Psychopomp Magazine Summer 2016 | Page 33

Jason Marc Harris | 33

Something powerful.

After Jimmy had fallen asleep, Mr. Bell went to his room and picked up the tube with tongs from his workbench and deposited tubes and tongs in a garbage bag.

“What are you doing?” Jimmy sprang out of bed and reached for the bag.

“Getting this hateful thing out of here. It’s poison, boy.”

Jimmy snatched the bag, clawed through the plastic, and seized the smooth surface beneath.

His father raised his fists. Some fine dust from the tube got in his eye. He pawed at his face.

While Jimmy escaped with his treasure, Mr. Bell washed out his glittering eye.

After spending much of the night with his pal Parker Tubbs, Jimmy returned to the house and found his father sitting up watching television. Mr. Bell didn’t even scowl when he looked at Jimmy with milky eyes. He leaned further back on the couch and his voice sounded flat.

“If you want to keep it, then keep it.”

Much debate ensued among us young folks about what exactly the Handle could be used for.

We met in the Bell barn to discuss the matter in depth.

Dogs wouldn’t chase it if we threw it. They’d sniff, then wander away confused. Parker’s dog left altogether. Some later claimed Parker’s Rhodesian ridgeback joined the coyotes, ears pivoting like antennae towards the stars, yapping and whining at the moon or lurking in the caverns.

Perhaps the loss of Parker’s dog made him mean. He sneered that Morgan Calloway, who was at home studying as usual, would know exactly what to do with a vibrating cylindrical object, but “she was just too