Choir Boy (8 page)

Wherever Berry went, boys talked breasts. They compared the different girls’ developments. Marc said Jee was a “fucking milk cow already,” but Lisa was “stuck with slivers.” Randy liked to cup his thick hands over his own chest and jerk them up and down. None of the girls had jugs like the strippers Berry had seen.

With only cassock and surplice to cover them, Berry thought everybody must be able to see his buds. On Sundays, he had to walk upright and tilt his chest slightly. He looked up at the cathedral’s ceiling fans as he marched into church. His music folder didn’t cover anything. Everyone in church must be staring at Berry’s chest. The thought sickened and thrilled him. Berry felt hazy, pee-blinded and alarmed, like the night he’d drunk a three-liter Coke before bedtime.

Finally he had to ask Wilson, after a service where he’d hardly been able to read notes. “I gotta know. Has anyone noticed?” They leaned against the cathedral wall watching for Lisa. Berry’s question came in the middle of Wilson’s lecture about NASCAR.

“Noticed what?” Wilson scratched his head.

“Nothing.” Berry grinned like a puppy.

“Yes, Berry, we’ve all noticed you’re a retard. Anyway, the point is full-face helmets are for wusses.”

One day after school, Berry didn’t have choir practice or a session with one of his two therapists. He met Maura at a juice bar downtown. She perched on a stool, pastel clad like the world’s smoothest virgin pina colada. Berry wondered if Maura ever got sick of people looking at her, or whether it would bug her if they stopped.

“You keep hugging yourself and bowing like a chilly geisha,” Maura said. “Are you all right?”

“Side effects. Dizzy. Plus, umm . . . these spook me.” Berry unfolded his arms and straightened enough to show contours.

“Trust me, nobody will notice unless they get way bigger. Maybe not even then. People don’t see what they don’t expect. And you can always bind them—get bandages at the drug store. I’ve known trannies who hid breasts C cup and over. And once you look female enough, you can go stealth. Most folks aren’t used to wondering if somebody’s what they seem, so as long as no alarm bells go off, you’re fine.”

“Do you think truth is beauty?” Berry was studying Keats for Rat’s class. “I think you have to believe in the beauty of truth if you present a game show, even more than you have to treasure the prizes and getaways.”

Maura just shrugged.

“I just can’t keep track of who people think I am any more.” Berry slurped his banana-mango smoothie. “Marsha at the Benjamin Clinic thinks I’m a ho.”

“What would be wrong with that?” Maura suddenly sounded upset. It was the first time Berry had seen her anything but breezy.

“What? What did I say? I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings ... What’s wrong?” Panic opened Berry’s arms wide, spilled his secrets into his shirt.

Maura laughed.

“I guess I’m still kind of defensive about it. But seriously, didn’t you ever wonder what I did for a living?”

“I thought you were a student.”

“I go to Hoochie Mama U. I learn on the job,” Maura giggled. “Seriously, I like my job. It’s nice to be appreciated for being different, instead of hated. And I get to meet interesting people and fuck them.” She gave a too-much-infor-mation laugh and tilted her styrofoam cup to let the obstinate clump at the bottom slide down her long, canted neck,

• • •

“Show me what you got,” Marco ordered Berry the next afternoon. “I never hear you sing anymore.”

Berry had his back to Marco, who sat on the couch with his legs spread and his shirt half open. A Roiling Rock sweated in his hand.

Marco sang, in the shower, along with TV commercials before he broke the TV, when he drove Judy’s car, and when he summoned spirits for a client. In the right light, Marco could look like an Italian tenor. He swore his voice had sparkled once. Now it grumbled like a deep fat fryer.

“You never come to church,” Berry told the mandala on the wall.

“Fuck church. I wouldn’t be able to tell anything from hearing a million people singing,” Marco said. “I want to hear your voice by itself.”

“I don’t feel like singing,” Berry mumbled.

“Aw, come on. Anything from Bach to Sinatra to those Backdoor Boys. I’m not picky. I just want to hear your pipes before they get all rusty like mine.”

Sometimes Berry fantasized he’d had an older sister named Sylvia or Mary. Berry’s imaginary sister had been a delicate maiden with hair a shade redder than Berry’s. Her eyes had shone like pulled-over cop car lights—now white, now blue. Sylvia/Mary had looked after Berry while his mom was never home and his dad abnormaled. But then Berry’s dad had scared her off/upset her/thrown her out. Sometimes Berry actually believed Sylvia/Mary had existed and imagined her speeding-ticket eyes watching Marco and him.

