Chapter the Second of Part the First
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Brendan McLish in Chicago, America.
Brendan McLish kept a frantic eye on the street names and addresses of the buildings as the bus lumbered past to make sure he did not miss his stop. He was hoping against hope that he had not taken the wrong direction, in which case he would be hopelessly late for his tryout and might not be given a second chance to join the choir.
Brendan put his hands in his pocket to make sure he had the permission slip signed by his parents allowing him to try out for the choir and, if accepted, join. It wasn’t easy getting that permission. Neither of his parents understood why he wanted to forsake the Congregational Church for an Episcopal Church when he knew nothing about it except that they had a boys’ choir and they wanted choristers. Since his parents only went to church half the time, Brendan did not understand why they should suddenly be so attached to their church. Brendan’s father also could not understand why the children’s choir of their church wasn’t good enough for him anymore. Not that his father ever understood why he wanted to join that choir in the first place. His father could understand Brendan’s being uncomfortable with being one of only four or five boys singing with over twenty girls, but there was no use telling him that the music wasn’t challenging him and that the choir director was the first to suggest that Brendan’s talent would develop much better at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church. That Brendan would join a choir where he would have to sing all the time was as incomprehensible to his father as Brendan’s need to practice the piano one or two hours a day.
There were other logistical problems to overcome. Brendan’s family lived in a northern suburb of Chicago and St. Dunstan’s was well inside the city, much too far for commuting to rehearsals and choral services. He had to make arrangements to live near the church. The choirmaster and his wife were willing to take him in along with a few other boys in similar circumstances but Brendan’s parents did not like to idea of handing their son over to strangers. Brendan had an aunt and uncle who lived close enough to the church that Brendan could get there on the bus, but his parents did not want to impose on them, and besides, why didn’t Brendan want to stay home with them? Brendan wanted to tell his parents that they never gave him the impression that they liked him much since he didn’t play soccer as well as his brother and sister did, but he knew what would happen if he said that. Yet another problem was schooling. He would either have to enroll in a school close to his aunt and uncle’s house or enter a home-schooling program the choir had for choristers. Brendan was attracted to the second alternative but he had difficulty explaining to his parents why the school he already went to wasn’t good enough for him. His mother suggested that he surely wouldn’t want to leave his friends and have to start over, apparently not noticing that Brendan had no friends. If the minister of his church and the director of the children’s choir had not discussed the matter with Brendan’s parents at length, Brendan might not be on the bus he was riding. With their daughter out of the house, Brendan’s aunt and uncle were willing to let him stay in what used to be her room, provided he caused no trouble and did not expect them to drive him from place to place. Brendan promised what they asked with all his heart.
Brendan caught a glimpse of an address number when the bus stopped. He was getting close, provided he was going in the right direction. He kept his eyes peeled for the church and, at last he saw it coming up. He pushed the signal button, dashed to the back door of the bus and hopped off. Only then did he think to make sure he had the right church. To his relief the sign in front of the church read:
ST DUNSTAN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
At least he had found the church. He hoped. It would be just his luck find out that the choir was in a different church of the same name on the other side of town, or that the choir had just been disbanded because a choirboy stuck a piece of bubble gum on the floor of the pulpit just before the sermon. Or, the choirmaster might decide after Brendan sang one scale that he would not do for a choir that needed real singers. Brendan hoped frantically that he would be accepted. Returning home a failure would be worse than unbearable.
Brendan climbed the steps of the church and opened the heavy door. It was dark and spooky inside. As Brendan’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he made out a line of pews and, at the front, a large figure of Christ wearing a crown and stretching out his arms on a cross. The church was quiet and empty. Brendan would have to look elsewhere for instructions as to where to find the choirmaster. Brendan found a door that led into a hallway lined with a thick, light blue carpet. This hallway quickly led to a couple of offices. A secretary was furiously at work at a computer in one of them. Brendan was about to risk interrupting the secretary at her work when he saw a boy wearing a pair of thick glasses sitting on a bench in the hall with his face in a paperback. While Brendan was still making up his mind if he was willing to risk asking to boy for help, the boy marked his place in the book and stood up.
