Choir Boy (9 page)

Berry might as well have pinned a bull’s-eye to his back. He got “faggotted” twice just walking from Toad’s biology class to Rat’s composition. During afternoon recess, three Geese hung Berry by his ankles from the jungle gym until the blood in his head fogged his eyes. He felt the bandages in his lap pulling and his lunch fighting its way up his throat. He was grateful when they let him fall head-first onto the dense sand.

In the late afternoon, Berry met Wilson, Teddy, and Mr. Allen for Pickled Boy duty. They robed up and jumped into Mr. Allen’s rusty Subaru.

Heavy metal jangled from Mr. Allen’s tape deck. Wilson claimed the front passenger seat so Berry and Teddy sat in back. “A butcher chops you up,” Mr. Allen said and steered. Metallica sang “Enter Sandman.” “Don’t ask me why. He’s like a food service serial killer. He slices you into little pieces and puts the chunks into jars of brine. Then he puts all the jars in a room and puts up a wall to hide them.”

“So we sing about being in jars behind a wall?” Teddy asked. “Sounds lame.”

“Not quite. Your moms run to Saint Nicholas in distress. He sings a long prayer and then you bust out of your jars. All the boy parts pull together again and come back to life. Then you smash through the wall. That all happens offstage. Then you come out hand in hand and sing Alleluia over and over.”

“I’m not holding hands with Berry,” Wilson said without turning.

The city’s Symphony Choir had rented the big chapel at the local community college. It had wooden walls and a pink painted ceiling, but no stained glass. Rows and rows of men and women in white shirts and black skirts or pants clustered around the altar in a semicircle. Mr. Allen greeted a man in a tuxedo with a serpent’s tongue in back. “I brought you some boys,” Mr. Allen said.

The adults in black and white rehearsed for a while without the boys, and Berry had a chance to hear women sing soprano. It confirmed all his prejudices about vibrato and impure sounds, but their voices also had a luster all their own. Wilson sat a few yards away from Berry.

Teddy rehearsed the part of the newborn St. Nicholas, the hero of Britten’s Cantata. The choir sang that Nicholas was born in answer to prayer, and then Teddy jumped out of his mother’s womb and sang “God be glorified” a few times.

The tenor soloist who portrayed St. Nicholas had a goatee and receding hair in a ponytail. His solo sounded like opera. Someone whispered this guy was a minor star, but his voice reminded Berry of wood that was all grain and varnish. And Berry didn’t think he sounded like a saint praying for boys in jars, more like a fat guy thinking about pasta.

But the blustery tenor solo only heightened the stillness after, when Berry and Wilson busted loose, flanking Teddy. In the actual performance, Berry and Wilson each held a candle in their free hands. They floated, not too quick, up the aisle and sang a haunting thanksgiving that God had turned preserved meat back into bodies.

After the rehearsal, Mr. Allen took the three boys to a Chinese restaurant and fed them fried noodles so crispy you could comb your hair with them. When nobody was looking, Wilson spat a mushroom at Berry.

• • •

Berry mentioned The Kiss to Marsha Joyce. “Wilson’s a friend of mine,” he added, so Marsha wouldn’t think

Wilson was a client. “Ever since then, he’s acted psycho.” Marsha sighed. “Transphobia is
so
hard,” she said. “It sounds like he has his own issues to deal with. But he’s a grown-up, he’ll work it out.” Berry didn’t correct her. He met Maura at the Benjamin Clinic’s rear entrance when he emerged. “Do you have an appointment here?” he asked her. “Nah. Just hanging.”

Berry got the impression Maura had been hoping to run into him. He walked with her to his bus stop, and told her about the St. Nicholas concert. “It was really cool when we actually walked out into a chapel full of people and the only light was our two candles and we sang that tune over and over again. People were on the edge of their pews.”

“I should go to your church,” Maura said.

“What?”

“Sounds like you spend a lot of time there. I want to see where you strut your stuff, Mama Chula.”

A massive hand poked its fingers between Berry’s ribs. He tasted stomach stuff. “Uh,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. They’re pretty conservative there. They don’t know about all this.” He glanced at Maura’s outfit for the day: a latex miniskirt and sequined stretch top, plus knee-high boots.

“Don’t worry,” Maura said. “I had a good Christian upbringing. You won’t know I’m there.” Maura smiled in a way that was probably supposed to ease Berry’s mind.

6
.

