Copyright 1994(c)

                         A CHOIR'S SONG
                        By Franchot Lewis

     In the spring of '54 Danny Miller was jitterbugging down the
hall of the church annex from the upstairs room where the senior
choir practiced to the back room in the basement where the junior
choir met. It was a fine Saturday afternoon in early spring, with
bright sunshine everywhere outside, making the day so comfortably
warm as to encourage smiles and pleasantries among strangers. Some
of the sun found its way through the church's many windows -- the
stained glass windows in the large rooms of the annex and small the
windows in the basement. Danny was hurrying along in quick step.
He didn't see an older man approaching from the opposite direction.
     Many thoughts were flashing in Danny's head, none of which 
concerned looking ahead of himself, and so he was oblivious to  
the approaching older man. The older man began to fuss just as
Danny was about to bump into him. The older man shared none of 
Danny's enthusiasm for hurrying down a hall way. 
     "Youngsters are very rude these days. Do you belong here?" 
     "Yes." 
     "Why?" 
     "Excuse me." 
     "Now that's funny, you act like you belong in a jungle, 
you know?" 
     By the time the older man said this Danny was walking much 
faster. He heard the man say behind him, "I guess it's the times." 
     Danny jitterbugged around the bend in the hall and entered 
the room where the junior choir met. It was small, and there was
not enough light, -- so different from the spaciousness where 
the senior choir met. The space was for minors of a minor league 
church. Danny fancied himself as deserving better, and taking 
possession of the spaciousness where the senior choir met as if 
holding that space was his inheritance and right. He needed the 
junior choir behind him to achieve his dream. Marilyn was head 
of the junior choir. Danny thought that she was too meek to 
inherit without being pushed. Ambition was subdued in her, but 
he didn't know, yet, of the effort and anguish she spent to keep 
her ego checked. 
     As Danny entered in a rush, Marilyn sat at a piano peering 
over sheet music. She glanced up, looking as if she was peering at
a wall. She did not speak. She returned to her work. 
     Danny's feet and body kept moving, jitterbugging still, as if 
he had a full tank of gas to burn out, and he spoke loudly as if 
the room had no roof. With a burst of wind, a whirl of his limbs,
a snapping of his finger, a shuffling of his feet, and finally,
with a sway, he said, "Marilyn, Marilyn, Marilyn." 
     Marilyn rolled her eyes. His energy level dropped. She 
sighed heavily and stared motionlessly as if she was observing 
a fool. Energy rolled out of him as he watched her watching 
him. Was she fussing? Praying? He couldn't tell? 
     Suddenly, Danny saw his ambition gliding past like a 
phantom. He stopped fooling around. He was there to sound 
Marilyn out on his scheme; not to upset her. He spoke more quietly,
and more like a mature adult than an enthusiastic, aging teen who
had just broken out of a nut house. "Miss Lily --" 
     Marilyn's eyes nearly spun. She made a horrid face. Miss 
Lily? Just the thought of someone looking at her and saying 
that woman's name, the thought of sharing any feature of 
that woman, made Marilyn's eyes go wild and nearly caused her 
to roar. 
     "Miss Lily - "  He said it again. 
     "Does it thrill you?" Ugly, she made an ugly face. Yes, 
it was ugly enough. Marilyn too was honest enough. She was 
terribly frank with herself in her thoughts. She knew there 
was a faint, dim connection between herself and Miss Lily, 
and they were both heads of choirs too. 
     "When do you think she is going to step down?" 
     "Me? What?" 
     "Marilyn?" 
     "Danny, I don't have time to think," Marilyn shuffled 
the sheet music on the piano, "I have to -" 
     "We need to think. Some one needs to do some thinking. Miss.
Lily needs to quit as head of the senior choir and let you have 
the job. It's 1954, she's been the choir director since when? 
1904?" 
     1904? Marilyn couldn't remember. She had heard the year 
from some old person, but that had been so far in the past 
that she could not remember. Miss Lily had been head of the 
senior choir when the church met in a tent, when the preachers 
had travelling shows. She was the first prima donna on the 
church stage. Being head of the senior choir was her right. 
As time passed she showed no sign of passing with it, and no 
one had memories going back further than her heading the senior 
choir. 
     "Marilyn, when is Miss Lily going to step down?" 
     "Why don't you ask her?" 
     "I did. She said, quote: When I am darned good and ready, 
thank you, unquote." 
     "Really?" 
