Choir Boy (33 page)

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.

Lights appeared at the center of the baptismal font. The angels carved on the font’s outside reached through the bowl’s marble case. They beckoned Berry. He watched the lights dance and grow larger. Star-shaped fingers of joy and acceptance sailed through Berry’s pupils and into his retinas. He understood he couldn’t be what he had been, but he could shine a new way, like Lisa said.

Berry wondered if someone who drowned in holy water went straight to Heaven. Berry couldn’t form thought-chains any more, but he had an image of himself (herself) being born from that light, which was just a pinprick now. He could swim past the hardness in front of his face into a new life. He’d be a mermaid or an oyster-diving girl. The lights darkened. A black oval surrounded the whiteness and then it started to close in, swallowing the light.

Then the Canon hauled Berry’s head out. He swatted Berry on the back. Berry coughed water.

“You okay?” said the Canon. “You must have lost your balance. I tried to pull you out. You’ll be fine.” Then he raised his voice, “I baptize you Berry Sanchez.”

Berry couldn’t take breaths. He made trapped baby seal noises when he tried. He nearly fell, but the Canon held him up. That black circle slowly widened and framed his vision. It disappeared as Berry staggered back to the choirstalls. He tried to hang on to the feeling of peace, of accepting who he’d become, that he’d felt at the bottom of the baptismal font.

The organ started and it was time for “Hear My Prayer.” Six bars of intro, then Berry’s solo. Berry felt water on his face, not from the baptism but from his sore eyes. All that would come from his mouth was a rattle. Maybe that was what Canon Moosehead had intended. The organ reached his cue. Randy gave Berry a vicious look without changing his bright-eyed open-mouthed choirboy stance.

Berry’s solo was a second away. He still felt as if his lungs were full of water. He wept that his voice could fail him now. He looked at Mr. Allen at the organ, then closed his eyes. He couldn’t let it end like this.

Berry took a huge breath through his nose instead of his mouth. He clutched his music tight against his chest and looked up into the cathedral’s ceiling. High above, fans circulated and stone rafters interlaced the space teeming with air, enough air for every voice for a million years. Berry imagined himself filled with that light and that air. Not a sick wreck drowning inside himself. The intro ended. Berry opened his mouth.

The solo cracked at first, but then it flowed. Joy, glory, terror, the human ability to imagine a millionth pinprick of another being’s suffering, filled Berry’s voice as he pleaded with God to hear his prayer. His voice cracked, but he didn’t let that stop him. He breathed in and his insides sloshed, but he sang. The solo seemed to go on forever, but Berry’s voice came surer the longer it went. He sang past the water in his lungs and the piece of paper taped to the back of Randy’s music folder facing him which said,
FOOL YOU gonna die,
and which Randy flashed in Berry’s eyes. Past the angry people. None of it mattered.

And Berry knew then that he could keep singing no matter what, no matter what anyone did to him. And that his voice could fill any space, no matter how big or awful, even into the dullest acoustics of despair and ear-blindness, he could keep singing.