Choir Boy (20 page)

“I’m just trying to understand your situation. I’m not giving advice.”

“I really want to stay in the choir and make the record. Please let me.” Berry squeezed one hand with the other.

“I don’t know. People will blow donuts when they hear of this. Especially on the heels of the whole Canon Moosehead thing—”

“Nobody needs to know! ”

“What kind of position are you putting me in? Are you trying to destroy me? I have a shot at everything I’ve killed myself for these past dozen years. All the church politics— the blood-thinning rehearsals—the organ grinding for a congregation of monkeys. You have no idea how many dues I’ve paid in how many currencies.” Mr. Allen looked around the massive stone shell. “This is not the life I had in mind when I left Juilliard. But I am not willing to lie or help you cover your secret for my chance at the brass ring.”

“If I tell everyone the truth, can I stay in the choir?”

“I really don’t know. I’ll fight like hell to keep you in. My political capital has never been great—but people liked this concert a lot—at least until the Canon’s psychotic break. As long as nobody thinks the choir had anything to do with that... I don’t know.”

“I can stop taking the pills,” Berry said. “But then my voice might change. And it can’t change back. And besides ...” “Besides what?”

Berry looked into Mr. Allen’s bubble glasses and could hardly bear what he saw behind them. He wanted Mr. Allen to be happy no matter what. “I don’t know. Since I started on the pills, I’ve been . . . jazzed. I like feeling not like the other boys. I’ve never really wanted to be a man, I guess. The only thing I like about being a boy is the choir. I know I don’t want to grow up like most of the men I know. I just ... I don’t know.”

“So maybe you do want to be a woman.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to be. Maybe there isn’t a word for it.”    •

“Oh.” Hush stilled the cathedral, like the moment of silence during services when people pleaded inaudibly for the recovery of sick loved ones. “Sounds like you’ve got some thinking to do,” Mr. Allen said. “This is what I’m going to do. I’ll let you stay in the choir on one condition: you show up for rehearsal with a note from your parents saying they know what’s going on and they’re okay with it. As long as you call yourself a boy you can stay with us as far as I’m concerned. If you dress female or call yourself Betty, you’re out. That’s the best I can do.”

“So I don’t have to tell everybody?”

“Just your parents.”

Berry thanked Mr. Allen and, though the thought of telling the newly “together” Marco and Judy all about his recent activities started the dark Satanic mills in his chest, things seemed clearer. Maybe there was a way he could stay on just the pills that saved his voice without all the others. Maybe there was a way he could be himself without becoming whoever Maura wanted him to be.

Judy had been too busy at school to attend the concert, and Marco had promised to show up the way he promised all kinds of things. But both parents sat in front of the newly repaired television when Berry got home. They looked as domesticated as Berry could remember.

“Did you know the pygmy shark eats its own young unless they disguise themselves as fecal matter?” Marco said. “It’s an adaptation they made to survive.”

“Really?” Berry said.

“No,” Judy said. “He’s being a nut. Tell us about the concert.”

Berry told all, stressing his triumph and inevitable choral idol-hood. His parents congratulated and cheered and all that good stuff. “Mom, dad, I’ve got something else to tell you. I’ve been taking these pills, mostly to keep my voice from changing, but they’ve been turning me into a girl, which is kind of a by-product, but I’m not one hundred percent sure how I want to end up and for now I just want to stay a choirboy, so I need a note from you guys saying it’s all good.” Marco and Judy stared. A documentary told them about the disappearing rainforest. Berry twitched while his parents froze. “Um,” said Berry. “I think there’s paper in the kitchen drawer, and I saw a ballpoint pen on the table. It doesn’t have to be a long note.”

“Pills,” Judy said. “You’re hooked on pills. What kind of pills are we talking? My son’s a pill addict. I knew I should have been around more. Show me your pupils. Are your pupils dilated?”

“You haven’t been listening,” Marco said. “He’s a drag queen. Our son’s a drag queen.”

“Well, if you marry a repressed homo, I guess you get what you pay for.”

“Who’s a repressed homo? I took him to a strip bar. This is not my fault, Miss Cunt of Steel.” “Um,” Berry said. The television talked about endangered lizards, the kind Maura would save once her sugar daddy arrived.

“You took him to a strip bar?”

“Male bonding. He needed one parent who took an interest in his life.”

“Did you take him to your pusher as well? Is that how he got into pills?”

“Please,” Berry said. He found a piece of paper and a pen and held them up.

