Liturgical Mysteries 01 The Alto Wore Tweed (2 page)

I sat back in my desk chair, perused the page hanging from the typewriter, and rolled up the blue and white flannel from my wrists to my elbows. Being a man of means but no particular fashion sense, I have three pairs of chinos and six shirts in my basic fall and winter wardrobe. One Land’s End long-sleeve white dress shirt for Sunday and five flannel shirts of various and sundry hues. When the weather changes, I switch to Land’s End polo shirts. I have five of those in five lovely colors: Deep Orange, Burgundy, Chambray Heather, Sapphire and Black Forest. XXLT. $24.50. I also have enough evening wear to cover my occasional forays into polite society, but I don’t really count that as usable wardrobe.

“I’m going to call it
The Alto Wore Tweed
,” I said, sipping my coffee and chomping on a non-lit cigar. Non-lit being the operative directive for a cigar as long as Meg was in the house.

“I’ll try it out on the choir first, but I think it’s pretty good. It has all the makings of a fine detective story.”

I had gotten in the habit, over the years, of channeling my meager writing skills into missives that I placed in the back of the choir members’ music folders for their entertainment and enlightenment. Mostly entertainment. This was to be my magnum opus.

“You mean ‘For the choir to try out during the sermon.’” She shook her finger at me in mock derisiveness, and I attempted in vain to look somewhat contrite.

“Hayden Konig, you’re going to get in real trouble. Herself is bound to see it and she’ll know it’s about her.” She pronounced the umlauted “o” in Konig just for fun. The name is German all right, but we of the München Königs dropped the umlaut years ago in favor of everyone in our newly adopted country of the United States of America being able to pronounce it. Still, from Megan’s lips it sounded wonderfully elegant and old world so I never bothered to correct her.

“It’s about an alto—it has nothing to do with her,” I replied.

She laughed out loud—a beautiful laugh that always reminded me of the tinkling of a zimblestern.

“Oh, I think it does. You’re very transparent.”

“Not a bit! I’m complex and devious. Layer upon layer of intricate, nontransparent deep stuff.”

She walked out of the room, tossing her dark hair and one more comment back across her shoulder, “Says you!”

“You always offer such brilliant repartee. It’s a pleasure to engage you in verbal sparring,” I called after her.

Her head popped back around the corner, her eyes sparkling. “It’s the
wrestling
you should be worried about. Not the sparring.”

Touché. I threw a log on the fire, turned up the music, and settled back into my leather desk chair.

• • •

I put the hymnal away, my eyes narrowing as I considered the latest report from the diocese to cross my desk. There was big trouble and I knew I
’
d be called in to sort it out. It
’
s what I do. I
’
m an L.D.--Liturgy Detective--duly licensed by the Diocese of North Carolina and appointed by the bishop.

Suddenly I looked up and there she was--lounging in the doorway, if one could be said to be lounging in a standing position, her hair dark, dark as the elevator with the broken light bulb from which she had emerged, her eyes as brown as the three-piece suit and wingtips she was wearing. How long she had been standing there was anyone
’
s guess. She slank slowly across the carpet.

“You know that ‘slank’ isn’t a word,” said Meg, reading over my shoulder again.

“I’m using it for effect. ‘She slank slowly’ is so much more descriptive than ‘She
slunked
slowly.’”

“Ah, yes. Now I see.”

“
I
’
ll light your cigar,” she said as she leaned across my desk, a match already in her hand, her voice as husky as last year
’
s Iditarod.

She sat on the edge of my desk, her coat falling open, revealing a tantalizing set of L.L. Bean braided suspenders. I
’
b>
d seen those suspenders on sale last month, but couldn
’
t figure a way to fit them into my continuing education budget.

“
I need professional help. I
’
ll pay you anything you want.”

I hadn
’
t had a job in a while. Not since the bishop had called me in because he suspected that someone was tampering with the lectionary. For a couple of months all the scripture lessons were either John 3:16 or Romans 3:23. It turned out that a Southern Baptist had wandered into the wrong building. I had it all wrapped up within the hour. I should have stretched the case out for a couple of weeks. It would have paid the rent.

I eyed her suspenders. I could see she was desperate. I didn
’
t need the money, but I never could resist an alto in trouble. Especially an alto wearing tweed.

• • •

The alto that Meg was alluding to and the one I was definitely
not
writing about was Loraine Ryan—or Herself, as she was known in our choir circle—the new rector of the church. She was sent to us by the bishop to take the place, temporarily we were told, of our beloved retiring priest. Now I don’t have anything against female ecclesiastics. Well, maybe a small bias—but I certainly had intended to give this one every chance. Unfortunately, this unmarried militant feminist priestess had been at St. Barnabas for three months and was making no signs of looking for another position.

Directing the church choir and playing the organ for services is my part-time job, and one I enjoy. Like most church choirs, the choir of St. Barnabas isn’t made up of great singers. They’re better on some days than others, absent on more than a few and strictly volunteer. But I like them and the church and I can’t be gotten rid of easily for several reasons: I’ve been there for fifteen years, I’m the only organist in town, I have a master’s degree in music composition from UNC Chapel Hill, an undergraduate minor in theology and too many friends in rich places to worry about job security. Being the staff member in charge of the worship service, I thought I had acted in the best interest of everyone concerned when, during Herself’s inaugural Sunday, she decided that she’d like the congregation to sing
Kum-Baya
as the post-communion hymn.

