Choir Boy (3 page)

After dinner the second day, Wilson and Berry joined the cool boys for cigarettes. They sat on an old porch out back of the big brick building with the auditorium and cafeteria, watching the evening sun on the football field. “We shouldn’t really be smoking these,” said Wilson between drags. “They fuck your voice.”

“Yeah,” said Teddy. “We bad. Paranoia self-destroya.” All five boys on that porch were some flavor of thirteen. Wilson was thirteen and a third, Teddy nearly fourteen.

“So I say blow off rehearsals tomorrow and head into town,” said Randy. “We need porn and booze. Bet Teddy here looks old enough. The used bookstore off the main strip sells porn to anyone.”

Shock singed the roof of Berry’s mouth worse than tobacco. “How can you skip rehearsals at Choir Camp?”

Marc laughed. “Hey, it’s our last summer here as boys. You want to spend it singing?”

Berry snuffed his unsmoked cigarette and wandered off. He ran into Lisa in the least well lit part of campus. The darkness in that spot felt different than city or suburb darkness. It ate faces and colors in a way gloom around malls or convenience stores couldn’t.

“You enjoying camp?” Berry asked.

“I guess. The girls’ choir is kind of a joke. You guys rehearse till you drop. We learn a few chants.”

“So you get to hang around campus more. Play sports. Go swimming.” He realized his mistake. “Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay. Hey, you read a lot. Ever hear of Roland Montreux?” She spelled the last name.

“No. Why?”

“No reason. Just curious.”

That night, George came to the room Berry shared with the cool kids while they huddled and listened to Outkast. “I know what you’re planning. Everything you’re thinking,” George told them.

“Mind reader, huh.” Randy clucked.

“Thinking of ways to fuck with Canon Moosehead. He arrives in a couple days,” said Marc.

“Oh,” said George. “Oh. In that case, I’m in. I thought you were up to something bad.”

The guys brainstormed late. They sent two of the younger boys out for sodas. Marc shot down lame ideas like whoopee cushions, exploding crucifixes or Tabasco communion wafers. “Fuck this,” George said. “Shoulda known you guys would have boy ideas. This needs Man Thought.” “Wait. I got it,” said Marc. “I brought something with me on the off chance. Stole it from my dad.” He rummaged his gym bag until he found an amber pill bottle. He handed it to George. “This too boyish for ya?”

“Fuckin’ A.” George squinted at the label. He scratched his buzz cut. “What you bring this for?”

“Come in handy.”

“What is it, G?” Teddy asked.

“See for yourself.” George tossed the bottle to Teddy. He read the label and laughed so hard he blew snot. He swatted his bunk bed in two/four time.

Wilson crawled on the bed and looked over Teddy’s shoulder. “Viagra. Food of the limp-dick gods.”

“So like, we slip two or three or four of those into his coffee an hour before he officiates at Wednesday’s Evensong. Then we watch the fun,” said Marc.

“I thought you already had to be turned on for that stuff to work,” George said.

“Dunno,” Marc said. “My cousin’s boyfriend got paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident. She says it’s rocket fuel, even if he still doesn’t feel much. Besides, just makes it more interesting if he takes it and it works.”

Every boy and George swore secrecy. They used a thumb tack to prick each finger and rubbed it on the same stolen tampon. “Nobody better have AIDS or Pma kick your ass,” Teddy said. Then George went back to menacing his former comrades with whoopass if they screwed around. Wilson and the other boys went back to their rooms.

The next morning, four boys missed rehearsals. “Prolly got caught in traffic,” Mr. Allen joked. But when Teddy, Marc, Randy, and Wilson turned up at lunch, Maurice grabbed Teddy’s collar with a huge hand. “Get your shit. We’re going back to the city.” Maurice and George made a big show of herding the four boys to Maurice’s station wagon until they promised not to blow off any more rehearsals.

That afternoon, Berry joined Lisa and Wilson poolside. They all wore bathing suits, even Lisa. They ignored the chlorine smell and pool violence. “So, like, which is worse: losing real innocence or just losing the look of innocence?” Berry asked.

Nobody answered for a while.

“Depends,” Lisa said. “There’s, you know, more than one kind of innocence.”

“Innocent people don’t see themselves as innocent,” Wilson said. “But people who look innocent know it. So maybe losing an innocent mask is way worse than losing the real thing.”

“I’ve never been innocent,” Lisa said. Neither had the two boys.

“Think fast! ” Teddy and Marc cannonballed at once into the pool right in front of the three dry holdouts. Wilson tried to block the tsunami for Lisa, but too late. Soggy spots appeared on her top.