     The church was accustomed to Miss. Lily's temper and to 
the way she looked upon younger people, as if they should be 
shackled like conquered monsters, and not allowed to go around 
being monstrous and free. Miss. Lily could act very unchurchly, 
and the pastor and the deacons could say nothing to her, 
because they were all younger, and maybe, (to her), not quite as 
human. People approached Miss. Lily slowly, and when she howled 
at them, they didn't just jump, they leaped. 
     "Miss. Lily used the 'd' word." 
     "You didn't ask her?" 
     "I did." 
     "Danny, don't you have something else to do? Organ practice
with the senior choir?" 
     "Am I getting to you? Am I making you uncomfortable?" 
     "Do you want to?" Marilyn smiled, and between her smiles 
were teeth. She showed them. They were white and sharp and 
savage too. When she wanted to, she could bite into a man. 
She seemed to be waiting to bite. 
     Danny showed his smile. It was an improvement over hers. His
smile could fire up a boiler too. "If you follow the plan for 
you to succeed Miss Lily as head of her much beloved senior 
choir, you are going to have to wait another twenty years." 
     "Danny, are you sure you don't have practice?" 
     "Positive." 
     "Are you sure?" 
     "Certain." 
     "Didn't you mess up, last Sunday? During the evening 
service?" 
     "No! 
     "Why did Mr. Greene get up from his seat and say, you were 
playing the hymn wrong?" 
     "Old Man Greene doesn't know his - " 
     "Danny, you're just the back up organist, Mr. Greene is -" 
     "Old!" 
     Marilyn stood. She was six inches taller than Danny. "Upon 
my word," she started, stopped. Danny looked so funny, like a dog
in a sailor's suit, cap and all, standing up on its hind legs. "Mr.
Greene is old," Danny squinted, steam, no spit was coming from his
mouth, and with effort he was gauging his voice to keep the volume
from rising too loud. 
     Marilyn, no smile, no teeth, let Danny talk. 
     "He has arthritis, and who knows what else? I played that 
hymn note-for-note, just as it is written." 
     "Mr. Greene plays that hymn, just the way the senior 
choir always sings it, at least as they did until last week 
when they had to ... Wing it?" 
     "It's an old song, nobody sings it." 
     "The senior choir does at least once a year at the 
Church's Anniversary." 
     "Yeah." 
     Marilyn thought Danny ought to be elsewhere, and not stay 
there and be a thrall from a witch's shop, stirring up trouble. 
     "Why don't you run along and check with Miss Lily?" 
     "The senior choir has the gout." 
     "The gout?" Marilyn smiled warily, "Maybe a few pacemakers,
several bifocals and plenty of dentures, but the gout?" 
     "Half the men look like Truman, the others are as bald 
as Eisenhower, all the women are as old as Eleanor Roosevelt, 
and Miss Lily, what can I say about her? She looks like 
Khrushchev's wife. You and me have as much chance to rise from 
the junior choir into the senior choir as youth has to rise 
in Russia's Central Committee." 
     "What?" 
     "They're communist." 
     "Who?" 
     "The senior choir." 
     "Danny, I can see that you went to college. What classes 
did you take? Remedial education classes?" 
     "You've thought as much." 
     "No." 
     "Yes, you have." 
     "Not that they're communists," Marilyn shook, sat back down
at the piano, "How can they be communists? We're all Baptists." 
     "They keep every thing to themselves. They're elitists." 
     "We get to perform." 
     "The junior choir gets to perform every other month with 
the senior choir, never alone. The senior choir hogs the services.
We practice, practice, practice and wait, until one of the seniors
gets an attack of the gout. What's the use of all our work?" 
     "Danny, there is a coke machine back, over in the church's 
basement, why don't you go grab a cold one? There's a first aid 
kit, bring me the aspirin bottle. You've given me a headache." 
     "We, of the junior choir, have to do something. Marilyn, 
don't shake your head at me. Don't now." 
     "Don't you make another speech." 
     "I'm over thirty, and so are you, and we're the junior 
choir -" 
     "Danny -" 
     "I have a plan for the junior choir to get more singing 
time during the services. The junior choir better represents 
the church. The senior is a small, closed club of old people. 
They look alike, they're cousins, or cousins of cousins. We are 
everybody, diverse. The members will want to hear us." 
     "Danny, the minister and the board of deacons set the 
schedule." 
     "Listen, Marilyn, we can ..." 
 
                              II. 
 
     "Danny, for quite sometime I've thought your ideas were off
base, but this last idea, I'm regretting that I didn't resist it." 
     "My ideas make perfect sense. Aren't you sick and tired of
waiting one hundred years for a chance to sit with the adults, and
then after one hundred years have passed, getting rejected and
kicked in your darn backside?" 
