t jump,” Berry said.

  “I just came to get some space.”

  “There’s a creature following me. It’s got bandages and breathes weird and—”

  A gloved hand reached up through the open trapdoor and the monster pulled itself halfway into the bell-ringing area. “That’s my dad,” Lisa said.

  “I should have known,” the thing coughed. “You two gather once again. The lizard cortex directs, the warm flesh dances its choreography.”

  “You’re wrong,” Berry said. “No lizard direction here. Just bells and sightseeing and me running from you because I didn’t know who you were, not that it would have made much difference.”

  “Lisa,” Mr. Gartner croaked. “Come with me.”

  “He got water in his lungs,” Lisa told Berry. “It sounds worse than it is.”

  “Lisa.” Mr. Gartner advanced on his daughter, who shrank at the window.

  Berry saw the stonework fissure behind Lisa, hewn brown chips scatter. She leaned back further as her dad approached. The stonework gave under her weight.

  “Leave her alone.” For the third time, Berry put himself between Mr. Gartner and Lisa.

  “Berry, stay out of this,” Lisa shouted over the wind and the marching band and chants below. “If he wants to experiment on me some more, there’s nothing you or I can do.

  He’s my dad and that gives him unlimited weird-science rights over his offspring. Come on, dad. Give me the pool treatment. I love what chlorine does to my hair. Or better yet, just give me a little push and we’ll see if I’m a flying lizard. Come on, Dad. What are you waiting for? You know you want to. Push!” On that last word, Lisa hit the wall behind her with her fist. Masonry crumbled. Two big stones dislodged. They fell backwards into the sky. Berry heard shouts and commotion below. The wall trembled as if it might lose more stones.

  Lisa looked at the hole in the window’s underpinnings and then at her scraped hand.

  Mr. Gartner stood for a moment, then turned back to the trap door. “No use. Too late. You’re already the thing I worked to keep you from becoming. No sense compounding a failed effort.” He turned and climbed painfully down the long spiral.

  Berry let out a breath. “You okay?”

  “Never stood up to him before,” Lisa said. “Canon Moosehead is going to kill us.”

  “After your dad and those nuts down there, Canon Moosehead can do what he likes,” Berry said. “I’m not scared any more.”

  Berry got back into the rehearsal just as the choir was finishing up the day’s hymns. He realized that his blazer and pants had tower dust on them. The other choirboys stared at him as if surer than ever that he was diseased and might be contagious. Mr. Allen nodded at Berry, apparently not concerned, and went to robe up before his organ prelude. “Where the fuck were you?” Randy asked Berry.

  “I felt sick. I feel better now.”

  “Got your period or something?” All the choirboys within earshot laughed at Randy’s joke.

  Berry punched Randy without even thinking. His tiny fist used every technique Randy had tried to teach him, and struck the bridge of Randy’s nose, thumb couched behind knuckles. More from surprise than impact, Randy lost his footing and fell on his back. He lay on the floor and looked up at Berry. Berry walked away and willed himself not to massage his bruised hand.

  Nobody touched Berry or talked to him. He went to his locker and found his robes.

  “Shit, man,” Wilson said. “You’re insane. What kind of a girl are you?”

  “A girl who hits, I guess,” Berry said. He remembered his mom talking about not losing his sweetness. Maybe sweetness too long kept or too hard protected turned to poison.

  Out in the hall, the boys lined up. Canon Moosehead stood near the side entrance covered in finery and holding a huge golden cross. Berry walked over to Canon Moosehead.

  “What happened to the bell tower?” were the first words out of the Canon’s mouth.

  “I don’t know,” Berry said. “I heard some falling stones. I was down with the choir. I’m sorry about all the crowds and commotion. Do you still want to do the baptism thing?” “I’m not sure.” Canon Moosehead’s face was impervious to smiles or scowls. He looked at the dust on Berry’s pants. “Do you have a soul? Is there a belief in the infinite somewhere inside that chemical hybrid of a body? Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?”

