The Choir He Wanted, The LIfe He Had

Saturday, November 8, 1936

As we stood to the side of the stage, I looked out at the crowd. All of the seats were filled for the competition, including people from all over the country. I sighed.

"There's a lot of people here," I said. I felt Roger move closer to me, looking over my shoulder at the crowd.

"Yeah," he said. "Is that a problem?"

"No," I said. I wasn't lying; it wasn't a problem, but I was still nervous. It was our first actual performance. Not only that, but we were being judged for it.

"Are we even ready for this?" I asked. Roger shrugged.

"I don't know," he said, "But I sure hope so."

The group before us finished singing and the audience clapped. My heart was pounding in my chest as we prepared to go onstage. I lead the choir as we walked onto the large, unfamiliar stage. The crowd looked bigger from the stage than it did when I first looked into the audience. I took a deep breath, and then we began.

As soon as we started, I forgot all about the audience. I sang as if we were in practice, and before I knew it we had finished, and the audience was clapping for us. We walked off the stage and Mr. Smith led us down a long hallway. When we stopped, some of the boys began raising their hands, but Mr. Smith ignored them.

"Alright," he said. "Now we're going to wait in the audience, and we will watch the other groups respectfully. Then they'll announce placements, and we'll see how we did."

When he had started speaking, the boys who had raised their hands had lowered them again. When he asked if there were any questions, those boys, and others as well, raised their hands in the air instantly.

When Mr. Smith called on one of them, he asked where the bathroom was. The other boys started talking all at once so that no individual boy could be heard separately.

"Okay, okay!" Mr. Smith yelled, raising his arms. "Calm down, listen!" The voices stopped and Mr. Smith lowered his arms and his voice.

"I know it's been a long day," he said, "And we haven't had many breaks--"

"We haven't had any breaks," Roger whispered, but I ignored him.

"--But I'm going to need you guys to wait a few minutes while I figure some things out."

All of the boys began whining. Mr. Smith had to once again raise his voice to make himself heard.

"Listen, listen!" he yelled. The voices stopped, and he said, "I understand your discomfort, but I need you to wait just a few minutes more. I don't know what we're supposed to be doing, and quite frankly I don't even know where the toilets are. I know as much about this place as you do. If you need it that badly I can figure something out, but I would appreciate it if you could wait. I promise it won't be long, I just need to figure out what's happening, and then I'll take you all, alright?"

The boys muttered an agreement, some of them groaning silently as they did. Then they began talking amongst themselves. Some of them leaned against the wall. Others sat down on the ground. I decided to stay standing. I didn't have to pee very badly, but I was still uncomfortable. I leaned against the wall, stretching my legs out in front of me before crossing them, and Roger did the same to the right of me.

"You have to go bad?" he asked. I shook my head.

"Not really," I said.

"You're lucky," Roger replied.

"Do you?" I asked.

"Yeah," Roger said.

"Wow," I said. "If you hadn't told me I wouldn't have known you had to go at all. You're so calm."