The Second-Chance Coat

Winter set in early. As the sun fell below the horizon and the temperature dipped with it, an icy wind whipped around the corners of the old brick buildings downtown. Passers-by huddled in their coats on the way to their destinations in the coming night. Well, all save for one, it seemed.

Caught off guard by the sudden chill in the air, Billy Fletcher stood in front of the brightly lit window of a shop he’d never noticed before, and he’d walked this block to and fro every day for years, coming and going, heading into work and then heading home to the old apartment he shared with his young wife and their younger daughter. Tonight, however, he stopped in the warm light spilling onto the freezing sidewalk. He stared at a rack of heavy coats, like the ones hugging the shoulders of every person who walked by, keeping them nice and cozy while he stood there shivering.

The sign above the door said NED’S SECOND CHANCE STORE. A hand-written sign in the window advertised a half-off sale on all winter coats. He lived only a few blocks away, Billy reminded himself. He would be inside and thawing out over a bowl of soup in no time. But he couldn’t move from where he stood. It was like he’d frozen in place, but he knew it wasn’t that. He just couldn’t bring himself to walk home in this cold, and no one would have blamed him. The forecast he hadn’t seen – but apparently everyone else had – called for record low temps tonight.

“Come on in, young man. You look mighty cold,” the old man said, pushing the door to the shop open and waving a weathered, arthritic hand to urge Billy in from what promised to be certain death, or at least pneumonia.

“Thank you. You must be Ned.” Billy ducked into the heated store, rubbing his arms.

“In the flesh.” The old-timer, dressed in flannel and overalls, closed the door and grabbed the cane he’d leaned against the window. He tipped his hat to the young customer. “You been eyein’ them coats, I see.”

“Indeed.” Billy chuckled as he walked over to the rack.

“I’d get that heavy gray one if I were you,” Ned suggested.

Billy saw the coat in question and picked it up to get a good look at it. It weighed a ton, but it was sure to keep him warm on nights like tonight. Its length gave it an old distinguished look. He felt like it came from another time, a world that didn’t exist anymore, like a relic from a bygone era. He couldn’t resist.

“This ought to do fine,” he said, not believing the words as they came from his mouth. He couldn’t afford this! Maybe after he got paid, but not today.

“Let’s see how it fits you, young man.”

Before he knew it, Billy stood in front of the old man at the back counter, wrapped in the old coat. Its comfortable heft felt familiar, like curling up in an old blanket, but it was more than that. He didn’t know if the thought made any sense, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the coat knew him somehow.

“Perfect. You look ready to battle the cold. This coat will make a fine young man outta ya.” Ned’s eyes twinkled while he spoke.

“How much do I owe you?” Billy asked. “I saw the sign said half off.”

Ned stared at him, smiling. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look like he was breathing.

“Tell you what,” he blurted out, breaking his silence. “You look like the kind of guy who needs a good second chance, am I right?”

“Well, um.” Billy looked at the gray material and shifted his weight nervously. “Right now, I need a coat.”

“Exactly, but you and I both know you need more than that.”

Billy adjusted the jacket. Ned could tell he was about to lose the boy, so he hurried.

“I put this store here because I feel like we all need a second chance sometimes, young man. I can see in your eyes you’ve been thinking the same thing. Now, if you’ll look around, you’ll see all I sell are clothes, secondhand clothes; what I like to call second-chance clothes because I’m giving them another opportunity to be worn and to bring their gifts to another person. I hope that this coat helps you find what you need. Take it.”

“No. No, I can’t.” Billy, shaking his head, reached back for his wallet.

“Yes, you can. It’s yours. In a way, I guess you can say it always has been.” The old man tapped his cane on the floor. Something in the sound and the force with which he slammed it down stopped Billy. He dropped his wallet back in his pocket.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’ll remember this.”

“That’s fine,” the old man replied, chuckling. “You’d better get on home, now. The little lady will be worried about you.”

On his way home, the old-timer’s words echoed in his mind. Billy wondered how the shopkeeper knew what he’d been thinking the last few months. He hadn’t mentioned his second thoughts to anyone, least of all his wife, his dear, sweet wife.

Anna deserved better. She deserved a man who knew what he wanted out of life, who’d made all the right choices and at least worked toward making something of himself. Billy wasn’t that man. He feared he would never be able to provide the kind of life his family deserved. That was what he’d been thinking. Hell, he couldn’t even afford a secondhand – second chance – coat marked half off. He was pretty sure the old man had given it to him out of pity. Maybe he’d seen how down Billy was on his luck.

“That’s all it was,” he told himself aloud. “He’s a salesman. He read you like an open book. What he said didn’t mean nothing.”

With that, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of the coat. His left hand touched something. A folded piece of paper? He pulled it out and opened it, stopping on the sidewalk to read the words scrawled on it: November 3rd, midnight, in front of the old mill.

What an odd thing to find in his new coat, he thought. It was the first of November. He told himself it was just a coincidence, stuffed the paper back into his pocket, and headed on.

The note nagged at him, though. Two days later, on Saturday, as the time on the paper approached, Billy found himself, bundled in his new coat, walking through the streets to the old mill, sitting at the edge of downtown, where the streetlights ended and cold wintry darkness claimed the rest of the night.