  Berry nodded. “Yes to all.”

  “Consider that your catechism.”

  The organ ramped up some polite 1920s hymn about the suffering in their tenements and God’s mercy. The doorway leading into the church looked floodlit by the stained glass beyond. “So how long do you think you could do this?” Wilson asked Berry. “Stay in the choir with tits and people who want to kill you?”

  Berry looked ahead, readied his hymn book flattened open to the right page. “My mom still wants to blow town. But if she stays, I might sing for another year or two. If this is the last time, at least I’m going out in style.”

  The choir jerked into church. Berry kept his eyes up and away from the hymn he’d long since memorized. His occasional onward glances showed Lisa, Maura, and his mom in the congregation. Most sign-wavers had stayed outside, but a few sat right up front. Maura gave Berry a big thumbs up and a teary wink. Next to her, Anna Conventional blew Berry a kiss.

  When Berry got to his old spot in the wooden choirstalls, he saw someone had carved something into the hundred-year-old oak. Someone else had tried to erase it with a plane or chisel, so only the outlines and a few letters remained. It said PER-E-T and then some scratchings that could have been pictures or letters.

  Dean Jackson started the litany by wishing the audience, “The Lord be with you.” Berry looked around the congregation. It seemed most of the people had their eyes on him. The Dean also gave the sermon, about miracles—the miracles of virgin birth and resurrection, but also everyday miracles. “Nowadays, science can keep alive those whose hearts have failed and transform men into women. Death and sex aren’t beyond our control any longer. But the greatest miracles are still those we cannot explain, those that happen in the human spirit ...” It was pretty much standard sermon material, except for the shoehorned reference to sex changes. Dean Jackson didn’t actually take a stand on sex reassignment, or how it fit or didn’t fit into a world of angels and the reliving dead.

  Berry felt his mind wander. He imagined a choir made up of all those whose boy voices had coarsened: Dr. Tamarind, Marco, George, Teddy, Mr. Allen . . . They
stood in barbershop quartet formation and sang in falsetto harmonies a song that went “We’re still beautiful inside.” In Berry’s daydream, Mr. Gartner did a solo punctuated by wheezes. Then Berry imagined himself on his fiftieth anniversary as a choirboy, a plump grande dame in a fur coat and tiara over his cassock, singing a medley of William Byrd anthems.

  Berry’s dream ended when they announced the baptisms. Canon Moosehead called forward mothers and babies, asking the mothers if they and their assembled friends would help the babies renounce Satan and embrace Jesus. The mothers and congregation all agreed to take this on. The Canon sprinkled a little water on each baby’s forehead.

  That done, Canon Moosehead turned to the choir. “And we’ve got one more baptism to do, someone who can speak for herself. Berry, would you like to come down here?” Berry looked around at his choirmates. Some smirked and others just stared. He squeezed past the boys in his row, then walked to the baptismal font where Canon Moosehead stood. Up close, it looked gorgeous; white and lustrous, carved with angels and flowers.

  “Berry (like the fruit), do you promise to renounce Satan and all his ways?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you vow to embrace Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  The Canon told Berry to repeat a form of words, then put his hand on Berry’s shoulder. “You’ve ruined everything,” the Canon whispered. “You’re not welcome here.” Then he pushed Berry’s head into the bottom of the baptismal font. The last thing Berry heard was “In the name of the—” Then his ears broke the surface. He stared into the white shimmering bowl and it seemed to have no depth.

  Berry let out his air in a stream of bubbles, but couldn’t breathe in. He realized the Canon was holding his head underwater for a lot longer than usual for adult baptisms. Usually, it was just a quick dunk, or maybe one sprinkle each for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Berry forgot which. Water poured into Berry’s nose and mouth and flooded his throat. Still the Canon’s hand pressed harder at the back of Berry’s head.