Choir Boy (11 page)

Berry didn’t understand why Maura wasn’t worried about Wilson being “jail bait.” Maybe she was just toying. The next Sunday, Wilson told the other choirboys to look out for his girlfriend in the congregation. “She’ll be wearing a purple and black jumpsuit and gold ankle boots. She told me. Right after she said I was cute.” The choirboys oohed. Berry realized Wilson and Maura had hung out without him, or at least talked on the phone.

But after they all got a good look at Maura during the opening hymn, Teddy wrinkled his nose in the choirstalls. “I don’t know. She looks nasty.” That last word had all kinds of furrows.

“Nasty is a good thing right?”

Nobody answered. Berry studied the day’s music by Bruckner. Dean Jackson talked about grace. The choir struggled to drape reverence over the congregation. Canon Moosehead stayed out of sight when not dispensing wafers.

Lisa sat with some of the other choirgirls, and left right after church. Wilson went with Maura and Berry to lunch. “Teddy is like hotness impaired or something,” Wilson told Berry when Maura was out of earshot. Berry wondered what Dr. Tamarind would say if he knew Maura was flirting with a barely teen boy. He wanted to mention it in his next session, but he didn’t want Dr. Tamarind to know that he knew Maura. Berry wondered if all of Dr. Tamarind’s patients knew each other one way or another. Maura had mentioned bitch sessions with other trans girls about their shared shrink.

Dr. Tamarind had led Berry into a world of masks and toys. Sometimes he made Berry wear a Polynesian scowl, sometimes a Thai grimace. “Who are you when you wear that mask? What do you feel?” Dr. Tamarind would drag out figurines of elephants or birds to represent Berry’s parents, teachers, or peers. “Act out a scene with the elephant and the snake.” Berry always did his best, just like at school. Not having the answers, he took the questions to heart. He wouldn’t do homework for Dr. Tamarind, like keeping a journal or taking pictures, but in their weekly sessions he played whatever games the therapist called for.

The more people tried to figure out what was going on with Berry, the less he could explain it to himself.

• • •

The senior choirboys hatched a plan to steal the Christmas punch from Bishop Locke. The Bishop’s punch of legend fermented from August until December. Nobody knew the ingredients for sure, but every churchgoer who braved the Bishop’s Christmas Eve party complained later of sore heads and hazy memories of games of “name that Bible story” with the loser shedding clothes to an organ version of “Night Train.”

Anyway, rumor said the casks of by-now-lethal punch sat in a vault behind the Twelve Step room. Teddy sent Jackie, one of the youngest boys, to distract Sandy the pedophile

Verger while Marc stole the basement keys. A stash of killer booze was excitement enough. But the second part of Teddy’s plan was to convince the girls’ choir to attend, partake, and maybe loosen up. Teddy sent Wilson and Berry to the True Love Waits group with a note inviting the girls to a “sleepover” in the Twelve Step room Friday night. “Everyone knows the juiciest girls go to True Love Waits meetings,” Teddy said.

The group met in the auditorium where the boys stole cookies and punch on Sundays. A dozen kids, almost all girls, sat in folding chairs in a semicircle. Canon Moosehead faced them, wearing his “regular guy” uniform: jeans and a sweatshirt.

“Well, personally,” said Wilson, oozing sincerity, “I just can’t picture sex without the bond that can only come from his-and-hers face towels. I can’t get my mind around it.”

Berry glanced at Canon Moosehead, who coughed and tried not to look at anybody. Canon Moosehead fidgeted a lot these days. During the Canon’s worst fit, Wilson handed his note to Rebecca, the girl to his left, and indicated she should pass it to the other girls whose chairs faced the Canon in a semicircle.

“But what if you marry some guy, and he has elephantiasis or whatever it is that makes your weewee act weird?” asked Lisa. “I mean, say you’ve never seen one before and you think it’s normal for his thing to look for peanuts and drink water? What if he does that thing the Bible talks about and spills his seed on a pillar of salt?”

While Lisa spoke, it was Berry’s turn to cringe. She’d brightened when he’d shown up at the TLW meeting. He still didn’t know what Maura had told Lisa. The fact that a popular girl wanted to talk to Berry struck him as a scourge.

Bad enough that she talked about obscure French perverts to him. Worse that she seemed to flirt.

Canon Moosehead uncrossed his legs, crossed them again, gripped his knee in both pink-knuckled hands and pulled it up to his ribs. “Well,” Canon Moosehead said, “Many married couples face ... That is to say, back when I was married, we . . .” He actually managed to pull his knee to his chin, so it covered his mouth for a moment. “Jung! I mean, if you look at what Jung said . . . And yet St. Paul ...”