“Sorry,” Berry said. “Gotta save my voice for church.” “Okay.” Marco stared at his son’s slender back for a few minutes. His beer went flat against one thigh. “So you want to do something? I’ve got a few hours until my next client. She’s a twofer.”

“What kind?” Berry watched some younger kids play in the empty lot below the window. One boy found Berry’s family’s old ice cream maker and threatened to throw a handful of rust-coated ice cream residue at the other kids.

“Investment and spiritual. She wants to cherry-pick genomics stocks and find her animal guide. We ditched the word ‘totem’ because it makes everybody think of sequoia trunks with Larry King carved into them.”

One of the kids threw the ice cream maker at the wall. Berry remembered when he and his parents had played with that machine, vying to see who could invent the silliest flavor. The winner, Berry’s pistachio anchovy bubble gum, had clogged the works beyond cleaning. Some time later, Marco had thrown the machine through the window mid-tantrum. Berry’s parents had fixed the glass but not the appliance.

Berry glanced over his shoulder at his dad, guessing what bribe the old man would offer. He was torn between what he wanted and what he knew he should want. Teddy would have told Berry to demand porn or another visit to a strip bar. Berry wanted to watch the new Disney movie. He knew he was too old for Disney, and it was better to skew old than young in his tastes. He tried to envision what a grown-up Berry would want. It made Berry sad.

“Take me to the mall,” Berry told the mandala.

Berry and his dad went to the big shopping center a few miles out of town. They parked Judy’s rusty Corolla between SUVs and walked half a mile to the Citadel on the Hill shopping center. “It’s like a church,” Berry told his dad. He looked around the two-tiered structure heaped with clothing stores, accessories, shoes, and game show prizes. Berry imagined getting a makeover here. What would it take to make him look like Maura? Berry pictured continents moving, seas vanishing, to make his face a girl’s. Berry wondered if his dad would consider a makeover male bonding.

“This place doesn’t have any of the things that give a church meaning,” Berry’s dad said.

“Church has meaning because it’s pretty,” Berry said without thinking.

Berry’s dad laughed and said millions of people in history had killed each other over whether that was true. But Berry shouldn’t say that prettier churches meant more than plainer ones or people who went to the plain churches would get mad. Berry sometimes felt his dad still talked to him like a kid. He resented and enjoyed it.

“Do you ever miss being a choirboy?” Berry asked his dad.

“I miss singing. I’ve thought of joining a group. I don’t think I could deal with church. Anyway, I still sing sometimes.” Marco swept his arms wide, as if about to serenade the food court.

“Lots of people sing,” Berry said. “Only a few are choirboys.” They were silent for a while. Berry pictured a photo he’d seen of his dad three decades earlier—a tousled blackhaired boy with a ruffled collar, robe and white mantle, a soulful look in his deep-set eyes.

“I guess I miss it a little,” Marco said.

Berry dragged his dad into the Warner Brothers store. He picked up a pewter Wonder Woman. “Grown men don’t get too many chances to dress up and act fancy.”

“Unless you become a minister. Preachers get to wear pretty things and get all the attention,” said Marco.

“That’s true. They can’t sing, though. But yeah, it must rock pretty hard to be a minister. If I were a dean or a bishop, I’d just have fun and wear the sharpest robes all the time.” Berry’s voice, now boyish, now grown, chirped happily. Wonder Woman languished, forgotten, in Berry’s left hand as he imagined a life of high church fashion. “I wouldn’t worry about anything.”

• • •

“It sounds ludicrous,” Canon Moosehead’s oratorical voice came through Dr. Tamarind’s supposedly soundproof door. “You seem to think Jung is the solution to all my problems.” Berry had rescheduled his appointment with Dr. Tamarind at the last moment, from Thursday to Tuesday because he was being a Pickled Boy in a local production of Britten’s “St. Nicholas Cantata”. So he’d ended up right after Canon Moosehead once again.

Dr. Tamarind spoke too quietly for Berry to hear, then the Canon again: “I know spirituality and sexuality are connected, but. . . no. No. No, I don’t think my anima is overwhelming my animus. I don’t need a what, an anima enema. Yes. Yes, I get your point. I’ll try and think about Jung’s ideas next time I feel my ... getting out of hand. I mean, I’ve tried everything else.”

Berry went downstairs and hid so he wouldn’t be there when Canon Moosehead’s session ended. He wasn’t sure if he did this to spare the Canon or himself.

