The Bridegroom Comes: Chapter Three: "Simon, Simon"

The voice that came over the loud speaker at the end of the school day at St. Monica’s was, as usual, barely comprehensible through the static: “Mr. Stewart, you have a call in the main office.” Simon always responded to any summons to the office with trepidation. “Who could that be?” he thought, gathering up his effects. Stepping into the office, he smiled stiffly at the receptionist, who nodded permission for him to step behind the counter to pick up the phone. “Line two,” she muttered.
“Hello, this is Simon Stewart.”
“Simon, Wallace Millron.”
At first, he drew a blank. Of course, he knew the name. Simon had run across it in articles in the gay and mainstream press about his campaign and election to City Council—the first for an openly gay candidate, and of course, it had been the subject of gossip at the coffee house and Court meetings. Even then, Millron’s name had provoked in Simon a revulsion tinged with fear. He was used to keeping the gay world and his life at school far apart. Millron’s very existence blurred those boundaries. When the name finally registered, he felt as if the temperature in the room suddenly dropped.
“Mr. Stewart?”
“Yes?”
“You’re the choirmaster at St. Monica’s?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe we’ve met, but you may have heard of me. I represent District Four on the City Council.”
“Yes. Of course, I’ve heard of you,” Simon glanced nervously at the receptionist, who busied herself a little too obviously with the forms spread in front of her. Did he introduce himself to her? he wondered. Would she have recognized the name?
“Listen, I’d like to chat with you about this event your Court is planning to put on on behalf of your school.”
“Now is not a good time.”
“Of course; I understand your need for discretion. I’d like to meet you somewhere; later today if possible. It’s a matter of some urgency.”
“Um, can I get back to you on that? Give me your number.”
“I’d prefer to meet in person. You know Max’s, downtown? It’s not far from your school.”
The idea of meeting Millron in public threw Simon into a slight panic, but he saw no way to decline the offer without prolonging the conversation. At least Max’s, a gay piano bar, was unlikely to be frequented by anyone associated with the school. “What time?”
“How’s seven?”
“Fine.” Simon’s head whirled as he sought to ring off. A button on the keyboard began flashing, indicating another call coming in. In his confusion, he pushed the button, then stood momentarily paralyzed as a woman’s voice came over the line: “Hello? Is this Saint Monica’s?”
“Um, no. I mean yes. Here.” He clumsily pushed the receiver toward the receptionist, who frowned, nearly yanking the device out of his hand. “Sorry,” he muttered, then rushed out of the office, sheepishly returning a second later to retrieve the satchel he’d left on the front counter. The receptionist, still on the phone, paused for a moment, staring in slightly scornful bewilderment before returning to the school calendar she was reading off to the woman on the other end of the line.
Simon paused in the foyer, aware of the need to collect himself. For a second, he could not think where to go: Back to the classroom? No, home; he had his sheet music and student papers with him; he could finish his preparations for tomorrow’s classes there. Heading out the door and down the walk toward the staff parking lot, he paused for a moment as he passed the prayer garden, where the usual statute of the Virgin stood arms outstretched in a gesture of acceptance and blessing. ‘Holy Mother, shelter me in your loving arms, and protect me,’ he prayed silently. The prayer had become a ritual accompaniment to his daily arrival and departure, but now, when it should have counted most, he found the words strangely hollow.
He drove home faster than usual. The drive normally relaxed him, giving him time to let go of the petty aggravations of a day spent trying—mostly successfully, at least in others’ eyes—to mold unruly inner-city kids into a first-rate choir. After fumbling with his keys, repeatedly selecting the wrong one, he finally managed to get himself through the door of his townhouse. He thought briefly of sitting down at the piano, but sensed his aggravation was too great to be mastered even by the cool rigors of Bach or channeled into Vivaldi’s emotional refinement. After pouring himself a glass of wine in the kitchen, he sat down on the love seat near the front porch in effort to gather his thoughts, but found himself distracted by the bric-à-brac he had set up on the low bookcase against the opposite wall.
Normally, this was another source of comfort; now, it produced quite the opposite effect. He had arranged the figurines atop the bookcase to give shape to his spiritual journey, a journey which had taken him well beyond the traditional Catholicism to which he had converted in an effort to reconcile the strict Church of Christ faith of his white adoptive parents with the religious culture of his Haitian birth mother. She had given him up when he was two, but he felt certain he remembered, or was beginning to remember, her embrace, the feel and smell of her skin. That memory—real or imagined—had become the focus of his spiritual life, and was embodied in the miniature African pietá that formed the centerpiece of the shelf arrangement, flanked by the images of a youthful male Santos deity purchased at a local New Age shop, and a museum shop miniature copy of the Venus of Lespuges. Simon found little room left in his heart for the Father God that had dominated the home in which he was raised, His place taken by the tender yet terrible mother—Mary or Magna Mater—and her dying and resurrected son and consort.
Simon’s spiritual explorations enjoyed some cachet among the members of the drag court who formed his main social circle outside the school community. He relished the irony of this: By reputation, drag queens were a callow lot. Of course, they expressed their esteem as they addressed anything that might provoke lethal earnestness—with tongue planted firmly in cheek: Simon used the stage name “Aleta Love,” but to members of the Court, he was, variously, “Mother Superior,” “Sister Simon,” or for the more malicious, “Our Great High Priestess.” Normally, Simon took these labels as tokens of affection, but now, the priestess title reverberated in his mind scornfully as his eyes passed over the bookcase images. To add to his consternation, it struck him suddenly how much the arrangement made his bookcase look like an altar. An altar requires sacrifice, and that requires a victim.
Simon turned away with a shudder. What could Millron want? He was the last person with whom Simon wanted anything to do. And, not just because he blurred boundaries. Among the gay community, Wallace had a reputation for ruthlessness in pursuit of his ambitions. He had said it had something to do with Herman’s goddamned proposal for a fundraiser for St. Monica’s. When the idea had first come up, Simon had been absent, busy with an evening choir rehearsal. When he first got wind of it, he had protested vehemently, first to Herman, then, when Herman objected that the other Court members had already become enthusiastic about the idea, in one of their monthly planning meetings. The Court, he had argued, knew full well what a delicate position this would place him in, and had no right to undertake such a project without his prior consent. At first, Herman had tried to make a joke out it: The headmistress and her fellow sisters, he’d pointed out, were quite receptive; their religious community was notoriously progressive. Simon had reminded him that, if that were true of the nuns, it was not necessarily the case with the rest of teachers and staff, who far outnumbered the dwindling company of women religious. It was even less the case with the students’ mostly African-American and Hispanic parents. Perhaps the nuns would be accepting of a gay choirmaster, but what about the kids and their parents? And, even with the nuns, a closeted, if somewhat fey, gay choirmaster was one thing, but one who occasionally donned a dress and sang in gay bars would likely be quite another. Of course, Herman and “the girls” had sworn that they would protect his identity, but no one—least of all the drag queens, themselves— could claim that keeping a guarded tongue was among their greatest strengths.
Simon’s pleas had made headway among the members of the Court, and it even seemed like Herman might be on the point of relenting. The last thing Simon needed now was for Millron to turn the whole thing into some kind of political cause célèbre.