It’s strange to think on those early days. I wasn’t
sure whether I was delusional or just plain naïve.
They don’t
know ya and don’t wanna know ya
, kept echoing in my jaded young
soul. However, Viv never had formed a close relationship, not even
with that wraith who was my father. Instead, my mind vibrated a new
mantra.
God, please let this one be the one.
Matt seemed to
be so. We never analyzed the situation. There was no extended
conversation about fidelity or
where’s this thing going
or
what’s the next step
. I just sort of . . .
moved in
and after two months, I was spending more time in Matt’s place than
in mine, despite the draw of the vacuum broom.
At work, I would muse over the counter, Matt’s image
lingering even when Russ stopped by to bust my chops. Are you still
with that cowboy? The gang in The Cavern misses you. Don’t forget
we have our first rehearsal next week or are you completely going
gaga? I wouldn’t miss the rehearsal. Singing was as much in my
blood as Matt was. As for
The Cavern
. . . I did miss that,
but fully expected to get back there . . . soon. For the most part,
I had ignored Russ’ queenie jealousy, because that’s what it was.
He never had anything as staid as a boyfriend.
I had never counted the minutes ‘til closing before.
I always liked to linger over the shirt counters and even brush by
and visit with the linens, but now I was out of the mall like a
bat. Some evenings I stopped off at my place for some clean clothes
and the mail, but I needed to get to Matt’s to exercise my key
privilege. A key. Imagine that. Some guy had given me his key. And
then, he would be there. Not the cowboy with the tight jeans and
leather jacket, but the blue-eyed computer geek with the five
o’clock shadow and the three piece suit and a different tie every
day, and never that ugly purple tie. Although that was mine, I
brought it over and hung it among the
normal
ones. I had
suggested that he wear it occasionally to break the ice over the
water cooler.
You’d like that, wouldn’t you,
he would say,
managing his vest and the double-breasted suit. I knew that suit.
Many mornings I helped him dress, and finish him off with a knotted
tie, a gentle slide and a kiss.
Always be my pumpkin
, he'd
say. His pumpkin . . . he’d say that . . . he would.
Excuse me. Just a minute.
Yes, that’s what he called me . . . his pumpkin.
I’m back.
Things were settling in, I’d say. However, our lives
still needed the old oxygen. Matt needed his family — every Sunday
for dinner; and his work, which he brought home more nights than
not. There were days I cursed both the Kielers and Axum Labs. Both
took a slice of Matt away from me, but I guess that was just a
measure of our progress. I didn’t go to the family dinners with him
— at least not every Sunday. He never fought me on this, but there
was always an invitation from mother Kieler and regret from sister
Mary. I would have liked to get to know Mary better. As for Axum
Labs, that was an invasion of the bedroom, where the monster
equipment huddled in the corner — a conspiracy, as it spied on us
all night. Often I sat alone in the living room watching StarTrek
reruns or Jeopardy while Matt pounded on the keyboard. I thought to
take up knitting. I know if I were in my apartment, I would be
sorting the kitchen drawers, but there was no help for it. When I
complained, Matt just shrugged and said,
it’s work and it’ll pay
for another one of those pretty posters.
I also knew that Matt
needed time to himself. Sometimes I heard him gently weeping and I
knew that memories of Luis hovered. I was not about to intrude on
those. The fastest way for the new wife to become the new nag was
to try to compete with or expunge the old wife. What was a girl to
do?
So when the rehearsal season rolled in for the New
Jersey Gay Sparrows, I was ready. I wanted Matt to join the group,
but he declared that he was a better listener than a warbler. I was
disappointed, because I wanted to share this experience with him.
But there were borders we couldn’t cross. He couldn’t sing and I
couldn’t understand that damned computer. So I left him to his own
devices on Wednesday nights, when I drove to Princeton for the
thing I did best in this world — do dire battle with a bunch of
singing queens for the title
best little warbler in the bird
cage.