“I don’t have a pusher, you bitch. Not since that Green Anteater incident, which I still think was all your fault.” Berry knew from experience his parents were five to ten sentences away from throwing shit and breaking appliances. Ordinarily he’d have run to his room and locked the door. He had a whole ritual for blocking out these storms, using Choral Fugue State and candles. But this time was Berry’s fault. He couldn’t prevent Maura and Canon Moosehead from visiting the Weird Zone together, but this he could prevent. “Shut up!” Berry screamed at the top of his lungs.

Marco and Judy stopped yelling and looked at Berry. He seized the TV remote and squashed
power.
Silence gathered, a smaller and less perfect stillness than an empty cathedral. Car sounds and neighbors’ lives broke in.

“I am not a druggie or a drag queen, and I wish you guys would listen to me for once.”

Judy looked down. “Just tell us what’s going on.”

“I’m taking some pills, okay? They’re not drugs or anything. They’re more like hormones and stuff. I started taking them because I didn’t want my voice to change. Now I’m not sure what I want. Some of the pills are turning me female, which I don’t know what I think about.”

“Son,” Marco said slowly. “You only have one body and you need to treat it with respect.”

Judy looked sharply at Marco’s flab and drug-fuddled gaze, and snorted. “Berry,” she asked, “do you want to be a woman?”

“I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to grow up like . . . ,” he didn’t look at Marco, “. . . like most guys.” Then he glanced quickly at Marco, who looked like he’d just taken a knife to the gut.

“It’s official,” Marco said. “I really do suck.”

Judy took Marco’s hand for a moment, then let it drop. Neither of them looked at the other. Berry still held out the pen and paper, but neither parent took it.

13.

The sound of hammer blows woke Berry, a percussion regular as assembly lines. Berry lay on his bed, still wearing his concert clothes from the night before. He pulled off his jacket and shirt, unwound his bandages, and put on a T-shirt. He no longer needed a torso disguise at home.

Judy chopped a cucumber into pieces of almost identical width on a cutting board. “You’re not going to school,” she told Berry. “Dr. Tamarind has a slot free at eleven and we’re going to drive you.” She attacked the cucumber so hard Berry feared for her thumb.

“I just saw Dr. Tamarind yesterday,” Berry said. “Twice, even.” Berry’s voice still felt torn down from explaining himself to his parents half the night, staring through sleepless lids at their grainy shadow selves. The facts had looped and his parents had nodded as he’d talked pills and changes. Then they’d asked the same dumb questions until Berry had given up and slept.

“You’ve got a lot to tell him,” Judy said. The door opened and Marco brought in a paper bag of bagels and cream cheese. Nobody wanted cucumber slices on their bagels except Judy. “Greek salad tonight,” she said. She was bagging work.

Nobody talked on the drive to Dr. Tamarind’s and Berry wondered when would be a good time to bring up the fact that choir rehearsal was tonight and he needed that note. He figured after his session.

Dr. Tamarind hopped like a grasshopper around his office long after Berry sat down. The therapist couldn’t stop clucking. Berry hadn’t seen him this giddy.

“Business is good, huh,” Berry said. “Have Canon Moosehead and Maura been here yet today?” Dr. Tamarind just bounced and chuckled. “Ya know, Canon Moosehead was head-fucked long before someone dosed him. And no, I don’t know who did it.”

“We’re not here to talk about Canon Moosehead,” Dr. Tamarind said. “Lovely concert, by the way.”

“We stomped the motherfucker in the name of the Lord. They gotta re-roof the cathedral.”

“Speaking of mending roofs. Berry, why are you here?” “Question I’ve asked myself since session one.” Berry heard aggro in his own voice. He leaned forward in his seat and counterattacked for the first time in therapy. Suddenly he wanted to pin that grasshopper to a cork board.

“I mean, why are you here today?”

“Today’s no different than other times. Why am I here? So you can study me? So I can try and explain what it’s like to have a gift with an expiration date?” Those were the most words Berry had spoken in therapy. “The reason my parents brought me today is I’ve been solving my problem on my own.”

“Tell me about your solution.”

Berry told. Dr. Tamarind finally sat down and listened, eyes closed, the way he had when Berry had sung in therapy. When Berry finished, Dr. Tamarind stayed like that: asleep or thinking.

Finally, Dr. Tamarind woke up. “You know, Maura may be right about you.” Berry started to argue, but Dr. Tamarind raised a bony hand. “Gender Identity Dysphoria isn’t an exact diagnosis most of the time, even though we pretend it is. Sometimes people feel depressed or disjointed and decide their gender is part of it. The reason I often keep people in therapy a long time before I greenlight hormones is because I want to be sure.”

