The Angel Singers Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Also by Dorien Grey and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The Angel Singers

  To those few whose voices raise the spirits of many

  Of all the gifts bestowed...

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About the Author

  The Angel Singers

  By Dorien Grey

  Copyright 2016 by Gary Brown, Executor of Roger Margason/Dorien Grey Estate

  Cover Copyright 2016 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 2008.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by Dorien Grey and Untreed Reads Publishing

  A World Ago: A Navy Man’s Letters Home (1954–1956)

  Short Circuits: A Life in Blogs (Volume 1)

  The Butcher’s Son

  The Ninth Man

  The Bar Watcher

  The Hired Man

  The Good Cop

  The Bottle Ghosts

  The Dirt Peddlers

  The Role Players

  The Popsicle Tree

  The Paper Mirror

  The Dream Ender

  www.untreedreads.com

  The Angel Singers

  A Dick Hardesty Mystery

  Dorien Grey

  To those few whose voices raise the spirits of many

  Of all the gifts bestowed upon mankind, music is one of the greatest, and no musical instrument is older, more versatile, or has more power to move us than the human voice. Anyone who doubts the power of that instrument need only listen to Kate Smith singing “God Bless America.”

  When one voice becomes fifty or a hundred or more—think of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic”—the power grows exponentially. It can literally transfix, transform, and empower us, raising us as close to the angels as mortals can get.

  The need and desire to sing together provides a sense of unity, strength, and power that has long been recognized by organized religions. However, it equally serves the purposes of minorities such as the gay community, which has given rise to a number of choruses and chorales that enhance our sense of unity, of belonging, and of pride.

  But though human voices joined together in song may approach the divine, the individual humans involved are not immune to the weaknesses, petty and major, that plague humanity. And yet it is to our credit that, flawed though we may be as individuals, we all still have the potential to be angel-singers.

  —Dick Hardesty

  Chapter 1

  “Black pants are black pants,” I said as we made our way into yet another men’s clothing store.

  “No, they’re not,” Jonathan said. “They have to be the right black pants and I haven’t found them yet. I’ll know them when I do.”

  Joshua, who had been alternately munching from a small bag of caramel corn and trying to wander off on his own, announced simultaneously that he was thirsty and that he had to go to the bathroom.

  “Look,” I said to Jonathan, “you go in and look around, and I’ll take Joshua to the bathroom and get him some water and we’ll meet you back here.”

  “I don’t want water. I want a Coke!” Joshua declared.

  “And I want a million dollars,” I said, reaching for his free hand. “Sometimes we just have to settle for what we can get.” I intended that little moral lesson for Jonathan as well as Joshua, but it went right over both their heads.

  Our ostensible reason for being in the mall was to buy some fall and winter clothes for Joshua, who was growing like a weed. But after that chore had been accomplished, Jonathan had decided he needed a new pair of black pants for the upcoming Gay Men’s Chorus fall concert—his first with the group—despite the performance being still two months away.

  His involvement with the chorus had, as I’d suspected when he first joined, taken up a lot more of his time than either one of us liked. Going to school one night a week, plus study time, added even more pressure on him. I have to admit there were times when I mildly resented not only the loss of his company but the additional responsibilities I had to assume with Joshua while he was gone. But he loved it, which is all that really mattered, and between us, we managed to keep everything under control.

  Things would lighten up a bit after the concert—one of the three the chorus put on each year. It was to be held November 17, three days after my birthday, at Atheneum Hall, the city’s largest and most prestigious music venue. This would be the first time any gay group had ever performed there, and it was a real coup for the entire community.

  I was also getting something of an education on the subject of choruses. I’d never known that a chorus was composed of only one sex, whereas choirs and chorales were a mixture of men and women. Jonathan told me he was classified as a “tenor 2” and I hadn’t a clue what that meant until he explained that a “tenor 1” is someone who can hit the really high notes; a “tenor 2” had a lower range, but still higher than baritones. Who knew?

  One of the reasons I had originally encouraged Jonathan to join the chorus was so that it would gave him the chance to meet new people outside our own little circle of close friends—all of whom had been friends of mine before Jonathan came along. I thought he should have some friends of his own, independent of me.

  As I soon found out, I may have gotten a bit more than I bargained for. The chorus was, at least on the surface, a very friendly and supportive group. In addition to once-a-week Tuesday night rehearsals at the Metropolitan Community Church, there were also what they called “sectionals,” where several of the basses or baritones or tenors would get together at various members’ homes to practice their specific parts.

  And several times a year there was a general get-together at the home of Crandall Booth, one of the chorus’ major financial backers/supporters and a member of its board of directors. Chorus members were encouraged to bring their partners—and, in the case of Jonathan and me and two other couples, their children—to these gatherings.