He stopped at the corner where the remains of the old mill stood. An aging streetlight poured its amber glow into the intersection where another street once crossed the main road. His phone buzzed as an alarm went off to tell him it was midnight. He pulled it out of his jeans to turn it off, and he noticed a figure walking up to the intersection from the abandoned grass lot where the other road had been.

As the silhouette entered the light, he recognized the person who had come to meet him, but it was impossible. It had to be a trick of the night. Or maybe the old man’s words and the note he’d found were messing with his head. Either way, he was sure this couldn’t be happening.

The figure standing in the street was Billy Fletcher, but it was Billy at eighteen, leaving home with a few bucks in his pocket that he’d stolen from his mother’s purse. It had only been enough to eat on for a night or two, but he’d known enough people downtown to help him out. Instead of going to college like his folks wanted, he would go to work for friends. He would start a life, going from job to job, living the way he wanted to, or the way he thought he wanted to, giving little time to focusing on his future.

Well, the future came calling soon enough, and he found himself working day and night to support a wife and a new baby in a drafty old apartment above what used to be a department store before the shopping mall took all the business from downtown – even so, that had happened thirty years ago, and there still wasn’t anything in most of the old buildings. Looking back, as he had been for a few months now, Billy wished he’d made different choices. If he’d gone to school, he’d be out by now. He’d have a better job and could provide for his family.

“The old man really knew what he was talking about,” he whispered to himself, his voice steaming in the cold. He stepped into the intersection, the crossroads, to meet his younger self, to tell him to turn around, to make better choices.

Billy walked home that night, stopping to spend some of his mother’s money on a warm coffee at the gas station. He never told his parents what happened or who he’d seen to change his mind. They wouldn’t have believed him anyway.

He went to school, like they wanted. He studied, got a degree, and came home. He found work locally, not wanting to leave town. He loved his hometown, even if it felt like a black hole sometimes, sucking people back in whenever they tried to get out. Maybe the same had happened to him, but if it had, he didn’t mind.

He eventually forgot about what he’d seen at the old mill. He’d even forgotten about wanting to run off and find work downtown. Well, he had found work downtown, but instead of serving drinks, waiting tables, or any of the typical “downtown” jobs, he worked at the local bank. He made pretty good money and could afford rent in one of the old buildings that had been renovated into loft apartments.

Everything went well for Billy. He had the life he never knew he wanted, a life he couldn’t have imagined that night when he’d tried to run away. But something was missing. He felt it nagging at him – a longing deep in his bones for something he couldn’t place. It felt like he’d misplaced something, like he’d forgotten something. He expected to turn around and find it, whatever it was, but he couldn’t figure out what he’d lost.

Then, one evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the temperatures plummeted fast with it, he stopped in front of an odd little shop he’d never noticed before – Ned’s Second Chance Store. In the window, he saw a sign advertising half off the heavy coats on the rack just inside. It was exactly what he needed as he rubbed his arms through the sleeves of his button-up shirt. He opened the door and walked in, heading straight to the distinguished heavy gray jacket that caught his eye.

“Ah, you’ve returned,” the old man – presumably Ned – called out from behind the counter. “I was wondering when you’d be back, young man.”

“I’m sorry?” Billy had never seen this man before in his life. “I was just stopping in to grab a coat, and I saw yours were half off.”

“So, I see. Fancy that gray one, eh?” He pointed his cane at the coat in Billy’s hand.

“I do. It looks very distinguished. Mind if I try it on?”

“No, sir. Go right ahead.” He shook his head and put his cane back on the floor, leaning on it with both hands.

“Thank you. You’re a real life saver, you know that? I’m glad you’re here tonight. I wasn’t expecting it to be so cold. Kinda caught me off guard, you know?” He slid the coat on, and it fit him perfectly.

Something about the weight and the warmth felt familiar to him, like he’d worn it before; but that was impossible. Then, that old sensation returned – the feeling that he’d lost or misplaced something, like he’d forgotten his keys on the way out the door, but he had his keys in his pocket. He patted himself down.

“No, you didn’t forget anything, my boy, not the way you’re thinking,” Ned chimed in. “You know why I put this shop here?”

“Because you feel like everyone deserves a second chance,” Billy said. He snapped his mouth shut and tilted his head, surprised as his response and wondering where it came from.

“You’re starting to remember, aren’t you? You didn’t forget entirely.” The old-timer waved a knotted finger at his customer. “Reach into that pocket and hand me the piece of paper in there.”

Billy found the note, folded up, and he already knew what it said – November 3rd, midnight, in front of the old mill. It was the first, two days before the night when he’d seen himself wearing this same coat at the intersection by the old mill when he was eighteen, the night he’d decided to stay home. As he handed the note over, he wondered what would have happened if he’d run away that night instead of turning back.

“But I did run away, didn’t I?” he asked the old man as he took the note and slid it into the pocket of his overalls.

“That you did, young man.”

Billy felt a different kind of warmth then, a warmth spreading inside him. He didn’t live in a nice new apartment, and he didn’t wear a shirt and tie to work every day. He couldn’t afford the coat he’d tried on, but that didn’t matter. He finally knew what he’d forgotten.

“You better get home,” Ned told him. “They’re waiting for you, and they’re probably getting worried.”

As the door closed behind him, the light faded. Billy received a few strange looks from passers-by as they wondered why he’d come out of the old vacant shop. He hurried across the street, huddled in his coat, heading home, to his second chance.