curtis york

led the choir, glee club and the middle school chorus where i went to school (the Episcopal Academy in Philly). he taught music appreciation and coached softball. his initials, C. R. Y., proved to be an acronym that spelled it out. his passion and his unfair downfall in my eyes. when i was 12 i auditioned for choir/chorus. i was terrified as i stood next to him at the piano. he played scales. i sang them back, the notes resonating in my small bird chest like a miniature Tibetan bell. the thrill of this new thing, this singing in a girl's soprano, ran from my heels and up my spine to the crown of my head. it wasn't really a girl's soprano. it was a boy's. there is a subtle difference. the sound is as pure as silver, ringing out of little mouths, little 'o's' on the upturned faces of cherubs. we never, at least not at our school, thought this was sissy. it was instead a huge credit to be singing there in the choir, chorus (soprano/alto) and later the glee club. it probably got me into Yale with it's diehard singing group tradition. i loved it so much, lost in a sea of voices at the spring concert (recorded onto swimming-pool blue vinyl), filing past Mr York to see if he'd give a meaningful wink. we felt special. we really truly did. to be awarded a solo was the pinnacle of the rush. one single fluted voice rising above 120 others to dove soar across the gymnasium and land in the hearts of adoring, astonished friends and parents. certainly my infatuation and eventual life obsession with music and singing began here, with Curtis York. as seniors we took his music appreciation class and covered the symphonic and opera classics with gusto. his enthusiasm was contagious and real. at the end of the school year he'd take us to his favorite Italian restaurant in downtown Philly where waiters sang opera and where we had our first inkling of a non-family dinner out with wine, song and romantic escapade. he was short and had a pencil mustache and up-combed wavy ink black hair. we worshipped him. we sought his approval. after i went off to Yale and ultimately became a Whiffenpoof (even recording at the big room at the Columbia Studios in Manhattan) i wanted to give York the result. i was proud of it. i thought he would be as well, especially my big ballsy version of 'Sit Down You're Rockin' The Boat'. i called him up and he asked me to meet him as his apartment. sure, i thought. sounds good. i was, at the time, in the cluttered closet. i'd been found out at Yale by others like myself, but none of them attracted me and to those who knew i swore i'd 'fix' myself. meanwhile i was falling in mad love with the less sure and doing nothing about it in bed. at Episcopal we had, as kids, theories about some of the teachers. who 'was' and who 'wasn't'. somehow Mr York never made the list. i guess we loved him too much to stain our sense of who he was with nasty schoolboy gossip. so it was with a naive heart that i drove to his place at school to see him, catch up, maybe have a more open conversation about art or something and of course to play the Whiff record. when i got there he'd already had a few and was red in the face, even a bit weepy. i knew it like a gun went off that Mr York was gay as a goose and damned if i was gonna tell him i was too. he seemed to like the record enough, but it was me, grown up now, 21, that he wanted to see, to talk with, as if he could come clean about all the boys over the years that he'd loved and never had. how his heart must have hurt to suppress those feelings. we'd heard that he took vacations to the west coast. maybe it was there that he acted out, maybe not. at any rate i wanted outa there. he came forward to hug me. i guess i hugged him back like a whore worried about her hair or about touching too close down there. it was brief, awkward and sad. this man, this wonderful man who had brought so much to so many had had to hide all those years. hide from the scorn that would have inevitably chewed him alive. hide from the feelings he had for those up-chinned boy sopranos, hide, hide, hide. it tears me up to think about him, even though i know i could never have been even remotely his friend. i guess love requires illusion. C. R. Y. created one of the most beautiful i have ever known.