THE GLASS TOP COFFIN (standard:drama, 2566 words) [11/12] show all parts
Author: Stephen-Carver Byrd	Added: Jan 06 2003	Views/Reads: 2455/1786	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
*** Part 12*** The Last Chapter Of "The Glass Top Coffin" --The Final Rendezvous

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


Finally they arrived at the store. Jordan stopped just short of the
entrance and studied it. Meagan was pulling at his arm and pointing 
toward the store. She was trying to say something that sounded like: 
“Ganpa's tore, Ganpa's tore.” Every two years Jordan had the store 
freshly painted and closely inspected for any problems. He kept the old 
place in as perfect condition as any collector would keep their antique 
show car. Above the new tin roof was a rectangular sign. Written in 
green letters it simply read: 

“Taylor's Grocery.” 

Underneath, there was something else written in smaller red letters. It
read: 

“In Memory Of Wendil L. Moore” 

When the sign was first erected several years ago, everyone was curious
about this man. Jordan related the story of Wendil Moore with pride and 
enthusiasm. He must had told the story a thousand times about the 
wonderful heart that this man possessed and how on a cold Christmas 
morning in 1963, six mouths after his death, Wendil Moore had taken 
thirty-seven families out of poverty and given them a new life. He told 
of how this old man carefully and discreetly guided a small ten-year 
old boy in the right direction that eventually saved the entire area 
from total destruction. It was a story he always loved telling, but 
now, very few people seemed interested. Jordan looked one final time at 
the sign then sighed heavily. At eighty-three years old, he was 
probably the only person on this earth who remembered Wendil L. Moore. 

Jordan and Meagan walked to the baskets of vegetables and fruit that
lined the front of the store. Jordan reached down and picked up a red 
petty cash box. There was no lock on it so he simplify flipped the 
latch and opened it. Ruffling through the bills and change, he 
estimated to be close to $20.00 inside. Everyone in Falls Hills knew 
the store was closed during the weekends and should anyone be in need 
of vegetables or fruit, they simply picked out what they needed and 
left the posted price in the little cash box. In the big city, 16 miles 
away, that practice would be disastrous, but in all the years that 
Jordan had owned the store he never experienced any dishonesty. 

Jordan unlocked the store and Meagan flew in ahead of him. Her favorite
toys were the dozen or so brightly colored fishing rods that were still 
kept on the back wall. Jordan took them all down and lined them up 
neatly onto the floor for Meagan to play with. He walked slowly to the 
old drink box and placed his plastic lunchbox deep into the ice-cold 
water. It was the very same drink box that Mr. Moore had owned but it 
had endured its many share of repairs over the years. An antique dealer 
had once told Jordan it was most likely to be the only working soda pop 
cooler left in the world. With a badly shaking finger, Jordan pushed 
the same green “No Sale” key and the same old brass bell shouted its 
song throughout the small store. Meagan looked up from her toys in 
surprise then smiled. When Mr. Moore first bestowed Jordan and his 
mother the small store they immediately placed everything into storage. 
Years later, after finishing college, Jordan had the grocery totally 
restored and everything brought back in. 

Just as he had promised Mr. Moore, the store would double as his writing
office. At the very spot where he had pointed toward many years ago, 
the place between the old rocking chair and the pot belly stove, stood 
an old word possessor. The machine was almost 35 years old but was 
still in good working condition and he had written many of his best 
selling novels on the old computer. Jordan tossed the vegetable money 
into the drawer and then closed it softly. Meagan had now crawled up 
into Mr. Moore's big rocking chair and Jordan handed her a rainbow 
colored ice cream bar that he had taken from the freezer. She sat 
content, rocking and licking, rocking and licking. Jordan chuckled to 
himself. 

The store had a fair amount of costumers during the first hour, mostly
local farmers, and they all made a fuss over Jordan‘s great 
granddaughter. Soon Kate arrived to take Meagan home. Jordan wasn't too 
disappointed. The little girl was already beginning to get bored and a 
little fussy. Kate and Meagan both planted a big kiss on his cheek then 
drove away. Old Skipper slowly started down the road for home. Jordan 
knew he would return on his own before closing time. Kate reminded 
Jordan that if he wasn't feeling up to the walk home, she would be 
happy to pick him up. In addition to the air conditioning, the one 
improvement that he had made to the rural grocery was to install a 
telephone. 

The day went by quickly. Jordan had an unusual amount of brisk sales
that kept him jumping in and out of the rocker and sometimes 
interrupting his reading or snoozing. He looked at his watch and saw 
that it was a little past four. He walked to the drink box and pulled 
out a can of 7-Up then opened it. Trying to steady his right hand, he 
poured the clear contents into a green antique 7oz. bottle. Jordan 
grabbed a bag of pork rinds off the rack then walked outside where he 
placed an old vegetable carton directly under the big storefront 
window, just as he had done as a boy. 