     "Hey, I like the long wait. It will give me time to forget
I've listened to you and have done something that has put me out
more than all the time I must wait for -" 
     "When?" 
     "When? Whenever." 
     "No. Until when you've had to wait?" 
     "Until when?" 
     "Until when the saints roll the senior choir in? Think and I
bet you won't be as pleased as punch to sit on your butt a minute
longer and pretend. You're as obsessed as I am with getting the old
seniors out of the choir box. You don't like waiting. We never can
replace them too soon. If we continue, we can replace them before
doomsday arrives. For every day they are on top, we are not, and
that is a day of disappointment for you and for me." 
     "Danny, I've made a rule, never to listen to you again." 
     "Marilyn -" 
     "No." 
     "Marilyn, check this out -" 
     "No. I have listened to you enough. I don't want any more
disappointment." 
     "We will win. We can beat the seniors." 
     "If our choir is really, really good." 
     "We do what most people want to hear, short snappy pieces, 
good hymns. Darn! All week, I've been sitting there at the organ,
practicing back-up with the senior choir, droning out dull,
lifeless, interminable moldy, musky, old, church tunes." 
     "I've noticed this, you've been real helpful in getting 
me to challenge the seniors, but I've also noticed that you 
aren't around much when I work on the junior choir to get 
us ready to make the challenge." 
     "You are following my new plan?" 
     "I expanded the junior choir to include people from every 
background. We have two persons who could be from outer space, 
no one wants to sit next to them. I live in fear that I will 
have to show their birth and baptism certificates to the 
pastor or to some major church figure some day. What will I 
say if I am asked, are these two, people? I'll answer, Uhhh, 
I'm sorry." 
     "They can carry a tune? Tell anybody who asks, you went to 
Sunday school. People are not supposed to judge other people 
in church. Members have no choice but to say it's good those 
two are here." 
     "Danny, we have admitted people whose families do not attend
services regularly. I have allowed three members who are behind 
in their dues to continue to sing with us." 
     "Again, only the most sinful offender will send someone 
away from Church work. Everybody knows this, because, heck, 
they've seen it in the Bible." 
     "Danny ..." 
     "Marilyn, our plan is working; people are talking about the
junior choir." 
     "We are no closer to our goal, Danny." 
     "Victory is at hand. You are not thinking of dumping the 
new plan, are you? Give it several more weeks." 
     "You, your new plan deserves to be placed in that small tin
basket in the corner. I never should have started with it; it's 
just that sometimes I get carried away." 
     "Like you are now." 
     "Danny, will you listen?" 
     "Okay I admit it, the choir has some characters that are 
kind of different, once in awhile we need this new blood so 
that when the pot gets stirred, we get a better soup. You 
should know this and not focus on the down side but -" 
     "Danny, my ears are still hurting from the practice." 
     "Why? The choir sounds good." 
     "You spent most of your time practicing with the senior 
choir today, you should have spent more time here." 
     "It is just new people, new material. It's nothing to worry
about. The choir will come together." 
     "Sorry, if I'm complaining too much, but you know I 
went to music school?" 
     "Don't worry about complaining.  Some of the best church 
people, even an organist like me, went to music school too, a 
lot of them I know -  and each of us studied hard too." 
     "Are your senses impaired?" 
     "You're in bad humor." 
     "Haven't you been listening? You ought to see about having 
someone check eyes and your ears." 
     "Marilyn." 
      "I had to tell that Greek guy to stop and just mouth the 
words." 
     "He can't sing?" 
     "No!" 
     "Sorry." 
     "When he wants to, he can sing as well as any one. Sometimes
he sings off tempo, and sounds like a Greek trying to sing from the
Baptist hymnal. Anyway, I keep trying to work with him, and I've
got to stay on my toes to keep him from dragging the music down." 
     "Why don't you hide him behind somebody?" 
     "I tried hiding him behind the coke machine back in the 
church basement." 
     "You can't cut him; we need that Greek guy in the choir." 
     "He can stay if he will keep his mouth shut. He has so 
many excuses." 
     "Excuses?" 
     "He wants to slow the tempo, says it would add to the 
meaning of the hymn. That Greek thinks he's in a Greek church. I
told him, we are going to sing the hymns the way we have always
sung them." 
     "What could he say to that?" 
     "He said, 'the new junior choir'." 
     "Yeah." 
     "Yeah, is what I told him.  He repeated the speech I 
gave when I recruited him: We want to build a new junior choir." 
     "Tradition based." 
     "Yes, that is what I told him. When he said, new junior 
choir, I said, this is still the First Baptist Church." 
                               END