The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys [antikvár]

tuiv+eevx o eighth grade, Jesus Christ had been bone meal and rumors for most of 1,974 years, but we were only thirteen. We were daredevils, gangsters. I had a girl's name, Francis, and a hernia. School and church occurred right down everybody's street at Blessed Heart, the two buildings joined at the shoulder by a glass bridge. My best friends, Tim and Rusty, were serving Mass that Sunday, kneeling on each side of the priest in their cassocks and wayward purple socks. 1 watched from the farthest pew, beside my mother. We'd been late again. To see the altar, 1 had to rock side-to-side behind the orchard of shifting heads. Father Kavanagh was praying, his Irish mumble amplified by the PA system into the voice of God. He pinched the Host out of the chalice and raised it like a man admiring a silver dollar, Tim's cue to shake the bells. He thrashed them, brass clashing brass so harshly that heads flinched. Kavanagh flung Tim a thunderbolt glare. Tim stiffened his face. Jesus hung crucified on the pink marble behind them, rolling up plaster eyes. The bell signaled that the bread wafer in Kavanagh's fingers was now the flesh of Christ. You're supposed to be amazed, but