  All of this ate into the already-limited time Jonathan and I had to do “us” things. Still, I was rather looking forward to one of Booth’s events, and I knew Joshua would be in seventh heaven, since he could be the center of attention of a lot of adults and have a couple of other kids close to his age to play with.

  Over the course of the weeks, I got to know not only something of how a chorus was made up, b
ut a few through-Jonathan’s-eyes glimpses into what went on behind the scenes.

  The night of Jonathan’s first rehearsal Roger Rothenberger, the chorus’ director, had, as he did with all new members, assigned him a “buddy” to help ease his way into the organization—introduce him around, show him the ropes, and explain and answer questions on procedures. Jonathan’s buddy was a kid named Eric Speers, and the two of them hit it off immediately. So, when Jonathan suggested inviting Eric over for dinner, I readily agreed. I was curious to meet him, and figured it would give me a little better insight into this new part of Jonathan’s life.

  He said that Eric had been with the chorus since it began five years previously, and was deeply devoted to and involved in it. He was also the peacemaker of the group, which was apparently, as are most groups, both tight-knit and contentious.

  It’s inevitable that whenever you get fifty or so artistic gay men together the road is not without its bumpy stretches. There were the inevitable cliques, feuds, and rivalries that afflict any group of humans, and Jonathan always brought home a doggie bag of the latest bits of gossip he’d heard at rehearsals. I’ve never gone in much for gossip, but Jonathan got such a kick out of observing all the various behind-the-risers intrigues and took such delight in sharing them with me that I couldn’t complain. It was rather like watching one of those guilty-pleasure soap operas on TV, although the cast members of the chorus dramas were not all as drop-dead gorgeous as their on-screen counterparts.

  There were even a few hush-hush allusions to a conflict between Rothenberger and Crandall Booth, and to Booth’s alleged financial ties to some rather shady types. I didn’t give any weight to the latter, since I knew that Glen O’Banyon, the city’s preeminent gay lawyer, for whom I frequently did work, was also a member of the chorus’ board; and if there had been any solid basis to the allegations, Glen would not be associated with Booth in any way.

  Rothenberger, Jonathan told me, had been born and raised here then moved to New York and started singing with the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, and eventually became an assistant director. He’d then gone on to direct one or two other groups before moving back here. In addition to the Gay Men’s Chorus, he also directed the choir at the Metropolitan Community Church.

  I’d seen him at the last concert, the one that had prompted Jonathan to want to join. Rothenberger had reminded me of an opera star—portly to the point of being rotund, full beard, somewhat imperious manner, in absolute control when it came to leading the chorus. Jonathan reported that Rothenberger’s mantra at every rehearsal and before every concert was “Remember, when you talk, you’re human. When you sing, you’re angels,” and everyone in the chorus apparently thought the world of him.

  The most recent tempest in the choral teapot was created by a member who joined not too long before Jonathan, and who happened to be Crandall Booth’s nephew. There’s nothing like a little nepotism to get things heated up, and the controversy was compounded by the nephew, Grant Jefferson, apparently being something of a pain in the ass. Jonathan, of course, always prefers to see the good in everyone, but even he found it a little difficult to find much positive to say about Grant.

  “He’s really good-looking,” he conceded, “and he does have a nice voice,” which, coming from Jonathan, I took to be something of a case of damning with faint praise.

  Possibly another reason why I allowed myself to be vicariously caught up in the goings-on of the chorus was that my work, while fairly steady, had lately tended to be far less than the stuff of which detective novels are made. For the past two weeks or so, I had been caught up in a “case”—if it could even be called that—so stupefyingly dull I’d have much preferred to watch paint dry. Suffice it to say it involved a client with more money than intelligence who was on a vendetta against a former business partner and wasn’t going to let a little thing like his case not having a leg to stand on get in his way. I finally gave up trying to convince him he was wasting his money and resigned myself to the conclusion that if he was going to throw his money away, he might as well throw some of it at me.

  So I spent an inordinate amount of time running off in whatever new direction he pointed me. I could and should have quit; however, my mantra was, “It isn’t the principle of the thing, it’s the money.”

  *

  Eric was set to arrive for dinner at six thirty Friday. I was at the office when Jonathan called at three to tell me there was a work emergency that necessitated his driving to Neeleyville with his boss, and he probably wouldn’t be able to make it home until seven. He didn’t have Eric’s number with him and, having no way to reach him, asked if I could pick Joshua up from day care, put dinner in the oven, and entertain Eric until he got home.