Berry raised his hand. Ten girls, Wilson, and a flustered minister turned. Canon Moosehead nodded for Berry to speak. He realized he had no clue what to say.

Berry tried to imagine Marco and Judy, their marriage, and how it made sex better, worse, or nonexistent. “Sex can be scary as well as fun,” Berry said. “All kinds of bad things can happen. But it’s easier and nicer to deal with that stuff if you’re married. Married people work together and keep each other safe and stuff.” Everyone smiled. Wilson gave Berry a thumbs up. Lisa’s smile cast approval or lust, Berry wasn’t sure. Eloquence in the cause of abstinence might actually get Berry laid.

The “sleepover” note made the rounds with no trouble. One or two girls giggled despite themselves. Afterward, Canon Moosehead came up to Wilson and Berry and put his hand on Wilson’s shoulder. He avoided Berry’s eyes. Wilson and Berry were late to meet Maura. “You were both great,” the Canon told them. “I’m really glad to see nice young men here in TLW. I wish more choirboys would show up and take an interest. Sex is a wonderful thing, a God-sent fulfillment, but ...” The Canon trailed off, as if distracted. “I mean, Jung.”

The boys finally escaped the Canon and ran to their “date” with Maura. She sat, pleated miniskirt fanned around her thighs, in a coffee shop. Several coffee drinkers stared, and one guy drew her portrait, but Maura paid no notice to them. “Berry! Wilson! How’s it going?”

“Pretty good,” Berry said.

Wilson seemed nervous about something. Even after all his boasting about his “new girlfriend” he seemed a little hostile to Maura. Finally, when Maura went to the bathroom, Berry asked Wilson what was up. “Uh, nothing,” Wilson said.

“Seriously, man. What’s bothering you?”

“I made the mistake of mentioning Maura to my parents. Now they want to meet her.”

“So what’s so bad about that?”

“I know they’ll totally freak out if they see her. My mom’s totally uptight and my dad’s a wreck. And she’s ...” Wilson made a gesture with his hand. “Nasty.”

When Maura got back, Wilson started talking about his future, aggressively, as if building a wall in a hurry between him and Maura, and maybe Berry too. “I’m probably off to boarding school for high school, then I’m shooting Ivy League. Columbia maybe, or Brown.” He’d major in English and public health, then a masters in journalism. Soon, Wilson would be writing great disease books or fascinating articles for glossy magazines. He acted like he had it all worked out, but Berry could tell his plans were half made up on the spot, half stuff his parents had fed him. After all, Wilson had told Berry often he expected to be dead by college.

“I’m going to have my operation and marry a rich guy,” Maura said. “He’ll be a surgeon who’ll sculpt my body into his ideal, and we’ll travel around the world rescuing endangered species and building the world’s biggest lizard sanctuary. You know, everybody always wants to save cute birds or baby seals, but what about all those lizards and insects that are fizzling to nothing? So, we’ll buy a Pacific island nobody lives on and fill it with every type of lizard. Finally, I’ll write a book about all the lizards we’ve saved and it’ll become a major motion picture starring me.” She leaned back, satisfied she’d trumped Wilson.

“How are you going to find this wealthy lizard philanthropist? Is he going to rent your ass and fall for you, like in
Pretty Woman}”
Wilson said. Apparently Maura had told him what she did for a living.

“I don’t know,” Maura said. “You can’t plan these things.” “That’s because they don’t happen except once in a million years. What happens is people grow old and ugly and die,” Wilson said. “Or they just die period.”

“Wilson, shut up,” Berry said.

“I guess you read that somewhere,” Maura said. “Or maybe your folks told you. I should ask them when I come over for dinner.”

“Both of you, cool it,” Berry said.

Wilson bit his lip and looked down. “Please don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what?” Maura said. “Don’t ask about your morbid world view, or don’t go to dinner with your parents?” Wilson shrugged.

“Can we change the subject?” Berry asked. “I got a new robe the other day.”

“Don’t worry,” Maura said with a laugh that reminded Berry of Judy mocking Marco. “I can tell you don’t want your precious parents meeting me. I’ll stay away. From them and from you. I prefer Berry here anyway. At least he’s accepted himself. You’re a bigger freak than he is, but you keep it under wraps.”

