The Second Chance, Page 2

  *****

  Byron Whitfield opened his apartment door to see Jelly, standing there with his wrinkled old hat in hand, looking down at the floor.

  "Come in…uh, Jelly." Whitfield closed the door. "You know, I never did get your actual name."

  "Don't matter," he said quietly, his voice shaky, his uncomfortable manner bespeaking of a man not used to what he was about to undertake. "I just come, 'cause I want to get some things straight. A lot of it I don't understand. Ya know, I heard and saw some of the things went on between ya and Coach Clausen in the locker room before the game, and I…I just don't know whether to thank ya or spit'n your eye."

  The words started coming faster, discomfort giving in to anger. "How could ya leave Coach out there like that? Ya made a promise and then ya went back on it. Home runs ya promised, and then to let Mathews go in there, knowing what ya could do. Didn't even try to talk Coach out of it. And so, Mathews strikes out, and we lose the World Series. The World Series!" He shook his head tiredly. "Don't make sense to me. No sir."

  Whitfield could have repeated how he'd diverted the steroid-loaded Walter Evans from the team. How Clausen himself had raised the Bayous on his shoulders, and almost willed the down-and-out players to win and win again. Without Evans. Without chemicals. And without Whitfield's "talent."

  Jelly's discomfort returned and his face reddened, unable to meet Whitfield's eyes. "Ya some sort of mechanical man? I seen what ya did in the locker room. Ya kinda like that Terminator thing in the movies? Just what the hell are ya?"

  Whitfield didn't believe that Jelly would grasp the concept of cryogenics. Or of synthetic and regenerative skin and organs, or bone structure of metal alloys not dreamed of today, and muscle tissue that magnified strength a hundred times.

  "Let's just say, I lived and died in the present time, but that my brain was preserved, through freezing. And that one day, I received a new body. That will happen just about a thousand years from now. So, yes, I am part "mechanical" as you say, and part natural person."

  Jelly seemed to half listen, his mind still on the reason he'd come here to begin with.

  "Why didn't ya help coach when he needed ya? I just can't get past that."

  Whitfield pulled two yellowed pieces of newspaper from his pocket, unfolded them, and placed them on a nearby table, and motioned for Jelly to look at them.

  The first article was titled, Come From Behind Bayous Series Champs. The second was titled, Evans Found Guilty: Bayous Stripped Of Title.

  Whitfield looked to Jelly. "In a small way, I helped change things. But, it was Coach Clausen who made the final decision to do it the right way. He had a second chance, and win or lose, he did the right thing this time. In the end, isn't that what counts the most?"

  They looked back down at the articles. The print was rapidly fading and the paper was brightening from yellow to fresh white. And then new print emerged, new headlines forming on each. Game Bayous Lose Series, on the first. On the second, the now-forming letters caused Jelly to gasp. "My lord, no!"

  Whitfield nodded slowly. "Now you can see why time was so important. Why there would be no future pathway to redemption."

  Jelly rubbed a gnarled hand across his forehead, as he read the headline a second time, quietly, to himself. "Bayous head coach dies from car crash."

  Abruptly, Whitfield checked his watch. "I've got to be leaving now."

  Whitfield walked quickly to a blanketed object and uncovered it, revealing an apparatus resembling a Segway. He pulled the crown and stem completely out of his wrist watch, the tiny stem glowing bright red, and inserted it into a small hole in the service panel. Stepping onto the device, he turned three switches, and a whirring sound began in the machine, as Whitfield grabbed a satchel from a nearby chair.

  "When's the second thing gonna happen? Don't leave yet."

  "It will take place shortly. In about ten minutes, to be exact. Coach Clausen will linger for a day, be conscious and aware during that time, and then suddenly expire."

  The machine became translucent, as did Whitfield.

  "Don't just leave this way. What stake ya got in all this? Can I tell Coach Clausen something for ya?"

  As Byron Whitfield's image faded to nothing, he matter-of-factly replied, "You don't have to…

  You see, I am Clausen."

  *****

  A calmness settled over the old man as he stood in the quiet of the room, and he nodded as a small smile formed on his lips.

  "Yes sir, everyone deserves another shot at makin' things right, I guess. I'm sure glad ya stepped in."

  He walked toward the door, then turned once again as if Whitfield/Clausen were still there. And as he pulled the crown and stem from his watch, momentarily checking the glowing stem, before pushing it back into place, he said, "And if you hadn't, I'd have been the back-up.

  Because, you see, I am Evans."

  #####

  Thank you for reading The Second Chance. This was one of those works that hung around unfinished on the computer for about three years, before I found a second half of the story that seemed to go with the first part. It seems much easier to begin a work with a lot of steam and ideas, but it's often a different story to come up with a satisfactory ending. I hope you felt it was worth it.

  Please check out my novels, both thrillers with elements of mystery and romance: Relentless and The Dawn Stealer. Also available is another short work, The Great American Pee Fight And Other True Stories Of The 50's, humorous, non-fiction vignettes about life in my neighborhood in the 1950's.

  Remember to add a rating, if you will; your input is important.

  Thanks again, and keep reading!