  “I’m really sorry, Dick,” he said. “I didn’t know this was going to happen. I—”

  “No problem, babe,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure what I could do to entertain someone I’d never met before, but it wasn’t a major issue.

  Joshua was standing on the front porch with Estelle Bronson, one of the day care owners, when I arrived at five after four. I’d have been there ten minutes earlier had the city not been digging up exactly the same three-block section of the street they’d dug up the year before and, naturally, a major intersection was involved.

  Seeing me pull up, Joshua bounded off the porch and headed full gallop for the thankfully closed front gate. Estelle’s call drew him up short, and he stood stock-still until she caught up with him and opened the gate as I leaned over to open the passenger door.

  “Bye!” Joshua called to her as he clambered onto the front seat. Estelle and I exchanged a quick greeting, and then, seeing Joshua was safely seatbelted—admittedly not the best of fits—she closed the door and headed back to the house.

  “Where’s Uncle Jonathan?” he asked as we pulled away from the curb. Though it was not at all unusual for me to pick him up when Jonathan couldn’t for one reason or another, he always asked.

  “He was busy,” I explained, as I explained every time it happened. Joshua’s response was always the same, too.

  “Oh.”

  The ride home was largely taken up with a detailed and dramatized accounting of his day at “school,” accompanied by the requisite gestures and facial expressions. Although he still had not totally mastered the concept of linear thought, he was getting much better at it, and I had gotten pretty good at stepping over the chasms and seeing around the corners of his narrative. This one centered on the Bronsons’ acquisition—whether permanently or on loan wasn’t clear—of a rabbit and a tortoise. It seems they had been the basis of a story about a race, which he related to me in detail, omitting only the moral of the tale.

  As soon as we got home, I turned the oven on and waited for it to heat. We’d bought a good-sized pork tenderloin the last time we were at the store in anticipation of Eric’s visit, so all I basically had to do was put it and the potatoes in, which I held off doing until the first commercial break in the evening news. To forestall the possibility of Joshua’s starving to death before dinner, I gave him a large plum and a small glass of milk after he’d helped me set the table.

  At six twenty, the door buzzer rang, announcing Eric’s arrival. I opened the door to find a rangy, reddish-blond about Jonathan’s age and height. He had freckles and the kind of almost impish face that always reminded me of a leprechaun—in his case, a very tall leprechaun.

  We shook hands and did the mutual introductions, and I showed him in. Joshua, as always upon hearing someone at the door, had come bounding out of his room so as not to miss anything.

  “Joshua, this is Eric,” I said by way of introduction, and when Eric smiled and said “Hello, Joshua,” and extended his hand I noticed an uncustomary moment’s hesitation on Joshua’s part before he took it. As soon as Eric released his hand, Joshua moved close against me, leaning against my leg, which also struck me as a little odd.

  I explained that Jonathan would be a little late getting home.
/>   “And I’m a little early,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m afraid I’m always so worried about being late that I always end up being too early.”

  “A man after my own heart,” I said, offering to take his light jacket, which he removed and handed to me with thanks. I in turn handed the jacket to Joshua. “Would you take this into our room for me, Joshua?”

  He gave me a slightly resentful look, then took it and went toward our bedroom.

  “Make yourself at home. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Sure, that would be nice,” he replied, moving to the couch to sit down. “Whatever you’re having.”

  “A Manhattan okay?” I asked. I’d held off having mine awaiting his arrival.

  “I love Manhattans!” he said. “You’ve obviously got good taste.”

  As I excused myself to go into the kitchen, Joshua followed me closely.

  “I want one, too!” he said. He knew I always gave him a glass of soda whenever I had my evening drink, so I was a little puzzled by his demanding attitude.

  Then I recalled that lately, whenever Jonathan spoke of Eric, as he often did, and with the enthusiasm of someone with a new friend, Joshua had been reacting in a way far out of character for him. It struck me now that he may have felt threatened by Eric’s entrance into Jonathan’s life.

  I fixed the drinks and carried them into the living room, grabbed a couple of coasters, handing one to Eric with his drink, gave Joshua his soda—he insisted on two maraschino cherries in it rather than his usual one—then sat in the chair closest to the couch. Joshua settled in my lap.

  Ooooo-kay. We have a little problem here.

  “Jonathan told me he had a lot of fish and plants,” Eric commented, nodding toward the aquarium, “but I didn’t realize he had this many.”

  “Jonathan operates on the theory that if some is good, a lot is better.” I took a sip of my drink. “So, I understand you’ve been with the chorus from the very beginning.”

  “Yep. And I’ve only missed four rehearsals. Sometimes I think I really need to get a life of my own. But I can’t imagine one without the chorus.”