Choir Boy Read Free Page B

He knew it was true.
    On the road to Choir Camp, Berry forgot the summer’s details. What stayed was bleakness he couldn’t investigate. It was tarmac-flat pain with a choral soundtrack, two months without ritual, companionship, or the sung word in person.
    The road leveled and forest became meadow. Finally, Maurice pulled up in front of the Peterman School with a sigh. Berry jumped out of the back of the station wagon and lay on the grass comparing the country sky with the city sky. All around Berry, pebble pathways sliced the tree-specked grass into triangles and rhomboids. It felt good to bust out of the POW cage. The country sky looked bluer and wider.
    The buildings reached with pillar hands and brick legs to embrace Berry.
    Teddy and pals started an Ultimate Frisbee game on the biggest grassy space. Some of the girls went for a nature walk. The men cracked beers. The choir had an hour and a half before Mr. Allen drilled it on Hindemuth and Handel.
    Wilson sat next to Berry on the grass. “I want to go to a high school like this,” he said. “Seems like a good place to spend my last few years.”
    “What made you decide on seventeen?” Berry snared one fat cloud with his eyes and held it.
    “It’s an estimate. I’m all shroudy, like mortality is my jockstrap. Seventeen is the oldest I can imagine living to. It sucks: I get one year when I can drive. I’ll probably be stuck with mom’s ten-year-old Geo. I want to die behind the wheel of a black Monte Carlo like Dale Earnhardt.”
    Lisa Gartner passed. Death and cars fled Wilson’s mind. So thin she wafted instead of walking, she was all long brown hair and linen. She hadn’t joined the other girls on their nature walk.
    Berry waved at Lisa. Wilson just stared. “Hey, you guys. How’s it going?” she said.
    “Good to be back,” Berry said. “I hate summer break. Wilson was just telling me which car he’d like to die driving. How about you?”
    “Some miracle flying car, decades from now.” “Optimist,” Berry said.
    After dinner, the choir had another chance to explore the Peterman campus before bedtime. Berry wanted to be rested for rehearsals, which would start at eight AM and continue all day when the choir wasn’t playing or swimming.
    One change from the previous Choir Camp became obvious the first night. George had become an authority figure. He paid a special visit to the room whose bunks Teddy, Berry, Marc, and Randy occupied. “Okay, you fuckin’ worms. Last year, you just had those pushovers Maurice and Tony watching you. Tony’s only a tenor, for fuck’s sake, and Maurice thinks Puccini is some macho shit. This year it’s gonna be different. You’ve got me to deal with. I know all your little tricks and schemes because I planned most of them last year. This year, no bra-huntin’ on the girls’ floor, no midnight rock climbing, no skinny dipping in the pool or anywhere else. And no talking after lights out. Is that clear?”
    Nobody said anything.
    “Next year, you’ll all be in my shoes, or most likely not in the choir at all,” George reminded the four of them, then killed their lights.
    Teddy yawned. “Won’t be as much of a prick as you.” The next day everyone swam after morning rehearsals. Lisa refused to swim, so Wilson stayed out of the pool too. They sat in folding chairs, her in tennis clothes and him in swimwear like everyone else. She never explained, and people stopped asking. Wilson brought her Cokes and chips, and even used his body to block splashes. Randy and Marc tried to drown Maurice, who clutched a beach ball from their game of keepaway. “Somebody else get on his head,” Marc shouted. “We can’t keep him down by ourselves!” Wilson courted Lisa hard because she was too popular to talk to him at the Quaker day school they both attended in the burbs. “She’s the hot favorite for student body president this year,” Wilson explained to Berry in the boys’ locker room after swimming. “If I