Randy decided to teach Wilson and Berry to hit. Randy held out a palm. “Punch,” he said. Wilson made a fist, looked at it and unmade it. Then he recreated it, knotted tighter around his thumb this time.

The three boys stood in the gravel lot behind the cathedral on Sunday morning. Breakfast spills sheened their blazers and ties. A posse of choirboys had hit the Grease Spot for trucker food before church, and now it was about rehearsal time. Berry had stuck to toast and juice to protect his voice.

“Come on,” Randy said. “Hard as you can.” Wilson put his fist into the soft hollow between fingers and heel. Randy’s hand barely moved. “Come on,” Randy said. “Harder. Give me what you got. Put some weight into it.” Wilson hit several more times, until he shook his limp hand.

Randy looked patient but amused as Wilson pummeled to no effect. For years Randy had beaten on both Wilson and Berry, but now he seemed protective.

“Your turn, Berry,” Randy said. “Use your shoulder.”

Berry aimed for Randy’s love line. He heard a spanking noise and Randy’s hand fell back. Randy laughed. “Not bad. But more follow through this time.” Berry’s arm started to hurt after the fourth punch.

“We’d better get inside,” Wilson said. He sounded pissed that Berry hit harder than he did. Wilson usually did a better job of being one of the guys than Berry.

Now that Wilson and Berry had seniority and almost membership in the inner circle, they had to mess with the younger kids and sometimes each other to stay cool. Wilson had given Berry a thermonuclear wedgie a few days after Berry had showed Wilson his breasts. It had seemed to give Wilson the creeps—he’d snatched his hand home as soon as he’d hiked Berry’s waistband high enough.

Berry and Wilson grabbed their music just as Mr. Allen made loud piano bench noises and started playing chord progressions. After the choir warmed up, it sweated over a couple of pieces by C.V. Stanford, the nineteenth century composer. The centerpiece of the day’s service was Stanford’s “Te Deum,” which ends with two choices for trebles. They can hit either the high note Berry reached with a knife in his scrotum, or the one an octave below.

Mr. Allen banged the piano lid down with a scowl. “My God—a chain-smoking James Brown impersonator with one lung could do better than you boys. This is a lyrical declaration of faith—not ‘Cum On Feel the Noise.’” Mr. Allen had Berry, Marc, and Teddy sing the pleading middle section alone, with a few men. It’s a sweet surprise tucked in a thundering anthem, like a kitten hiding under a truck.

Then the choir sang to the end, and Mr. Allen pushed his bench away from the piano like a sailor in a hurry to embark. He stared at the boys as if chasing the sources of sounds he’d just heard. “Berry—you’re the only one I hear hitting the last bar. Why don’t you sing it for everyone?” The entire boys’ section threw murderous glances at Berry.

Berry nodded, glad he’d stuck to toast while the other boys had eaten sausages. He sang shyly, but with clarity. When he hit that final high note perfectly. Mr. Allen clapped. “Now, do the rest of you think you can come within a hundred yards of what Berry just did?” Nobody replied. “Why don’t you all just drop an octave on that last note, and let Berry hit the high note alone?” That settled, Mr. Allen drilled the choir on Stanford’s “Beati Quorum Via” and some hymns. Then he told everybody to get their cassocks in gear.

Berry saw Mr. Allen, robed and groomed, heading for the side entrance to the cathedral to begin his organ prelude. Mr. Allen nodded at Berry and paused by the door. “You’re a talent,” Mr. Allen said. “You should consider training—to develop that voice to adulthood.”

“What if there was another way?” Berry asked. “If my voice didn’t have to age?”

Mr. Allen looked startled. “There isn’t—I wish there was.” He swooped into the church to grind out Bach. Berry turned to find the choir and line up for the big entrance. He took one step and fell face first on the rough-stained floor. His taped breasts cushioned his impact. He looked up and saw Teddy, leg outstretched. He and Marc stood over Berry. “Whoops,” Teddy said.

“Leave me alone,” Berry said.

“You think you’re hot shit, don’t you? Mister fucking high octave. Don’t want to be a team player, huh?”

Berry looked up at the tousled avengers. “We gotta go, guys. There’s no time for this.” The Bach or whatever reached something like a climax.

“We’ll talk later,” Teddy said.

In all the excitement, Berry’s breasts had gotten loose from their bindings, so he had to hold his music folder tightly against his collarbone to keep his chest on the down low. Wilson turned and squinted at Berry.

