Choir Boy (17 page)

Berry had his robes in a big shopping bag, pinker than the others after the bathtub laundry. He hoped nobody would notice.

“Do you think we’re going to pull off this record?” Wilson asked, suddenly friendly again.

Berry shrugged. “The choir’s never sounded so good. But you never know when another of us is going to open his mouth and let out a Jimi Hendrix solo.”

Wilson nudged Berry’s leg. “Except you.”

Berry twitched. “We’ll see.”

“You know, you got the rest of your life to think about, even if you make this last another year or two,” said Wilson.

“Two years is a long time,” said Berry. “You’re supposed to be dead in four, right?”

Berry felt less and less sure of his choices lately. The costs seemed higher than he expected, and the better he sang, the scarier it all went. All of a sudden, his voice was a public concern. Teddy brought water and asked him how the pipes were holding up. Randy and Marc let the Geese know that bullies could do what they wanted to Berry and he was under nobody’s protection, but if anyone made him scream or damaged his singing ability, they’d suffer. This made life easier for Berry in some ways, but it also made him seem more delicate and a prime fucking-with target.

Berry missed Lisa. His bandages chafed under his armpits and around his rib cage, and his crotch still stung sometimes. Every time Berry went to the locker room or crashed into someone in the hallway, he cringed at the fear they’d learn the truth. The moment where he put on his washed-out robes and lined up with the others still made it all worthwhile.

Maura and Lisa sat apart in the congregation. Lisa sat with her mom, who was grim in a drab suit and tight-but-large hairdo. Lisa wore a long, navy blue dress. Maura sat alone among the most distinguished parishioners, laughing with one hand over her mouth. The young man in a suit next to her laughed too, hand over mouth and eyes askance.

Berry took all this in while singing the first hymn. When he got to the choirstalls at the front, he noticed Canon Moosehead wasn’t there.

The service went smoothly for once. Mr. Allen conducted from the organ bench by jerking his head in his mirror. Dean Jackson gave a sermon about the end of the world. He said humanity still schemed to erase itself, but in any case worlds ended all the time and we should see these “mini-apocalypses” for the moments of truth they were or the real end of days would catch us flat-assed. Berry shot Wilson a glance. Wilson yawned dramatically.

After church, Wilson didn’t want to talk to Maura, who loitered out front. Berry didn’t mind talking to Maura, but he really wanted to catch Lisa. He and Wilson both found Lisa studying the church bulletin board as if bingo or Hungry Souls revved her pulse. “My mom’s just gone to the ladies,” she told Berry and Wilson.

“Haven’t seen you lately,” said Wilson.

“Been kinda grounded,” Lisa said. “Long story.” She kept her eyes on the bulletin.

“Sorry,” said Berry.

“Not your fault,” said Lisa.

“So. End of the world,” said Wilson.

“Did that make any sense to you?” asked Lisa.

“Sort of. You’ve got a religion based on an apocalypse that refuses to happen,” said Wilson. “So you have to redefine your terms. Maybe the end already happened a bunch of times and nobody noticed.”

Berry really wanted to talk to Lisa alone. But Wilson wasn’t about to leave. “We’re going to record the choir,” Berry told Lisa. “Big high-pressure make-or-break star-is-born event.”

A clot of churchgoers further down the hall broke up to let a burst of sequins, rayon, and nylon pass. One member of the Downtown Association stayed against the wall long after Maura passed, as if afraid she’d come back. He glanced at his friends, as if mourning the fact that Canon Moosehead hadn’t kept his noodles long enough to save the cathedral from riffraff. Maura ignored the glares and kissed Berry on both cheeks.

“Oh great,” said Lisa. “The ’shroom queen.”

“Hey,” Maura said, as if she hadn’t heard Lisa. “How you guys doing?”

“Not bad,” said Berry. He thought of something his mom had said: Why does someone so much older want to hang with you? Isn’t that weird or sad? He thought about all the times Maura had hung around the clinic waiting for his appointment to end, or showed up for church.

“I’d better find my mom,” Lisa said.

“What’s with her?” Maura asked after Lisa left.

“The whole being stranded in the overgrown slum garden thing,” said Berry. “She’s having a hard time putting it behind her.”

“I’d better steal cookies,” said Wilson. He left too. Maura leaned against the wall next to Berry, taking her weight off her high heels. “Haven’t seen you.”

Berry pulled away from her. “My mom told me not to hang with you. I’m trying not to piss her off. Things are all
Girl, Interrupted
at home. Anyway, don’t you have any friends your own age?” Berry demanded.

