The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

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Authors: Chris Fuhrman
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Literary Criticism, Women Authors, Religious
hundred and fifty pounds.”
    “I weigh almost that. I’ve been lifting weights. I can hold that much on my shoulders.”
    “Tim’s talkin about carryin it eight miles to Blessed Heart in the middle of the night. Without attractin attention.” Rusty shook his head and grimaced like he tasted something bad. “No way.”
    “We could walk through the woods,” Wade said. “I could rest every once in a while. We could take turns.”
    “Not me,” I said, relieved that it was seeming less possible. “Doctor’s excuse, hernia.”
    Rusty shook his head again. “Tim couldn’t lift it either.”
    “Fuck you,” Tim said. “I could pull it in a wagon.”
    “Nuh,” said Rusty. “It’s just not… not—what’s the word?”
    “Feasible,” said Tim. “But I’ll make it feasible. I’m plugged in to this.”
    We followed Paul and the others to another deck. There was a giant live oak in the center of the area.
    Paul said, “There’s a bobcat up there, see?”
    The limbs swayed in the breeze, moss waving, leaves rippling, and then part of a limb flowed down itself towards the trunk, flicked a short tail up, and became a cat. The trunk of the tree and the tops of the limbs were red-brown where claws had scoured the bark.
    “These fellas still live in the woods all over the place,” Paul said. “But you’d have to use dogs to find them.”
    The bobcat flowed back up the trunk, its stubby tail curled forward and swishing. It jumped to a higher limb and stuck quick on top like a magnet.
    Tim called out, “Are they dangerous?”
    Paul said, “Sure. They can kill full-grown deer. Pioneers thought they rode deer through the forests the way we ride horses. Actually, this is because they kill by jumping on the deer’s back and biting through the spinal cord or jugular.” Paul’s fingers became jaws and he clamped them on his neck. The girlsmoaned. “If they don’t succeed right away, they’re in for one heck of a ride. Normally they won’t prey on people, though there have been some rare attacks on children.”
    Tim was already gloating. “How much do they weigh?”
    “Generally about twenty-five pounds. These lazy cats are a little plumper. There’s another one in that bush to the right.”
    The new cat’s eyes floated in the green and brown.
    “I can picture a rope dangling from that tree limb,” said Tim quietly. “I see us doping the wildcat and carrying it back in a pillowcase. On our bikes. Then we’re out of school, out of trouble, and have something amazing to tell our grandchildren.”
    “That’s just a chicken-wire fence,” Rusty said. “No juice to fool with.”
    “What about it, Francis?” Tim asked.
    My palms had moistened, because I could see us doing it. I was scared because I wasn’t very scared. “Easy as pie.”
    “These cats don’t look dangerous to me,” said Wade. “I liked the big ones better.”
    “This is smarter, Wade. Stripped down. It reminds me of those Picasso drawings of the bull that got simpler and simpler until it was just a couple of lines. But you still saw the bull. You know the ones?”
    That comparison sparked an idea in my own head. “You haven’t got to the final step yet.”
    “What’s that?” Tim asked.
    “We don’t take the cat to school at all. We just set it free. It’s reported missing, we leave the notes and bust a window— maybe leave some bobcat droppings or something. And since they won’t find the cat, it’ll take them longer to decide to reopen school. We don’t endanger students or the cat, so if we get caught, it’s nothing.”
    Rusty said, “Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose? Hell, why not set the cougars free too?”
    “No,” Tim said. “They’re too big to live in these woods. Hell,I believe Francis is right. It’ll be beautiful. It’ll take a minimum of effort but’ll accomplish the same thing.”
    The bobcat padded out to the end of a limb and cawed, almost like a bird. The girls made kissy noises and

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