“Are you Brendan McLish?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still want to try out for the choir?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m Luke Kenny. I’ll take you down to the choir room. We have to go down to the pit to get there.”
The boy looked every inch a nerd. His awkward movements made Brendan think that Luke might be one child he could outmaneuver on a soccer field. Brendan’s next thought was to fear that Luke was already thinking that he was the nerdiest boy in the world. Luke took Brendan to the end of the hall to the staircase, down the steps, and along a narrow and dark hall in the basement.
“We call the choir room the dungeon,” said Luke with a friendly smile. “Chet tries not to torture us too much, though.”
Instead of ceilings, there were heating and cooling ducts criss-crossing overhead. The hall seemed to dissolve into a room here and a room there in undefined ways. In one of the rooms, two or three boys were studying.
“Are you spooked out yet?” Luke asked.
“Yea,” said Brendan, surprised that he admitted it to a boy he had just met.
Luke extended a hand to Brendan.
“Shake.”
Brendan shook Luke’s hand, noting that this was the first friendly gesture he could remember receiving from a boy near his age. Brendan heard the sound of playful voices before Luke opened a door into a room filled with congenial mayhem. Some boys were bouncing balls at each other on a ping-pong table, two were playing chess while other boys gave them advice and other boys were sipping water and talking about what movies they liked and hated. A girl was off the side, reading a book. A woman in the corner was keeping a sharp eye on the proceedings. Brendan didn’t think he wanted to get into trouble with her.
“We call this the wreck room, spelled with a ‘w,’” said Luke. “We also have a study room where you have to be quiet and a discussion room where you have to talk.”
A slender, dark-haired man made a show of slamming the ping-pong ball back at the boy opposing him, only to drive the ball straight into the net.
“Chet,” Luke called out to him.
“Yes Luke. Have you brought to me our chorister-hopefully-to-be? It appears that you have. You can take my place in this game. You only inherit a four-point deficit.”
“Thanks.”
The choirmaster extended a hand to Brendan.
“I’m Chet Maxson, your friendly choirmaster. Could you use some water before showing off your voice?”
“Yes.”
“Water, please!” Chet called out.
The boy closest to the water cooler poured out a cup of water and brought it over to Brendan.
“Hi, I’m Davy,” said the boy. “I guess you’re Brendan?”
“Yes.”
“Good luck—you’ll need it,” said Davy with a grin. “Chet’s really going to work you over and then some.”
“Bring your cup and come this way and I will ascertain whether or not you can sing,” said Chet. “Don’t mind Davy. He’s exaggerating . I’ll just work you over but spare you the then some.”
Chet led Brendan through a pair of glass double doors into a room where there was a grand piano and chairs arranged for a choir. The dark green filing cabinets lining the walls and the same network of ducts made the room’s boundaries look as fuzzy as the hallway. Two boys were seated at the piano, playing a hit song Brendan’s parents wouldn’t let him listen to in the house.
“Sorry boys,” said Chet. “I need the piano, useless as it is for matching human voices.”
“Sure.”
Instead of going straight to the piano vacated by the scurrying boys, Chet sat down on one of the chairs and invited Brendan to sit next to him.
“Judging by what you said over the telephone,” said Chet, “you have some interest in singing in the choir of St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church. Is that right?”
“Yes, if you’ll have me.”
“Interest counts for much and willingness to work at music counts for a lot more around here. Have you sung in a choir of any kind?”
“School and the children’s choir at church.”
“Like it?”
“A little. It got boring after a while.”
“Are you in the habit of doing anything musically besides getting bored in the children’s choir?
“Yes. I play the piano and I listen to music. I like Mozart.”
“So do I.”
For quite some time Chet talked with Brendan, finding out that Brendan liked the Beatles and science fiction books and medieval history and Brendan found out that Chet also liked all three. After a while, Brendan was more relaxed than he ever thought he would be at the tryout.
“Do you have a signed permission slip?” Chet asked.
Brendan produced the paper and Chet looked it over carefully.