He sat down and leaned back, took a sip of the ice cold drink then
opened the bag of pork rinds. The infinite miles of tobacco still 
flowed to the horizon and the dark gray shadow of the store crept 
tiredly across the road and into the fields. Little had changed around 
this area in the last seventy years, thanks to the rigid zoning laws 
that Jordan and Will Kinston had implemented many years' back. He took 
another sip from the green bottle and thought of the day he discovered 
it. Years earlier, when he and Madelyn were moving the store 
furnishings into storage, he'd found the 7-Up bottle in the same carton 
where he had last placed it. It was the same bottle that he had sipped 
from on the afternoon that Mr. Moore died. It was also the same bottle 
he had visualized the drowning death of his own great granddaughter. 
Jordan held the emerald bottle up close to his face and gazed into it. 
Something began to form and twirl. It appeared as a fuzzy cloud that 
was growing small legs and arms. Then everything vanished. Jordan 
reached up and rubbed his old, tired eyes. Bottle dreaming was for the 
young. 

For the first time in years he thought of Wally Perkins and his rat,
then laughed to himself. Wally died about three years after Jordan and 
Madelyn moved away. He had heard it was from a massive stroke. Wally 
lived three days on life support until the family decided to terminate 
the machine. 

He sighed deeply and thought again of his son Kyle. Jordan was always
saddened when he thought of all the things his son had missed in life. 
He thought about the night it happened and realized that actually two 
men had died outside that bar. Kyle was not dead physically but he 
wasn't truly living either. He never got the opportunity to see his 
wife again or to ever get to know his only son. And even worse he never 
had the chance to meet his beautiful granddaughter, Meagan. With each 
visit to the prison, Jordan and Kate could see that Kyle was giving up 
both mentally and physically. The sorrow had eaten away at him for so 
long that he was only the shell of the man he had once been. 

Jordan jerked away from his thoughts and got to his feet. The last thing
he wanted to do was to depress himself. Back inside the store he rinsed 
out the bottle and placed it back into the drink box. He glanced at his 
watch again---four-thirty. Suddenly he was overcome by a feeling of 
tiredness and for a moment he considered calling Kate to pick him up. 
He decided to wait another half-hour to see how he felt. Jordan sat 
down into the big rocker and relaxed. The gentle breeze that floated 
through the store felt nice and soothing. He shut his eyes and drifted 
off into a deep, calm sleep. When he opened his eyes again, he suddenly 
found himself standing outside the front of the store. He wondered if 
he had possibly sleepwalked? Then he heard a very familiar voice that 
he hadn't heard since childhood. It was the voice of Mr. Moore and he 
was bellowing about some dirt that he had overlooked. Jordan slowly 
walked up the stairs and peered in. Mr. Moore was on his knees, 
cleaning under a shelf. The old man immediately stopped his chore, 
turned around, and looked directly into Jordan's old green eyes. 

“My Jordi boy!” he yelled, getting to his feet. “Well, come on in, son.”


Jordan reached for the screen door handle but his hand passed right
through it, almost ghostly. “Try a little harder,” Mr. Moore 
encouraged. Concentrate, son, if anyone can do it, it‘s you.” 

Jordan put his whole mind into the task and concentrated hard. On the
second attempt he could actually feel the coolness of the handle. As he 
watched his wrinkled shaking hand struggling with the handle, something 
strange began to occur. His hand became slightly fuzzy then began to 
change in form. When it reappeared, it was the small, puffy hand of a 
ten-year old. He tried again, and this time he instantly grasped the 
handle firmly and the screen door went flying open. Jordan stepped into 
the store and saw Mr. Moore smiling and holding out two big arms. The 
boy dashed to him then leaped threw the air and landed 
“Smack-Dab-In-The-Middle” of his giant potbelly. They both embraced 
with tears steaming from their eyes. After a minute the old man put 
Jordan gently down. 

Mr. Moore lowered to one knee where he now looked the boy face to face.
The old man stopped smiling and began to scowl. “Damn boy, where the 
hell have you been for so long?” he asked gruffly. 

Trying to hold a straight face, Jordan took a small step backward,
squinted an eye and pointed toward the ceiling. “Duck hunting,” he 
laughed proudly. 

Old Skipper had learned the trick back when he was just a pup. He dug
with his claws between the door casing and the edge of the screen door. 
Within seconds he had it open and leisurely walked into the grocery. He 
glanced to his master who was sitting quietly in the rocker and the old 
dog slowly moved in that direction. Skipper stuck a cold nose up to 
Jordan's perfectly calm hand and then stretched out beside him. Jordan 
was dreaming deeply and his mind was expanded far between the 
boundaries of time and space. It was an astonishing dream, a dream that 
is experienced only once in a lifetime. Like a cold winter sky, it was 
all so clear and vivid. It would be a dream that Jordan would never 
awaken from. The boy was finally home. 

******The End****** 

Continued - Please see the epilogue that concludes this story with a
major surprise 


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