“Shit!” Wilson yelled. “I’m sorry—those assholes—I tried—”

“It’s okay,” Lisa said. “I’m waterproof.”

“Real mature,” a black-eyed girl named Julie told Marc when he surfaced across the pool. Her face shone beneath her sky-blue bathing cap. “Real clever.” Marc looked away from her.

The girls gave Lisa a towel and led her off to the girls locker room to clean up. Berry and Wilson didn’t see her for the rest of the day.

Afternoon rehearsal came. Mr. Allen almost whispered, as if he stood on a mountainside that speech might dislodge.

He understood all about using surges and ebbs in volume for effect. He made the choir point its feet and extend its necks to hear. Wilson and the cool kids trembled most of all.

“And I saw anew. My soul doth magnify. Let all mortal flesh. Before him stand the. I give you anew. For we like sheep,” Mr. Allen breathed.

The choirboys giggled at that last sentence fragment, as Mr. Allen knew they would. His eyes seared them until they shut up. Silence wrapped the chapel in a marble-and-glass towel.

“None of those phrases says much without the stuff at the end,” said Mr. Allen. “They all lead up to something important. When I flounder my hands around, I’m trying to make you people think about phrasing. It’s the difference between hitting notes and musicianship.” Berry had heard this lesson before, but the low voice and Mr. Allen’s expression said rage. It made Berry want to giggle or beg forgiveness. He felt terror on either side.

“For now—you guys have a little power,” Mr. Allen said after a long silence. “I’ve got a week to teach you how to harness it and make it count. For once, we have time for stuff besides learning notes. But if you people just want to goof off, please let me know so I can go back to town early. I have other things to do with my life.”

Nobody spoke. Berry knew Mr. Allen was just proving he really could play the choir like an instrument. And it didn’t matter. Berry still would have thrown himself in front of a runaway grand piano for Mr. Allen, and so would anyone else in the room.

“Frisbee!” Canon Moosehead’s voice echoed around the quad on Wednesday. Berry sat under a tree memorizing a Thomas Weelkes anthem. Most of the other boys played Ultimate in the next quad. The Canon’s voice cracked like leather on wood, “The church raised $7,432 to send you boys here, money that could have gone to the Bell Tower Fund, and now you’re playing Frisbee! Aren’t you supposed to be singing?” Berry walked to the quad just in time to see the boys, who’d rehearsed all morning, point at their mouths and mime laryngitis. “And why aren’t there any girls playing? We won’t have that sort of patriarchal crap with Frisbee, even if we allow it in your choir,” said the Canon. The boys just made fake sign language.

Over lunch, the Canon sat at the biggest table and lectured about the importance of gender-neutral prayers and the cathedral’s relationship with the city. Marc sat at the next table and made barfing signs as the Canon explained he didn’t oppose the Hungry Souls kitchen on principle. “Attracting those sort of people to the neighborhood only encourages urban blight, which is a greater harm than hunger.” Then Canon Moosehead asked Mr. Allen what sensitivity training the choir received. “Every one of these doll-faced boys is a rapist in waiting,” Canon Moosehead told the hall. “As a feminist, Pd like this male-dominated institution brought into the new millennium.”

Marc tapped the pill bottle in his khaki shorts pocket, so it made a maraca noise that only the people nearest could hear.

Wednesday afternoon, three girls jumped Wilson on his way to the pool. “We need to talk to you,” said Julie. The other two, Jee and Becky, jerked their heads at the school library. They wore matching tank tops, scrunchies, and sandals.

“Can Berry come?” Wilson asked.

They conferred. Then nodded. “But he can’t talk,” Jee said. Choir Boy    24

They led Berry and Wilson to a balcony overlooking the main library. Books on the history of religion and mythology lived in their own alcove, and a couple of study tables perched by the railing. Lisa sat behind one table. She didn’t stand or speak when the girls herded Berry and Wilson to seats facing hers. Jee, Becky, and Julie pulled up chairs facing the boys.

“Wilson,” said Julie. “We’re here to consider your desire to become Lisa’s boyfriend. We’ll accept that your proposal is in good faith and you understand what this involves.” “Lisa, what’s the deal here?” Wilson said.

Julie leaned across the table, red-dyed hair flopping. “You’ll talk to me if you have something to say. Now why don’t you tell us why you deserve to date Lisa?”