“Yah. Maura said you were a pill miser.”

“One thing’s for sure. You won’t get any more pills if you’re not really transgendered. Not from me, not from that clinic. We can’t prescribe without a clear diagnosis. GID is a diagnosis. ‘Wants To Stay A Choirboy’ doesn’t show up in the DSM-IV.”

Berry jumped from his chair to lean over Dr. Tamarind’s desk. “That’s not fair. I knew you wouldn’t understand! You’re just trying to blackmail me like everybody else.” “Nobody’s blackmailing you. Berry, there’s an old saying, ‘therapy is looking your destiny in the eye and saying, No.’ It seems to me you’ve already done that. Look, I’ve had to piece things together about you while you gave me the silent treatment all this time. This could explain a lot.”

“Like what?”

“You don’t want to grow up like your dad or other men. You want people to perceive you as,” Dr. Tamarind waved his hands. “As bright and delicate.”

“I’m a choirboy. It’s different.” Berry watched the sliver of daylight through the tight curtains, the one glimpse of outside Dr. Tamarind allowed.

“I kept asking what it was about being a choirboy you needed so badly. Maybe now we know. Have you ventured out as a girl?”

“I went to the mall and got a bra.”

“That’s a start. Maybe you need to try it some more.” “You don’t think I’m too young to make this decision?”

“Maybe. But you’ve started and it might be wrong to turn back. They’re starting people on hormones younger and younger. I know of a few fifteen-year-old TSs. Only a couple years older than you. The younger you start, the greater the effect the hormones have.”

“What about choir? I can’t stay in it if I’m a girl. It’s all I care about.”

Dr. Tamarind sighed. “I understand.” He fussed with the bridge of his nose where his glasses chafed. “Give yourself some time off choir. We’ll talk about it more next week. Meanwhile, I want you to try life as a girl.”

“It’s all I care about,” Berry repeated.

“Nothing lasts forever,” Dr. Tamarind said. “You find new things to care for. Maybe you already have. There’s only one way to know. ”

Dr. Tamarind led Berry out to the waiting area. His parents sat on chairs instead of the sofa. Judy had a gardening magazine unopened in her lap. “I think Berry’s a transsexual,” Dr. Tamarind said, as if announcing the sex of a fresh baby.

Both parents nodded. Marco asked if this was his fault.

Dr. Tamarind pinched his chin and bowed from the waist. “It’s not a question of fault. It happens. There’s nothing wrong. But now Berry has to choose whether to finish what he started. He’s confused.”

“I am so not going to school as a girl,” Berry said.

“Probably not a good idea right away,” Dr. Tamarind agreed.

“If he becomes a woman, can he still have kids?” Judy asked.

“We could freeze some of his, um, her sperm in case she finds someone she really wants to inseminate. But that’s a long way off. We’re not talking about surgery now, just continuing with hormones.” They talked for half an hour more. Dr. Tamarind convinced Berry’s parents to let him hang out with Maura, Lisa, and whoever else wanted to aid Berry’s immersion in girl soup.

Marco and Judy took Berry to lunch at a Tex Mex/Tibetan restaurant. Marco had ice tea with yak butter in it and Momos Rancheros. Berry had curry tofu ribs.

“Of course, we’re going to support you no matter what.” Judy picked at a salad. “I mean, short of human sacrifice or heroin. We just want you to be happy.”

“We do?” Marco sounded like he’d missed a memo.

“I was happy,” Berry said, “in the choir.”

Berry got tired of staring at pictures of yak herders in cowboy hats and yurts with cacti out front. And tireder of Marco’s brooding and Judy’s tries at putting a brave face on things.

“Basically I got a week to figure it out,” Berry said. “Not a ton of time.” He called Mr. Allen from a pay phone and left a voice mail saying he’d told the parents, but no note yet.

He went back to his parents’ booth. “Everything will fall into place,” Judy told the arugula on her fork.

“Tell me about Kremlinology,” said Berry.

The question startled Marco and Judy, but Judy finally had an answer. “It was a sort of religion, like understanding the precepts of a really obscure sage. Or the rituals of a lost faith. Every day, state newspapers came out of Moscow, along with speeches and promulgations. What they didn’t say mattered more than what they did, and you sort of peered through all those gaps to catch the real meaning.”