“Yes, this is in order. Are your parents overjoyed at the prospect of having a son sing in one of the best boychoirs in the Mid-West?”
“No. They think I’ve disowned them.”
Chet sighed.
“I was afraid of that. I should be grateful you wrangled permission out of them, and I am grateful for that. It breaks my heart to see a boy really want to join the choir and not be allowed to. Unfortunately, I sometimes have to defend a talented boy’s right to stay out of the choir when he doesn’t want to join and his parents want him to. I can’t have unhappy campers or the choir will fall apart. Well, let’s get on with the singing. Come over to the piano.” Chet moved over to the piano bench and Brendan stood next to the instrument. “Now, stand up straight—that’s better. Now, sing on ‘mo.’”
Brendan warmed up for some time. He hoped that the high notes didn’t sound too shrill but thought they probably did. When asked to sing something he knew, he sang a song he had learned at church that he almost liked. Then Chet whipped out a piece of music. The text was in Latin and so Brendan had to repeat the Latin after Chet until he could pronounce it. Then he had to sing it. He faltered so badly the first few times that Brendan was afraid he was going to be thrown out on his ear.
“You look more discouraged than you should be,” said Chet. “I’m giving you a harder bit of music to work on than a lot of boys get because I think you can handle it and you are, indeed starting to catch on quite nicely. Note that you just go up the scale for a bit on ‘exsultate’ and then you leap to this higher note an octave above where you started. That means you’ve come home again, only higher. Also—this is tricky—the Latin word has a ‘g’ sound. Think of eggs. Now, try again.”
Brendan tried again, and he did better.
“Very good. I especially congratulate you on hitting the high note so accurately. By the way, can you sing me an A-natural?”
I don’t know.”
“Try it.”
Brendan sang what he thought was the note.
“That’s right—exactly. I’ll have to test you further on this. For now, I want you to sing this phrase again. Treat the first two notes as a spring that will send you leaping up the scale. The words—by the way—have to do with praising God so you ought to sound happy while singing this whether you like it or not. Now, again.”
Brendan sang the phrase again, finding it quite exciting now that he was getting the hang of it.
“Highly excellent,” said Chet. “You have all the right tools and you have demonstrated an ability to learn very quickly. I hope you still want to join the choir because, if you don’t, Martha will have to pull me out of a suicidal depression.
Brendan almost collapsed with relief, since he would have felt suicidal if he had been turned away.
“Uh—yea—I’ll join if you want me.”
“Of course, I want you. As I recall, you said you are staying with some relatives in town within commuting distance. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. And your permission slip also allows for transfer into the Choral Academy, also known as the chorister’s home schooling program, although most of it takes place in the deadly pit underneath the church. The schooling program also includes some brothers and sisters of choristers, so you still have to come to terms with the existence of females in this world. Luke, whom you met on the way in, is the head chorister. He will collect some music for you before the rehearsal starts. In the meantime, you are welcome to challenge any boy to a game of ping-pong or chess or discuss the reasons why the Chicago Cubs did so poorly last year.”
The next hour and a half was a whirl in Brendan’s mind. Luke and several other boys congratulated him warmly for being accepted in the choir. A hefty Afro-American named Miles Maddox offered to teach him the real way to play ping-pong. Mostly Brendan learned new ways of losing. Craig Pafko, one of those boys who appeared to be constantly up to mischief, introduced himself and his mother, who was on duty that afternoon, and his sister Sue, who had to be there because her mother and brother had to be there. Brendan felt a bit sorry for the girl and tried to sound friendly by asking about the book she was reading. She seemed to appreciate the effort and Brendan added one more title to his personal list of books to read.
When a bell hanging outside the choir room was rung, Luke took Brendan into the choir room, opened a drawer of a filing cabinet, and fetched some sheets of music. Somehow, the shadow on the wall behind the cabinet seemed bigger than it should be, especially when Brendan was seeing it out of the corner of his eye. When he looked directly at it, the shadow seemed almost, but not quite, normal. A teen-age boy went up to Brendan and introduced himself as Grant Elliott. Brendan was startled as this was the first time a teenager had ever given him the time of day. Luke whispered into Brendan’s ear that Grant was the head chorister when Luke joined the choir and that he was a legend among treble soloists. Being one of Chet’s top piano students, Grant played the piano at rehearsals when needed.