The Presbyterian Church on Nassau Street had been
standing on the Princeton University campus for as long as that
campus whispered across the mid-Jersey plains. Its tall white spire
lorded over the campus, a campus that I loved. I could have never
thrived there as a scholar in such rarified air. However, I’m no
dope. I’ve always been an avid reader, but a student? I didn’t have
the chops. However, I’m an incurable romantic and Princeton, with
its cerebral turrets and academic temples and scholastic lanes and
gargoyles, was just the place for a romantic. I might not be able
to conjugate Latin verbs or discover the formula for making pigs
fly, but if I were ever turned inside out, Princeton would spring
from my guts. There is nothing like early springtime in Princeton,
when the men flock to the dorm houses, wearing less and less as the
humidity heightened.
The New Jersey Gay Sparrows started out in a
different location — an old farm house in West Windsor, somewhere
hidden from public view, because when one forms a
gay
chorus, no one comes unless they are assured anonymity. The
original sixteen members, many gone now through attrition,
political battles and illness, formed a sweet bunch of tweeters
called the Central Jersey Men’s Choir. The Jersey Sparrow thing
didn’t get going for a while, and until our audience decided that
listening to an obviously gay chorus that hid behind a bland,
closeted name was a sell-out. The
Gay
word was in and out
depending on the concert and the venue, but by the time we began
rehearsing at the White Church, it was
in.
I always thought
it a hoot that the state’s first GALA mens chorus would sprout up
and take root in conservative Princeton. But there you are. We were
stars to the Laura Ashley crowd, who’d line the pews flouting their
newfound liberalism on their puffy blouses and Easter Parade hats.
Of course, the audience was peppered with the gay community also —
a reserved pew for drag queens, a contingent of bikers and here and
there a coterie of collegiate chaps fanning each other with the
program and evaluating the ushers’ butts.
I joined the group in full flight and claimed to be
the youngest member, and indeed had the best voice. Gerry, our
director, had recruited me in a bar — I believe it was
The
Den
on karaoke night. He asked me if I read music, to which I
immediately lied and said,
why yes.
I do all right in that
area . . . now, and I immediately inflamed the jealousies of the
other tenors when Gerry gave me a solo on the first night. It was
that old Scottish favorite,
Loch Lomond
, and hon, I took the
high road. I will say I was nervous at our first concert and missed
my cue, which delighted that
prima donna
Jasper, but the
audience ate it up and the rest is Gay Jersey Sparrow history.
“Hi, all,” I shouted coming over the threshold of
the upstairs rehearsal hall. I fully expected a round of acclaim,
but instead I was mauled by the Otterson crowd — Padgett and
Todd.
“Who is this masked stranger?” Padgett asked.
“I hear he’s found himself a buckaroo,” Todd
chortled. “We were all deciding who would take your solos this
season.”
Jasper, who was always keen to that subject, nodded
and sneered at me simultaneously.
“No chance of that,” I said.
The rehearsal hall was a nice size, set with three
rows of folding chairs arranged in four sections — first tenor,
second tenor, baritone and bass. Of course, first tenors and basses
were the sparkle of the group. You had to have a fine voice to be
in that league. Everything else fell in between, and sometimes
baritones sang second tenor and second tenors sang baritone. How
tasty pudding was that?
I espied Russ. He was a bass, which surprised
everyone since his speaking voice was so Nelly.
“I’m mad at you,” he snapped, and then turned to
John (who was out of drag). Then Russ marched over to me. “I said,
I’m mad at you.”
“I heard you. I figured you’d be.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
I noticed that Todd and Padgett were all ears, as
was the three Rons, who farted around with their empty music
folders. I nodded toward the window. The hall had a small low-rise
stage at the far end stacked with instruments that the church choir
used during their rehearsals. (This was Princeton after all). Russ
proceeded to the low-rise, but as I followed him, the director
emerged from behind the piano, where he was having a
tête-à-tête
with Tim, our
tall-drink-of-water
accompanist.
“Martin,” he said. His voice was charming and his
eyes sparkled.
“Gerry.”
“I’m glad you’re back. Some of the tweets said you
were too busy this season to sing.”
Russ was waiting, but I needed to quash this
rumor.