Wilson looked at Berry. Berry widened his eyes. Wilson snorted. Julie smacked gum. Becky twisted her hair around a pencil and then let go, breeding friz. Lisa stared at her hands. Berry scanned the spines of the religion texts. Berry felt trapped in this tiny balcony that smelled of paste. He felt crowded, the way he often did when he was alone with kids his own age.

“Well,” Wilson said. “I really like Lisa. I think I could be good for her.”

Julie and Becky shared amused looks.

“Yes, but what about compatibility? Are you mature enough?”

“I’m the same age as her,” Wilson said. “We go to the same school. I see her at church.”

“You may be the same age, but everybody knows girls mature faster than boys,” said Jee. “Lisa needs someone older who can treat her special and lend her his jacket on cold nights and shit. Someone who doesn’t still sing soprano, you get me.”

“I have a jacket,” Wilson said.

“We’re just thinking of what’s best for Lisa,” said Becky. “We like you, Wilson. If it was up to me, I’d say go for it.”

“And let’s not even drag in the alky dad,” said Julie. “I heard he does body slams at poetry slams.” The other girls gave Julie a “low blow” look.

Wilson rose and slunk away. Berry stepped around the girls, snagged a couple of theology books, and ran after Wilson. He caught up with Wilson halfway across the quad.

“Tell me I’m better off,” Wilson ordered Berry,

Berry obeyed.

“Lying fuck,” Wilson peeped.

“Girls can be mean,” Berry said. “Boys are so much easier to cope with.”

Something smacked Berry in the back of the head. A rocket launcher valentine. He went down on the joints of his palms, flashes in his eyes. The flying object fell near him, and through the raver glaze Berry saw a hymnal. It fell open to “Come Down, O Love Divine,” one of Berry’s favorite hymns. Another hymnal careened past Wilson’s head. “You throw for shit,” Wilson said.

“Hey Berry, think fast,” shouted Teddy.

Berry rolled just in time to save his ribs from a falling lectern. Its golden eagle head plowed into the turf. Then a ring of boys stood over him. “Hey, Berry. No hard feelings. Llere, let me help you up,” Teddy said. He held out a hand and pulled Berry to his feet. Then he kicked Berry’s legs out from under him. This happened a couple of times. Berry rolled away and stood without help. He noticed Wilson walking away alone. “I gotta catch up with Wilson,” Berry said.

“Not now. It’s almost time for Evensong, and we need your help,” Teddy said. “We gotta distract Canon Moosehead. You’re the most distracting person we know.” Berry almost sat back down on the grass.

Berry caught up with Canon Moosehead in the cafeteria drinking coffee. “Hey,” Berry said. “I had this book to show you. It’s about Christianity without Jesus.” He motioned the Canon over to the table nearest the window, where he’d spread out
The Sea of Faith.

“Can’t you bring it over here?” the Canon asked. Berry shook his head.

“The light’s better over here.” Berry stood by the book at the window. Then the Canon reluctantly walked over, but brought his coffee mug with him. Berry told Canon all about the book’s author, a minister who didn’t believe in God. “He says God is just an idea we invented to, uh, explain why we need morals.” Berry used up all his words. He mumbled something else.

Berry stopped mid-sentence. A hymnal flew past the window. Smoke streamed behind it, and crimson flame rose from its pages. It was probably the same hymnal that had left an anthill on the back of Berry’s head. “What the . . . What was that?” the Canon barked.

“Um, I think it was the Hymnal 1982,” Berry said. “The Hymnal 1940 has a darker cover.”

The Canon ran outside, leaving his coffee. Teddy and Marc sprinted in. “You suck at distracting people,” Marc told Berry. He poured blue pills on the table. “How many? Three or four?”

“Just hurry,” Teddy said.

Marc crushed four pills under a salt shaker. He swept the results into the Canon’s coffee and stirred. Then he and Teddy ran away, leaving Berry with his book.

Canon Moosehead returned a moment later. He had soot on his shoes and hands. “Your fellow choristers aren’t studying theology,” he said. He swigged. “The amount we pay to rent this school, you’d think they’d supply decent coffee,” he snarled. He chugged some more. “Anyway. What was it?”

“Does Christianity need God?”

“Saying that God’s only purpose is to inspire ethics is putting the buggy before the mule,” the Canon said. He guzzled coffee. “Ethics exist for the same reason you and I wear robes and prance: to bring people to God. When people start thinking of God in terms of Thou Shalt Not or Thou Must, they get turned off.” He raised the mug. “My aim is to turn them on,” last sip, “to God by being more relevant to the twenty-first century. Does that help?”