A loud flourish of chords on the piano put a stop to most of the talking in the room except for a few whispered jokes exchanged as the boys took their places. Brendan was placed between Miles Maddox and a shrimpy boy named Kit Mason. Both boys did their best to be helpful by showing Brendan the place in the music when he lost it. Mostly, Brendan followed along and listened, as Chet told him to, but he joined in softly when he started to get a good idea of how the music should sound.
One anthem they worked on had the word “Hosanna to the Son of David” over and over again. Chet had the boys dig into the music so that it exploded from deep within their guts. The music took on so much fire that Brendan thought he would burn up. Then the boys came in on a high note—Brendan winced at its flatness—and he was not surprised when Chet clapped his hands.
“You’ll never get to a note like that by reaching up for it,” Chet explained. “You have to shoot your mind way above, like a rocket, and come down on top of it—Brendan, I try not to make any demands on you outside of asking you to learn impossibly difficult music in an impossibly short span of time, but I do have to ask you to facilitate the impossible demands I do make on you by giving the task your undivided attention—if you land on top of the note, there is always a chance you will stay there if you aren’t drunk on cherry cokes—Charles! I will have you know that your attentiveness is not so exemplary as to qualify you to laugh at a similar failure on the part of a fellow chorister at his first rehearsal—We’ll take this from the bottom of page five. Luke, give us the note, please.”
Although Brendan had first thought that Chet Maxson was being over-familiar by letting the boys call him by his first name, it was quickly becoming absolutely clear to him who was in charge of everything in the choir room. Brendan was startled to be caught in an act of inattention because he had not realized how distracted he was by the shadows behind the filing cabinets. Sometimes he fancied that a monster was rising up behind them and at other times he thought the wall was opening up into an underground passage of some sort. Chet had the boys sing through the anthem again and, to his surprise, Brendan was starting to catch on to it.
“That’s better,” said Chet. “Now for more emphasis on how to sing the notes, since you’re getting most of the right ones. Note how the musical lines rise up on the words ‘Hosanna to the Son of David.’ That is, the music expresses excitement over Christ’s coming into the world. Even if the prospect does not normally attract you, I require you to be wildly excited at the prospect when you are singing this music.”
By the end of the rehearsal, Brendan had the feeling that he had lived a whole lifetime since being led down to the “dungeon” by Luke Kenney. When he put his music folder in its slot that already had his name inscribed on it by Mrs. Pafko, Brendan looked over at the nearby filing cabinets. Close up, the shadows didn’t seem to be unusual in any way.
“Brendan McLish!” Chet called out.
“Yes?”
“Except for that lapse of attention for which I am sure you have repented, you did very well for a first rehearsal. I look forward to hearing your voice for the next few years.
“Thank you,” Brendan mumbled, not used to receiving compliments from anyone.
“Report at the church for schooling at nine o’clock sharp. Mrs. Pafko will get you fitted for your cassock and blazer then.”
“Uh—a blazer? I don’t think my dad wants to spend that kind of money to keep me in the choir.”
“Yes, that’s what I hear,” said Chet. “Fortunately, the choir program is funded by an endowment that pays these expenses. That’s why we can offer you the home schooling program.”
“Okay,” said Brendan, relieved that he wasn’t going to lose out on the chance to sing in the choir at the last minute, but ashamed that his father didn’t want to help out at all when he really could.
Outside the door, Brendan found Luke waiting for him.
“Nice going,” said Luke.
“Uh—thank you,” said Brendan, flustered even more by being complimented by a boy close to his age.
“Does the corner of the choir room look spooky to you?” Luke asked.
“Yea,” Brendan answered, then hoped he had not lost face to the first boy ever to say a good word to him.
Luke extended a hand towards Brendan.
“Shake.”
Proceed to Chapter the Third of Part the First