“Sweetie, I have friends of all ages,” Maura said. “You’ve met some of them. But this is different.”

“Why?”

“Let’s take a walk,” Maura said. “Don’t worry. We won’t go far, you won’t get lost, and I’ll have you home for milk and cookies.”

Berry saw few other people. Even on the main drag where restaurants slept, shops locked and dark in the afternoon sun. Berry pulled up the collar of his choir blazer to keep the wind off his neck.

“You have to understand,” Maura said. “I went through six years of Hell before I started hormones. I ran the whole teen obstacle course as a boy. My body changed and kept changing. All for the worse. Hair where I didn’t want it, big arms and shoulders and hands, big ugly feet. Every spurt, my body said ‘fuck off and die.’ Meanwhile, I suffered adolescence in a boy’s body. We brawled, we yelled, we sported, we jostled for girls. I had to act like a maniac to survive. Changes happened that I can never undo.” Maura held her hands, knuckles out, in Berry’s face. “Show me how to shrink these.”

“I don’t know,” Berry said. “They’re not so big.”

“I can’t imagine living for decades as a man before making the change,” Maura said. “Six years was eternity enough. Baby, you have no clue what’s coming. The worst you’ve endured so far is squat. Fucking nothing. If I can save you from some of that. . . help you go all the way and become a girl ... I promised myself to save others if I could.”

“That’s your way,” Berry said. “Not mine.” He thought
The world ends all the time, in secret.

“It’s yours too. You chose, now you have cold feet. You’re me, seven years ago. I didn’t know what I wanted back then either.”

“Even if I wanted to, how would I become a girl? Everyone would know.”

“You could start high school as a girl. Where they don’t know you, or just explain to your classmates this is who you are now. People tolerate us more and more.”

“And I’d help them learn to tolerate others by being a big public deal and getting sliced,” said Berry.

“You could go stealth. Like I said, find a school where they don’t know you. Get that M changed to an F on your transcript. Nobody will know.”

“Except I’d have a dick.”

“By high school, it could be gone.”

Berry didn’t know what to say to that. Fie stared down at his crotch for a few moments. He couldn’t imagine being dick-naked, blank between his legs, and thinking of it made him feel like he’d drunk the Bishop’s punch. Finally he said, “My balls would look pretty weird without a dick over them.”

“They’d be gone too.”

They passed a fast-food joint that miraculously served customers in the weekend-narcoleptic downtown. Berry suddenly wanted a milkshake. He turned and entered. Maura trailed, examined leaflets about the nutritional content of burgers and fries. “Only 59 percent fat,” she called after Berry.

Berry got a coffee milkshake. Back on the street he said, “How would I nuke my privates anyway?”

“I’ve told you before.” Maura borrowed Berry’s shake and slurped some. “Dr. Tamarind would prescribe it. You just need to convince insurance or someone else to pay for it. Or you raise the money somehow.”

Berry thought he knew how Maura expected him to raise the money.

“I don’t think I could convince Dr. Tamarind to order that surgery,” Berry said. “He doesn’t even know about all the pills I’ve been taking.”

Maura dropped Berry’s milkshake on the ground. It spilled, but a few inches remained. She grabbed the messy wax-paper cup and held it out to Berry, who shook his head.

“Damn! Sorry about your drink, but damn! Girl, what do you talk to him about, anyway?” Maura dumped the milkshake cup in the trash and wiped her hands.

“Uh ...” Berry thought. “Fish, cars, stuff. The influence of Phoenician traders on classical Greek culture. Books I’ve read. My weird parents. You’ve met them, there’s lots to say. Singing. Vibrato. The right tempo for ‘Beati Quorum Via,’ some people rush it. You know, all that stuff. But I don’t want him to know about everything that’s going on with me.” Maura shook her head. “You don’t want anyone to know you. You’re a bundle of secrets.”

Berry felt as if he’d been called a bundle of worms. “Berry.” Maura put took Berry’s free hand in both of hers. “Give me a chance to show you. What life is like as a girl. You’ve never even tried it.”

Berry said he’d think about it.

When Berry got home the apartment was empty. A big sombrero full of candy sat on the sofa, where Maura had death-gripped Berry’s arm the other night. Berry tried one of the chocolates but it tasted weird and bitter on the inside so he spat it into the trash. Berry read some of
The Man

Without Qualities
and then looked over some of the music they were readying for the big fall concert.