“No, Gerry. If I were quitting, wouldn’t I call
you?”
“That’s what I told them. Here. Look at this.”
He flopped a piece of music into my hand. I glanced
at Russ, who rolled his eyes. I perused the piece.
Ave Verum
Corpus
by Mozart. It had a little solo in it, so I had to look.
It was part of the classical portion of our program. We always did
an assortment of church and classical works in the first half, a
portion that we fondly called
the Death Set.
The second half
were show tunes, campy numbers and GALA sanctioned pieces — touchy,
feely, activist and melancholy —
let my people go
stuff.
“Consider the solo, will you?”
“That’s up to you.”
I could hear Jasper seething on the sidelines.
However, I also espied Russ returning to John. He mouthed
I’m
mad at you.
“Excuse me, Gerry, I need to . . .”
“We’re starting. Tim.”
Tim smiled (he always smiled) and pounded three
chords on the piano. The flock came to order — all of them. The
whole assortment. And we were a collection of mixed nuts. A few
scrawny crows, a wallflower or two, a whole belly brigade (Ron was
so fat, when he sang, his mouth disappeared into his chins). We had
butch boys, and drag queens, the talented, the tone deaf and buff
and the bodily odor challenged. We even had a manic-depressive
music librarian — Brian, and you hoped when he handed you your
music that the medication had settled, otherwise you might get
three sets of the same piece. Twenty-seven New Jersey Gay Sparrows,
and here and there a chicken hawk. The only thing we were missing
was a straight man. We did have one when we started out, they tell
me. He hadn’t realized that the Central Jersey Men’s Choir was
that way
. He actually stuck it out to the first concert,
they say, but I guess his girlfriend objected. Some people are so
insecure.
“On your feet, ladies,” Gerry said.
No speech. No welcome back or rules and regulations.
He just pointed to Tim, and we naturally applauded the man for his
thankless work.
“Hands at your sides and stretch. And stretch and
stretch. Now to your right and to your left.”
It was funny watching the belly brigade do these,
but without the stretching, our diaphragms would be just so much
dead skin in the lung vat. After the stretches, we went through a
series of breathing exercises — huffs and puffs, and lip farts and
the ever-popular radiator
shush
. Then came humming and
scales and harmonizing, and then a small lecture on
enunciation.
“Remember your h’s, ladies. It’s
when,
not
wen. A wen is . . .”
Gregg paused and pointed at us.
“A sebaceous cist,” we caroled in unison.
“Exactly, and since we will have some Latin this
season, its not eXcelsior, but eGGcelsior.”
Finally, we sat and sight-read the entire program.
It sounded like a gaggle of geese instead of a twittering of
sparrows, but it was fine. It settled my heart. After hours of
rehearsing there is nothing like the sound of a men’s choir, fully
balanced and blended. However, this first go-through was . . . was
music to my ears. Other rehearsals would belabor every measure. We
would need to stop and teach the second tenors their parts,
pounding out the lines on the piano. Second tenors were . . . well,
second tenors. But the first rehearsal was
anything goes.
We
were divine individuals, each trying to embrace the music on our
own terms. The concert would require us to sacrifice our souls to
performance — to the sacred blend of voices. But that first
run-through was always the best.
At the break, which was always soda and cookies, I
tried to buttonhole Russ, but he surrounded himself with Padgett
and Todd, a sure deterrent to my company. Todd Moorehouse was a
constant self-server and Padgett was his foil. Apart they gave me a
headache. Together they gave me a migraine. I needed to wait until
the rehearsal’s end to lasso Russ, and even then, I had to catch up
with him. I should have just let him go, but he wanted me to chase
him. He was parading down the dark driveway toward Nassau Street,
when he finally turned.
“I’m mad at you, you know.”
“Could have fooled me, bitch,” I said.
I was mad at
him
now. He was true to form,
but what a pain in the ass.
“How’s domestic life?”
“What the hell are talking about?”
“Your cowboy.”
“He’s not
my cowboy.
He’s my . . . my lover .
. . my companion.”