Right to Die

December thirty-first turned bright and sunny. Everything dried out toward a crisp, low-forties First Night.
    First Night has really caught on in Boston . Originally designed as a way to discourage drinking on New Year’s Eve by offering performing arts alternatives, the idea has blossomed into an annual festival of ice sculptures, fireworks, and general revelry. Just strict enough to discourage public carousing, just tolerant enough for hip flasks discreetly tupped.
    Nancy had bought us each a button, a blue bird on a black background. The button allowed the wearer to attend almost all the holiday entertainment. We cooked an early dinner at my place, planning over dessert the events we’d visit. Most were repeated on a staggered schedule during the evening.
    Out on the streets, the crowds, all ages and sizes, jostled happily. Cloth coats to fur wraps to ski outfits. Mardi Gras costumes, glow-worm necklaces, tinsel tiaras. Women with painted faces, guys with long plastic trumpets. Nancy wore her Himalayan yak fur sweater, which pleased me. I didn’t wear my rapidly ripening Gore-Tex suit, which pleased her and everyone around us...”
    We began at the First Baptist Church on Commonwealth. Minimalist decorations hung beneath conservative rosette windows and dark joists and trusses. There were no kneelers in the pews, and only the barest of cushions on the benches. I browsed through a red-bound hymnal on the rack in front of me as we waited in the swish of people seating themselves.
    The four performers were the Mystic Consort. Renaissance music from soprano and bass singers, a right-angled lute, and a harpsichord the size of a hippo. Most of the twelve works involved all four, some a single singer with accompanist or an instrumental solo. A perfect, gentle kickoff.
    Our second stop was the Old South Church on Boylston Street . We joined a thick line of nine hundred people moving slowly past port-a-potties. At the doorway we were among the last folks ushered politely into the sanctuary to hear the Old South Brass, Timpani & Organ. The sanctuary walls were done in rose and lavender, an opening-flower motif that was repeated in the carpet. Ornate detail work crept over ivory marble facades. Lustrous beams arched upward, like the ribs of a great sailing ship capsized overhead, just below a center cupola and skylight. Curled chandeliers were attached to the ceiling by brass balls and chains. Overall, I had the feeling of being in Constantinople .
    The musicians played trumpets, trombones, and tuba in addition to the timpani and organ, the last a 1921 dinosaur of nearly eight thousand pipes. The conductor moved the crowd without manipulating it, starting with a rousing National Anthem and progressing through various pieces I didn’t know to one I did. An arrangement for organ of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, the signature theme of Oliver Stone’s Vietnam movie. Platoon.
    The Barber music took me back, back two decades to a New Year’s Eve in Saigon , a turn of the calendar a month before the lunar new year, a month before Tet, when most of us still thought we were winning.
    “John?”
    I looked down into Nancy ’s eyes, suddenly aware she’d been tugging on my sleeve and whispering to me.
    “John, are you all right?”
    “Yes. Why?”
    “I thought you were zoning out on me. You were moving your lips and had this glassy look in your eyes.”
    I closed my hand around hers. “I’m fine.” And I was.
    Our third stop was the Arlington Street Church , the one that most reminded me of a Catholic cathedral. All white, elaborate barrel vaults, fluted granite pillars, stained-glass windows with interior shutters. A massive walnut pulpit enclosed in riddled wooden gates dominated the altar. Undecorated pine trees contrasted with garlands and floppy red velvet bows. The pews had cafe doors and miniature kneelers like shoeshine boxes.
    The performing group was the Muir String Quartet. About halfway through the first entry, which sounded a hell of a lot like “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads,” I noticed someone familiar on the far side of the church. He was partly in the shadow of a pillar, but I was pretty sure it was Del Wonsley, Alec Bacall’s companion, sitting next to a man a little shorter and more stooped than Bacall.
    Nancy played finger games with my hand through the remainder of the program, a nice mix of the poignant themes a string quartet can evoke. As we were shuffling out, the stream from the other side of