Berry returned late for his own session. Dr. Tamarind wanted to talk about ritual. “It’s what being a man or woman is all about, the performance, the pageantry, signs and symbols, tokens and types blah blah blah. Tell me, Berry, what do you know about ritual?”

“It’s kinda like the word Ritalin, which is when you can’t pay attention to anything people say to you,” Berry said. Dr. Tamarind talked some more and Berry stared at his feet, which looked too large for his body. After a while, everything Dr. Tamarind said sounded like “biffle.”

That night, after dinner, Berry touched himself again. Instead of staring at the King’s College boys, he closed his eyes and tried to wake sleeping porn images. The magazines he’d seen blurred together, and everything he’d blocked out all day flowed into their place. Rat and Toad, Dr. Tamarind, Marco and Judy all gestured and opened their mouths amid nipples and crotch fuzz. Berry couldn’t stay hard. The images of happy naked people kept fading out.

Then Berry imagined himself undressed in church. He stood by the communion rail and everyone brushed against his chest as they went to receive Eucharist. For some reason, the Berry in the fantasy couldn’t move from the communion rail. This image made Berry spaz and shoot in seconds.

Jackoff fantasies can speak like dreams. The next day, Berry cornered Wilson in the boys’ room.

The choir had its own bathroom, at the bottom of a winding staircase from the back of its rehearsal room. Berry figured the toilet was right under the altar. The tiles on the walls fractured into tusks. The one stall had no door and the toilet inside had no seat. Three urinals flowed into a trough. Berry watched Wilson pee. Wilson talked about Lisa. “You’d think she’d get tired of being so stuck up.”

“Hey,” Berry said. “I got something to show. I got to show someone or I’m about to go nuts.” Wilson finished peeing and turned to look at Berry.

Berry unzipped his poncho and lifted his T-shirt.

“What the hell?” Wilson said.

“They’re still small.” Berry gestured with his free hand at the bumps. “But they’re growing fast.”

“That’s freakish. How did you get these?”

Berry explained about the pills. Wilson whistled. He brought his face near to Berry’s left nipple. Berry squirmed. Nobody who wasn’t a doctor had ever looked so close at a part of his body, and this part still didn’t feel like his. He shimmied until Wilson told him to hold still.

“Jesus,” Wilson said. “Mary and motherfucking Joseph.” Wilson’s breath huffed Berry’s nipple. “This is the first breast I’ve seen up close since the whole teeth and hair thing. Weird weird. Can I touch?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. Just curious.”

“You have to promise not to tell anyone about this.” Wilson drew back as if he balked. Then he raised a sticky hand. “Okay. I’ll keep your secret.” He prodded Berry’s nipple with one finger. Berry jerked. Wilson reached with both hands and squeezed what flesh would separate from ribs. Berry felt his hatchlings stretch.

“Ow,” Berry said, not loud enough to attract anyone else down to the men’s room.

“Shush,” Wilson murmured. “I’m imagining you’re a real girl. I’m feeling your breasts and rounding the bases and it’s all so perfect that luscious doesn’t begin to describe and then I lean in close and put my mouth on yours and ...” Wilson’s lips touched Berry’s. Barely a touch at first, then so hard Berry felt Wilson’s teeth. Berry pushed Wilson off with both hands.

“Hey!” Wilson held his hands out and jumped back. “That wasn’t anything. I didn’t kiss you for real, okay? I was just practicing like you were a girl. You practically are. Holy fuck, you a faggot or what?”

“Wilson, calm down.”

Berry pulled his shirt back down and zipped up his poncho. Wilson already had his hand on the swinging door that led up to the choir room. Berry ran upstairs after Wilson. By the time Berry got out into the choir room, Teddy and some other boys were greeting Wilson by the piano.

“Hey,” Teddy said. “What were you up to down there?” “Just peeing,” Wilson said without looking at Berry. Berry tried to make eye contact with Wilson all through rehearsal, but Wilson always looked at Mr. Allen or his music. Every time Berry closed his lips, he felt the imprint of Wilson’s. After a while, Berry left his lips apart.

“Look at Berry,” Mr. Allen said. “He’s always ready to sing. If you keep your mouth open all the time, breaths come and go without any effort.”

Berry took food to his room and avoided his parents. The next day at school, he decided to pretend he really was an angel as Mrs. Franklin had said. He walked the hallways looking upwards and trod slowly. Berry didn’t really think about Jesus that much, but he thought of the music and stained glass, and all the candy lights, of a Heaven without brutality.