His Own Vocation: A Short Story by Phillip Hoyle

Judaculla Dream
Mixed media painting by Phillip Hoyle

The grandfather sits alone in his apartment, smoking a cigarette, enjoying a CD of anthems by the Baroque composer Henry Purcell. He is intrigued by the unusual qualities of the English voices: the exceptionally fast vibrato of the soprano, the overwhelming resonance of the bass baritone. He wishes he owned a stereo with larger speakers so he could hear more sonorities of the orchestra and organ. Still, he is contented, drawn into the music and the memories it evokes.

As a boy, he lived for music. He conducted the London Symphony Orchestra standing before the front room mirror. He heard choirs singing in four part harmony when he closed his eyes at night. He listened over and over to his favorite recordings of Harry Belafonte, Barbara Streisand, Mahalia Jackson, and the Wings Over Jordan Choir. He learned art songs from his voice teacher plus jazz and pop standards from his father. When the school choir sang Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Faurè’s “Requiem,” music seemed the most important thing in his world.

His dad offered him two words of vocational advice. First, “Whatever you do, be sure you really enjoy it.” Second, “Don’t be a musician.”

The grandfather realizes his dad feared the alcohol and drugs that seemed indispensable to so many performers. He wanted to save his child from temptations that might lead to a life of dissipation. Although his advice was meant to help, it missed the reality of his son’s dreams.

When the CD ends, the grandfather loads a collection of songs by Dinah Washington. Although her life spiraled out of control like the experience his father feared, she thrilled her audiences and left a tremendous legacy of recordings. The grandfather loves the sassiness and tonal accuracy of her voice. He chuckles at the words of the old blues numbers, their subtle and blatant allusions to sex.

In his childhood he enjoyed sex with boys his age. Mostly they played kickball, war, and tag. When they were older they camped, hiked, and hunted. Always they played sex games. Eventually even that changed. In junior high school, he studied art, music, and languages while his best buddies followed their interests in sports, wood shop, and girls. Oh, he liked girls, always had a girlfriend with whom he attended school functions. He followed the rules about how many dates were necessary before you hold hands, dance close, or kiss at the end of an evening. But he continued to miss having sex with guys.

When he was fifteen, his family moved to another town. A member of the church youth group, a real jock, came onto him. Their nine months of vigorously satisfying sex seemed an extension of childhood into adolescence. Their affair ended, though, when the friend moved away at the end of the school year.

That summer, his dad talked with him and his sister about another church youth who was so effeminate the dad was afraid he would be taken to be homosexual when he went to college in the fall. He went on to say, “Neither of you will have that problem.”

The grandfather recalls that at the time he had thought his father imperceptive since he had just spent the school year having sex with a guy. Now he realized that, like the vocational advice, the words may have been wisdom arising from the father’s view of what constituted a successful life, or his dad may have been expressing a deeply hidden dread about his own son cloaked in a concern for another. Whatever the truth of the interaction, the son knew he was different and realized that the difference caused his father anxiety.

Dinah Washington sings her blues in a voice that seems almost too full of joy. Her playfulness doesn’t match the grandfather’s mood. He wants a different feeling, so scanning the shelf, selects an album by Sting. He loads the CD, taps another cigarette from the pack on his lamp table, and lighting it, draws in the rich smoke. He relaxes in the chair, cushioned by the music. He likes the singer’s rough yet rich voice, the range of expression, the variety of lyrics. When Sting mentions losing his belief in the holy church, the grandfather’s thoughts again turn to the past.

The dad’s love for the church led him to hope his son would become a preacher. Responding out of a desire to please his father, the son attended a Bible College. He assumed he would become a minister but by the end of his junior year realized he didn’t want to tell other people what to think or how to live their lives. He changed his major to music. Happy to support the work of others who did enjoy preaching, he entered church work as a choir director and religious educator. Eventually the son was ordained, but he continued associate ministry, pursuing his preferred emphases in music and education.

Once the father attended a Bible study the son was leading. Afterwards, he said, “You’re a good teacher even if I agree more with your conservative students than with you.”

Over many years the son pieced together an interpretation of his father’s support. For instance, the father seemed gratified that his son had married and reared children. He was happy that he pursued his music within the church. He seemed pleased his son held responsible positions in large congregations. The son could hear his father saying these things even if without great enthusiasm and realized this pastiche would have to satisfy his need for his dad’s approval.

The grandfather wonders what the dad would have made of his son’s leaving both career and marriage. What words of advice would the father have proffered had he lived long enough to see his son living in a major city far from his family, working as a massage therapist, painting pictures, and writing about his homosexuality from a religious perspective?

The song changes, inviting the grandfather to wonder what he may have said to his own son that hit or missed the truth of his life. The old man lifts the phone and dials as he puffs away on his cigarette. He listens to the ringing.

“Hello, Able?” he greets his son. “How are you doing? ... How’s your wife? ... Your kids? ... Your work? ...” The two men, old and young, talk candidly. Their conversation proceeds with warmth, laughter, and occasionally surprise. The grandfather asks, “And how is your artwork going?” He hears of new paintings, developing ideas, and a proposed art show. Satisfied, the grandfather hangs up. He leans back into his feelings as Sting observes, “How fragile we are.”

Denver, 2006