The hymn started and the choirboys parted the velvet curtain over the stone arch. It was one of those Charles Wesley confections that trills you into submission. Berry saw the rich up front as the choir entered from the side door. They wore nice suits and floral dresses that snagged Berry’s eye for a second. Then the procession passed to the middle rows, where the poorest parishioners mixed with middle class suburbanites. Berry wondered how the church let people know where to sit according to income. The procession reached the back rows, where stragglers clustered.

Berry spotted Lisa Gartner a split-second before he saw whom she sat next to. Maura leaned over in her pew and told Lisa a joke—a dirty one, Berry guessed. Lisa giggled. Berry saw no sign of Lisa’s mom. Berry wanted to run and hide among the homeless, but he couldn’t break rank. When Maura hadn’t shown up for church the previous weekend, Berry had relaxed. Now he watched Maura and Lisa laugh together and bristled with dread. He could imagine Maura telling Lisa,
Look at the baby tranny in the wine-colored drag.

Wesley won’t let you brood. Berry had no time to digest Maura’s presence until Canon Moosehead tried to lead a chant. Maura wore the longest dress Berry had ever seen on her, lemon tulle over floral web hose and black boots with finger heels. Every time Maura leaned into Lisa’s ear, Berry felt queasy. He scripted in his head dozens of ways Maura could destroy him with Lisa.

Pretty soon it was Stanford time. Mr. Allen positioned a mirror so he could play the organ and conduct with his head. Berry tried to look into the enormous dancing eyes, which saw through him even from a reflection. The parts started in unison, and then Berry knew why he took so many pills. The four parts scattered and the trebles peaked. The boys cried “Holy, holy,” and the blue pupils swung left and right in the organist’s mirror, guiding Berry into the piece’s sudden vulnerable heart. Before Berry knew anything, he reached the end and his voice alone nailed the final peak.

Before the Te Deum, the choirboys on the other side of the church had passed a note. When the choir came together for the anthem, the note moved to Berry’s side. Soon it reached Wilson and Berry, who read: “Delivered the payload to Moosehead. Same as last time.” Berry looked over at Canon Moosehead, who squirmed in his gilded throne next to Dean Jackson. Soon after, the Canon rose and walked to the lectern.

“In this week’s gospel, Jesus says there’s nothing that goes into you, like food, that can make you unclean. It’s only things that come out of people, like sexual licentiousness or violence, that sully us. Jesus was talking about dietary laws and hand-washing, but He was also making a larger point. Even back then, they had wine and drugs that could change how you acted. So why does Jesus say those things don’t make us ‘unclean?’ Maybe being clean is about self-control. Is it actually possible to have self-control, or is control just an illusion because our bodies are alien to us? Remember, Jesus also says having adulterous thoughts is the same as committing adultery. Are we all doomed to be unclean all the time? How do we ask forgiveness for involuntary sins, or for sins we can’t even describe or put a name to?” Canon Moosehead shifted more and more in his pulpit, always keeping his crotch hidden behind its lip.

Berry glanced over at Dean Jackson, who watched Canon Moosehead with a gut-punched expression. The Canon went on, “It’s so much easier to control what goes into you than what comes out of you, unless you’re a compulsive eater or someone is forcing something into your throat. I mean . . . but. . . Jesus must have understood that our bodies constantly recycle and secrete, churn fluids and impulses in an electrified stew that drives us to incomprehensible extremes of convulsion and . . . Jung . . . Jung . . . Jung!” Canon Moosehead sounded as though he was calling a lover’s name. “Jung teaches us our unconscious is the playground of ineffable forces. We all share the collective unconscious, which means whatever comes out of me is really coming out of you as well. It’s coming out of all of us and getting all over everything and we have to find some place to put it so it doesn’t leave a stain. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Berry could hear jaws crashing open around the church.

Then it was money time and the choir sang again. At least the nervous-breakdown-disguised-as-sermon had distracted Berry from Maura and what she might be telling Lisa. And maybe Maura would decide this church was too weird even for her.

As soon as the service ended, Berry ran back to the choir room and stripped off his robes. Every second he waited was another second that Maura could be telling Lisa bizarre and possibly true things about him. Berry slammed into Wilson in the hallway.

“Ow,” Wilson said. “I’m trying to catch Lisa.” It was the first time he’d spoken to Berry in ages.

“She’s with a friend of mine,” Berry said. “No sign of her mom.”