The Prayer Jar

Below is an excerpt from my latest short story, "The Prayer Jar". I have thought a lot about prayer over the last couple of weeks; from these thoughts an old book idea surfaced. So I knocked off the dust and cobwebs and finished this short story about Joey Goode and the Prayer Jar.

Tomorrow, November 3, 2014, the complete story will be available to purchase from the Kindle Store for just 99 cents. I will provide the link as soon as it is ready, but you can also find it by going to Amazon and searching for "The Prayer Jar" by J Hirtle.

The Prayer Jar (excerpts)

Joey Goode sat at the small kitchen table savoring the aromas of fresh baked bread and watching his grandmother prepare his sandwich. The flesh on her arms jiggled as the little woman first cut two slices of homemade bread and then carefully spread the peanut butter over the warm slices. He thought her jiggling arms were quite funny but he never laughed. His mother had warned him about always being polite and how sometimes laughter could be taken the wrong way. Besides Joey loved his grandmother too much to ever laugh at her; unless she was being funny, which she was quite often.

Joey knew exactly what would come next. After all he had been in his grandmother’s kitchen every Saturday since he was just seven years old; that was two years ago, when he was just a little boy.

Grandma had moved from her home in Fairbanks to Soldotna after Grandpa had died. She hated leaving her home and friends on Badger Road. She and Grandpa had built that house the same year Alaska had become a state. But she knew and was reminded by her daughter (Joey’s mother) that winters in Fairbanks were extreme; at her age battling the Alaska elements alone would not be a wise decision. Soon after the homestead sold Joey and his parents rented a U-Haul and drove to Fairbanks to fetch Grandma.

She stayed with her daughter’s family for the first two months and then quickly found the house that was now her “new home”. The small two room cabin was on four acres of land and just a mile in one direction from her daughter’s home and a half mile in the other direction from Joey’s school. Neither the land nor the cabin required much maintenance; the sidewalk that leads to the front door was only about thirty feet long and Joey could shovel the snow away in no time at all. His grandmother no longer drove so the driveway stayed covered in snow all winter long; becoming the perfect place for Joey and his school friends to build snow forts and battle the enemies that come from the imaginations of young boys.

As a reward for shoveling the snow from the sidewalk Joey received two crisp dollar bills, a cup of hot chocolate and a sandwich made from freshly baked bread. The bread was the delicious but it wasn't his favorite part of the sandwich.

Joey waited…he saw his small and round grandmother turn around and ask the question she had asked so many times,

“Now, which jelly for the belly?” She would chuckle.

It was okay for Joey to laugh now, even though he had heard this simple rhyme many times and knew it by heart. Joey Goode was the best rhymer in all of Soldotna, Alaska. He had won first place in the Redoubt Elementary inaugural Rhyming Contest, even beating out fifth graders! Some twenty years later he would be known as JT Goode and win a Grammy for the country hit “She Rhymes with Love”.

Now, not only did his Grandma bake homemade bread but she also made her own jams and jellies, even apple butter! Her old neighbors on Badger Road missed her cooking as much as they missed her. The traditional and anticipated Christmas gifts of unique jars filled with delicious jams would still be given each Christmas to her longtime friends, but now it was the UPS man who delivered them door to door instead of the plump granny. 

Joey looked at the counter top where his grandmother had lined up the many jars of jams and jellies. Her son-in-law had built a three tiered stand about four feet long just so his mother-in-law could display her many condiments. There was orange marmalade, apple cinnamon jelly (Joey’s favorite), apricot, peach and blackberry jams. Sassafras jelly, (Joey’s least favorite) rhubarb jam, gooseberry, bumble-berry and boysenberry also filled the jars that lined the counter. Countless others of both common and uncommon varieties stood on the shelf. (His grandmother had challenged him once to find a word that rhymes with boysenberry…he is still working on that one.)

Joey’s eyes started on one end of the jars lined up like soldiers and slowly moved up and down each row, inspecting each hand written label like a Marine captain. It was the same ritual each Saturday, taking great care in making his decision (skipping the sassafras of course). Joey knew that most nine year old boys are told what to eat not asked what jelly for the belly; so he felt that he must take his time in making such an important decision.

As his stomach rumbled in anticipation of the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich the boy’s eagle like vision spied a jar he was quite certain he had never seen before. It was standing on the top row slightly askant and a bit taller than all the other jars. The late morning sun delivered its rays through the kitchen window, landing on the green glass of this most unusual jar. The jar had no label with his grandmother’s crooked writing stuck to the glass; instead raised letters near the top announced “Mason’s”. Below that the embossed letters spelled out “Patent” and then “Nov 30^th” and close to the bottom the numbers “57”.

“Grandma, what’s in that jar?” Joey asked, taking a step closer to the counter.....