When she first mentioned her plan during our worship meeting, I suggested to her that the congregation was used to a somewhat more traditional and formal style of music, and I personally didn’t much care for the campfire music of the 60’s.

Mother Ryan, as she liked to be called, ignored my comments and was quite adamant. “Everyone will love it.”

“I will hate it. And besides, I don’t seem to have the music.”

She was not to be put off. “I’ll get the music. You teach it to the choir and we’ll do it on Sunday.”

“We generally rehearse our anthems weeks in advance, Loraine.”/font>

“Call me Mother Ryan.”

“Hmmm,” I said.
“This
Sunday the choir is doing Duruflé’s
Ubi Caritas
along with the
Veni Creator Variations
. I generally don’t do the French literature, but the anthem is beautiful. It fits the lectionary and the variations can be done with the choir during communion. Also, if you check your list, you’ll find we’re scheduled to do the Mathias service music. Taking the service as a whole, I’m not sure that
Kum-Baya
will fit in well with all that.”

She looked at me as if I was speaking to her in Swahili and had lobsters coming out of my ears. Then she smiled a cold smile.

“The Bishop and I like to have a “blended” service—some old, some new. Just go with me on this.”

This was news to me. I knew Bishop Douglas pretty well. He was a traditionalist and he always gave plenty of notice in regards to his infrequent visits. But maybe he wanted to see how his new appointment was working out.

“The Bishop will be here on Sunday? Will he be celebrating?”

“Well, you never know,” she said in what she perceived was a cutesy little-girl voice but came off rather like one of the munchkins from the Lolly-Pop Guild.

She was lying like Ted Koppel’s hairpiece and I couldn’t figure out just who she was trying to impress. She certainly wasn’t impressing me and the other two members of the worship committee. Denise Franks, the lay reader for Sunday, and Beverly Greene from the Altar Guild, were old-school pillars of the church. They had grown up in the congregation, married here, had their children baptized and they, in turn, had married here also. They and their families were part of the fabric of St. Barnabas. Now they were sitting very still, not saying a word, the blood draining from their faces.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, looking around in my most Grouchovian conspiratorial fashion. “I’ll give you a chord and you start the song. Then I’ll pick up my banjo and the choir and I will join in on the chorus. We’ll just follow you.” I was mugging about so much that with a cigar in my mouth and a comb under my nose, this performance would be worthy of
A Night At The Opera.

I thought surely she would see I was being wholly sarcastic. Certainly the other two committee members knew it. She just smiled smugly and ticked the task off her to-do list. No. 3—Emasculate the choirmaster. Check.

“That will be great,” she said, grinning at me like the possum that just ate the nightingale. “Everyone will love it.”

“Yes, you keep saying that,” I added as the committee’s collective eyeball size went from ping-pong ball to saucer.

What I forgot to tell her was that I don’t play the banjo. At least not in church.

What she forgot to tell me was that she was not a singer by any stretch of the definition.

And the Bishop missed the whole thing.

• • •

The exact word I used to describe Herself’s unaccompanied Sunday morning solo to my good friend Tony over coffee on Monday was “interesting.” The exact word most of the choir had used was “hilarious.”

Father Tony Brown had retired after sixteen years at St. Barnabas. He had come to St. Germaine just a year before I did and had hired me as the organist and music director when I moved to town. There was a bit of finagling to do, such as convincing the seventy-five-year-old organist who had been there for fifty-two years that it was time to retire. But Father Tony handled everything with such aplomb that there weren’t any ruffled feathers.

“She needs some time to define her own ministry,” he said, sipping his coffee. “She’s just defining it more abruptly than a priest with a little more experience might.”

“Can we talk frankly?” I asked, getting a little irked. I had hoped for a little more sympathy.

“Nope,” he said. “I have to be on
her
side. Perhaps she doesn’t yet appreciate your skewed sense of humor.”

“No, she might not,” I said, an evil smile crossing my lips.

I had assumed she would stop singing after the first chorus when she realized she was going on alone, but she charged ahead, glaring up at me in the balcony and singing all four stanzas—the last two in a quivering voice of rage. “Someone’s praying Lord, Kum-baya.” She had sounded vaguely like Ted Kennedy doing an impression of Willie Nelson on a bad day. Altogether, it might not have been the effect she was hoping for. The congregation, for some strange reason, didn’t join in, but sat there, mute, as if suddenly struck dumb by the Holy Spirit.

“Sorry,” I had said after the service, “I thought you were just kidding about
Kum-Baya
. But you did a great job.”

She had just glowered at me, words trying to form on her lips but not making their way past her twitching jaw muscles.

“Everyone loved it,” I had added.

• • •

Meg cornered me after choir practice on the next Wednesday.

“We have guidelines, Meg. Musical and liturgical guidelines,” I said, mentally preparing my defense. “And we don’t sing
Kum-Baya
during the worship service. The words don’t even
mean
anything.”

“That may be, but there’s a larger issue at stake. You have to allow her some leeway in how she perceives and presents her ministry. And besides, you’re the one who makes up the guidelines.”

“You’ve been talking to Tony. And anyway, I don’t make them
all
up. Some are actual guidelines agreed upon by the worship committee.” I was in over my head and I knew it.

Meg leaned into me like a fighter going for the knockout. “What about the Jesus-Squeezus Rule?”