The Talisman

Phil,’ Jack said, thinking that it was one of the few names Wolf might remember.
    But he had just finished saying it when Wolf pulled up his head and straightened his back and yelled, ‘JACK! JACK! JACK WOLF!’
    ‘We call him Jack sometimes,’ the boy put in, knowing it was already too late. ‘It’s because he likes me so much, sometimes I’m the only one who can do anything with him. I might even stay there in Springfield a few days after I get him home, just to make sure he settles down okay.’
    ‘I sure am sick of the sound of your voice, Jack boy. Why don’t you and good old Phil-Jack get in the back seat here and we’ll go into town and straighten everything out?’ When Jack did not move, the policeman put a hand on the butt of the enormous pistol which hung from his straining belt. ‘Get in the car. Him first. I want to find out why you’re a hundred miles from home on a school day. In the car. Right now.’
    ‘Ah, officer,’ Jack began, and behind him Wolf rasped, ‘No. Can’t.’
    ‘My cousin has this problem,’ Jack said. ‘He’s claustrophobic. Small spaces, especially the insides of cars, drive him crazy. We can only get rides in pick-ups, so he can be in the back.’
    ‘ Get in the car ,’ the policeman said. He stepped forward and opened the back door.
    ‘CAN’T!’ Wolf wailed. ‘Wolf CAN’T! Stinks, Jacky, it stinks in there.’ His nose and lip had wrinkled into corrugations.
    ‘You get him in the car or I will,’ the cop said to Jack.
    ‘Wolf, it won’t be for long,’ Jack said, reaching for Wolf’s hand. Reluctantly, Wolf allowed him to take it. Jack pulled him toward the back seat of the police car, Wolf literally dragging his feet across the surface of the road.
    For a couple of seconds it looked as though it would work. Wolf got close enough to the police car to touch the doorframe. Then his entire body shook. He clamped both hands onto the top of the doorframe. It looked as though he were going to try to rip the top of the car in half, as a circus strongman tears a telephone book in two.
    ‘Please,’ Jack said quietly. ‘We have to.’
    But Wolf was terrified, and too disgusted by whatever he had smelled. He shook his head violently. Slobber ran from his mouth and dripped onto the top of the car.
    The policeman stepped around Jack and released something from a catch on his belt. Jack had time only to see that it was not his pistol before the cop expertly whapped his blackjack into the base of Wolf’s skull. Wolf’s upper body dropped onto the top of the car, and then all of Wolf slid gracefully down onto the dusty road.
    ‘You get on his other side,’ the cop said, fastening the sap to his belt. ‘We’re gonna finally get this big bag of shit into the vehicle.’
    Two or three minutes later, after they had twice dropped Wolf’s heavy unconscious body back onto the road, they were speeding toward Cayuga. ‘I already know what’s gonna happen to you and your feeb cousin, if he is your cousin, which I doubt.’ The cop looked up at Jack in his rear-view mirror, and his eyes were raisins dipped in fresh tar.
    All the blood in Jack’s body seemed to swing down, down in his veins, and his heart jumped in his chest. He had remembered the cigarette in his shirt pocket. He clapped his hand over it, then jerked his hand away before the cop could say anything.
    ‘I gotta put his shoes back on,’ Jack said. ‘They sort of fell off.’
    ‘Forget it,’ the cop said, but did not object further when Jack bent over. Out of sight of the mirror, he first shoved one of the split-seamed loafers back up on Wolf’s bare heel, then quickly snatched the joint out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth. He bit into it, and dry crumbly particles with an oddly herbal taste spilled over his tongue. Jack began to grind them between his teeth. Something scratched down into his throat, and he convulsively jerked upright, put his hand in front of his mouth, and tried to cough with his lips together. When his throat was clear, he hurriedly swallowed all of the dampened, now rather sludgy marijuana. Jack ran his tongue over his teeth, collecting all the flecks and traces.
    ‘You got a few surprises ahead of you,’ the policeman said. ‘You’re gonna get a little sunlight in your soul.’
    ‘Sunlight in my soul?’ Jack asked, thinking that the cop had seen him stuff the joint into his mouth.
    ‘A few blisters on your hands, too,’ the cop said, and glared happily at