Second Chances (2022 Season) by Don Robishaw

Four young girls sit on a dilapidated porch attached to a gray Cape Cod with worn and falling shingles, wave in unison to Daddy in the gravel driveway. The oldest cups her hand and whispers, “Looks like Mama’s pissed off, again.” 

    A white T-shirt, red bandana, and a pretty blond with gray streaks. The sole of Ellie Midnight’s rainbow-stained white tennis shoe and shoulders rest against a faded gold Camaro. 

Rocky Midnight: Dad, husband, and professional minor league baseball player faces Ellie with arms folded, head down . . . looking sad.

 “Twelve years, falling for your shit. Can’t take much more.” Mortgage payment’s past due. Tears drip from her blue eyes. “Find a real job. Your family or the dream? Gave mine up for you a long time ago.” Arms folded across her chest, too. She looks miserable. 

    “Honey, sober one year now. It’s the big show this time,” says Rocky.

    Ellie’s eyes widen . . . she knows it’s his last chance at the dream. “Great, you stopped. Doesn’t feed the kids. They’re tired of hot dogs and beans. Taking your old suit to the cleaners. I got a coupon. Time to see the Social Services therapist and public defender, again. Don’t forget.” Those frustrating years of listening to bullshit have added up.

Ellie pushes off the Camaro, “What shit-hole this time?”

America’s highways and the old Chevy, bought with a signing bonus out of high school, have taken him to scenic Scranton, awesome Aberdeen, heavenly Hartford, Trenton, Allentown, and Tulsa-town too. 

Rocky says, “Honey, it’s not any of those one-horse-towns. It’s Boston.” 

He stayed positive through those years, even when his drunken father would say, ‘you’ll never amount to shit, kid.’ Last time his father said that, he hung himself an hour later under the old oak tree in the yard. 

    “Good luck,” Ellie says as he gets in the car and she returns to the smell of oil-based paints on the spotted grass. Colors run in rivulets down the palette, dislodged by tears running down her cheeks. She leaves a hollow abyss between four girls on the canvas. Sadness and disappointment fill her artwork these days. 

Ellie once had a scholarship to Rhode Island School of Design. Rocky told her, ‘If we chase two rabbits, we won’t catch either.’ She agreed. 

*                                                 

    It’s the second occasion in a pitiful career he’s on the pitcher’s mound as the starter for the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team. Sober this time. He’s waiting for that traditional call.

    “Play ball!”

     Rocky opens his eyes, removes his blue cap and swipes his forehead. Rocky never takes his cap off. His five biggest fans cheer from behind the dugout. Hot dogs taste better at Fenway Park. Messy faces -- girls love em’ with all the fixings. 

    Ellie smiles as she drains a foamy sixteen ounce cup of draught beer. She stands, removes her blue cap with the red B on the front, waves it in the air, and with white foam covering her upper-lip screams, “Love ya, Captain Midnight!”

    Retired: One frayed tight navy blue suit from the seventies, in need of a visit to the dry cleaner returns to the closet.

Don Robishaw’s collection of five FF tales found in, ‘Bad Road Ahead’ was the Grand Winner in Defenestrationism, 2020 Flash Fiction Suite Contest.

Don’s short story entitled,’Bad Paper Odyssey’ was a semi-finalist in Digging Through the Fat 2018 Chapbook Contest.

His work has also recently appeared in The Rye Whiskey Review, Drunk Monkeys, Literary Orphans, Crack-the-Spine, FFM, O’ Dark Thirty, among other venues.

Many of the characters he developed have been homeless, served for periods of time in the military, or are based upon archetypes or stereotypes he's met while on the road. He likes to write poetry, satire, tragedies, and gritty fictional tales — of men and women from various backgrounds — that may have sprouted from a seed, from his past.

Before he stopped working to write he ran educational programs for homeless shelters. Don's also well-traveled, using various ways and means: Sailor, Peace Corps Volunteer, bartender, hitchhiker, world traveler, college professor, and circus roustabout.