Maura got up and stalked out, way speedier than Berry would have expected on her high stilettos. Berry and Wilson watched her go, then sat in silence for a few minutes. “Again with the hella weird,” Wilson said at last. “What did she mean, I’m a bigger freak than you?”

“I dunno,” Berry said. “Want some hot chocolate?”

8.

The powers at Orlac Junior High chose to have Sex Ed and Career Day on the same day. Because Berry had Career Day in the morning and Sex Ed in the afternoon, he ended up with a Swan’s career prospects and the sexual knowledge of a Goose.

Berry settled uneasily in his desk chair, dead center in a classroom full of Swans in khakis and Skechers. Some of the kids had neat little plastic binders marked “Career Goals”—the kids who made a binder for everything, probably even PE. Berry had no binder, nothing to put in a binder. He imagined metal coils clutching air. He thought of Wilson’s career plan.

Rat announced the class was lucky to have a professional motivational counselor, Gray Redman, come talk to them. Gray wore Gap just like the kids facing him. He had starch-fed middle-aged features and a neat hairline that started on the top of his skull. Gray Redman didn’t give a speech. Instead, he just asked the kids, “How would you like to stay sitting where you are for the rest of your lives? Raise your hands.” Nobody raised a hand. “You sure? Those little desk-chair things sure look dope to the max.” When Gray Redman tried to talk like a kid, it came out sounding like he’d recorded a sound bite from YH1 and dubbed it over his own voice. “All righty then. Anybody who doesn’t want the crappy chair and wack view for the next fifty years needs a career plan.”

The kids had to write five adjectives that described their good qualities, five verbs they were good at or enjoyed, and five nouns they hated. Berry stared at his pad nearly the whole time, then wrote five adjectives that jumped into his head from music he’d sung.

That left verbs and nouns. For verbs, Berry wrote, “sing.” Then, “chant, descant, process, bathe.” For nouns, Berry wrote: “teacher, psychiatrist, bear (he was thinking of the investment bears Marco complained about), testosterone, secrets.” He looked up just as Gray spoke again.

“Sweet. So, act like you know. You want a job where they value those five qualities about you. You want to do the things you like. And you want to avoid the things you hate, at all costs. Those fifteen words are your keys to destiny if you know how to read them. Now who wants to read theirs aloud?” Hands rose, except Berry’s and a few other kids’. Gray called on Sabine, a girl in a turquoise cashmere sweater, leggings, and a hair-twist.

Sabine breathed in. “Well.” She folded her hands in her lap and glanced only briefly at the paper on her desk. “My adjectives were: organized, motivated, playful, creative, and focused. My verbs were: write, draw, power-jog, conceptualize, and empathize. And my nouns: pessimists, dead weights, slackers, phoneys, and bureaucrats.” She smiled wide and tight, leaned back.

“Great list, Sabine. You could be a career counselor yourself, and I totally mean that as a compliment. So what are some other jobs Sabine could have?” People offered advertising, creative writing, journalism, court reporting, and some other things.

Hands climbed again. Other Swans recited their fifteen defining terms. Berry sank deeper into his desk-chair. That shyness grabbed Gray Redman’s attention. “Why don’t we call on someone we haven’t heard from yet? How about you there?” He pointed at Berry. “The brown-haired kid in the baggy sweater. What’s your name?”

“Berry.” It came as a whisper. Already, several Swans giggled. Brandon, an athletic straight-A student, snuck a text message to his friend Todd.

“So Berry. Tell us your five adjectives.”

“Um. The first one was ‘goodly.’”

The class detonated into laughter. Gray laughed a little too, then waved his hand. “Hey, let’s not be mean, here, huh? Goodly. I like that, yo. It’s creative and, you know, unusual. I’m not sure if it’s a real adjective or what. But it’s cool. What else you got?”

Berry’s voice, which could fill a cathedral, barely carried. “Uh. Humble. Uh. Fruitful. Contrite. Many-eyed.” That last word had come to Berry in a final moment of desperation, from an anthem about cherubim and seraphim dancing in Heaven. By now Gray Redman’s half-hearted attempts failed to staunch the laughter hemorrhage.

“Hey,” Gray said. Nobody heard. “Hey. Hey. Kids. It’s good to be different.”

Berry covered his face with his notebook and prayed for Redman to move on to someone else. Berry wasn’t sure he believed in God, but at this moment he would have pledged anything if the supreme being would just step in. If God turned the Swans into locusts, Berry would believe forever. Or if Berry had any real faith, at least this pain would be a martyrdom.