The phone rang. Berry almost let it go, figuring it was one of Marco’s gardening/spiritual clients. Then he grabbed it on the third jangle. “Can I talk to Berry?” Lisa said.

“Hey,” Berry said. “I’m uh glad you called.”

“Hey. Like, uh . . . You know I’m . . . sorry I acted all Mariah today and lately. ”

“Sure.”

“My friends gave me shit for hanging with you. And my parents have been acting extra amped. Mom keeps having struggle sessions with me. That’s where they pray over you, it can be intense. And Dad ...” Berry heard silence, or not exactly silence. The creeping of telephone circuits, the music of switchboard traffic.

Berry wondered if the chocolates in the hat were really Mexican jumping beans and whether he’d die from eating one. It hadn’t jumped in his hand. “Berry,” Lisa said. “I really like you. A lot. And I think it’s great you’re so brave and don’t care what people think of you and stuff.”

Berry sat next to the sombrero. He wasn’t sure what Lisa was talking about.

“I’m not that brave,” she went on. “I just want to be popular. When people thought you were my boyfriend, it got . . . intense. I was trippin’.”

“I never told anyone I was your boyfriend.”

“I know. I really want to be friends. At church and hanging out and stuff.”

“That’s cool. I really don’t want a girlfriend right now.” Berry felt like he’d sweated out a fever.

“Cool. Friends?”

“Friends.”

“I’m only half grounded now. Can you get to the big mall out near Farming Hill?”

Berry looked at the clock. It was a little after three. “There’s a bus,” he said. “I don’t know how often it runs. And I gotta be back here for dinner.”

“I could get my mom to give you a ride home if we met at the mall.”

“I thought your mom didn’t like me.”

“She doesn’t like me going with boys period. It helps if I say you’re from church, but ...” Long spell of silence. “What would really help is if you weren’t a boy.”

“What?”

“She’d never know. Just don’t hide what you got and you’d be a total girl.”

“What if I see someone I know?”

“At the mall out here?”

“I have a mustache.”

“You have fuzz. Lots of girls with your coloring have worse.”

First Maura, now Lisa. Berry felt gangbanged. “What would I wear? I don’t have any girl stuff.”

“Dunno. T-shirt and jeans. That’s what I’ll wear.”

“I don’t know.” Berry wondered if they lynched people at malls.

“Nobody will know. I promise. If you do this, we can hang out all the time. I would be so thrilled.”

“I thought the whole me having breasts thing was, like, freaky to you.”

“A boyfriend with breasts would be wack. But all my friend friends have titties.”

“Do you like being a girl?”

“I’m not sure. I guess. I don’t really have anything to compare it to. Look, just ride the bus to the mall with your boobies all bandaged, and then you can unwrap in the bathroom when you get there. I totally promise you nothing bad will happen.”

“Okay. Maybe. I’ll see you there.” They arranged to meet at the food court around four. The whole time on the bus, Berry drummed on his knees. He felt as though he hadn’t blinked in a week, hadn’t swallowed in a month. The bus quivered as it took Berry away from his neighborhood into the suburbs. When he arrived, Berry almost caught the bus home.

Berry stuffed his bandages in his knapsack then studied himself in the boys room mirror. In his baggy jeans and a tight T-shirt, he could be a wannabe J-Lo dancer. Nothing had changed but the shape of his chest. His neck-length hair, his soft mouth, his small hands, all could play female. But Berry still felt like an imposter waiting to be spotted. Then he realized he was standing in the boys room with his tits loose. He ran out and lost himself in the crowd, circling to erase any connection between the girl he was now and the boy who’d entered the boys room.

“This is Berry. Like the fruit.”

Lisa’s mom didn’t recognize Berry from church. Instead she just wrinkled her nose at the
party mob
T-shirt. She agreed to meet them in an hour and a half back at the food court.

“The first thing you need is a bra,” Lisa said as soon as they’d left her mom behind.

“I don’t have any money,” Berry protested once Lisa and he were alone.

“It’s cool,” Lisa said. “I’ll spot.”

Lisa led Berry to one of the big department stores and found the junior misses department with rows and rows of denim skirts and skimpy tops that said, Hey, I’ve got a rack. Berry’s huge-seeming chest fit into a B cup bra. After trying a few, he found one that he and Lisa both thought would be okay. Berry sang under his breath. Every second he expected to see someone from church or school. A lot of church people did live near here and the mall attracted people from all over, but nobody seemed to notice two more teen girls shopping.