Pancake Day

Crawford, Texas runs along its axle and doesn’t mind the silence of motorcades and the screaming at four a.m. from the Bush residence. They go about their days skipping over the drunken bodies of secret service agents assigned to watch this sleepy Texas backwater for spies, terrorists, and scofflaws of extremism.
Meanwhile in another backwater, this time in Alabama, the city of Florence is preparing for breakfast food. There is movement in this backwater, there are no secret service men and the drunks don’t get DUI’s, they just serve up the public and return to their old money which never seems to mildew despite the foul odor that emits from their wakes.
The city fathers are gathering to assign whom of the old money crowd can pass onto the do withouts, the poor the pancakes on Pancake Day. The local Kiwanis Club which is another language for we do charity to be seen, not for good. In the local coliseum the do well’s or as William S. Burroughs once called them, “The Shits” are setting up tables and networking. Looking around the room at all of those they have slept with and those they have screwed the do well’s prepare to serve the public and speak in a loud voice, to slap backs and generally talk to their own, on the sides of the room organizations set up booths to hand out literature and network.
Passing by the coliseum are the people who work for the do well’s. They try to eat their breakfast while they drive and curse themselves for not buying gas on the way home the night before. The smell of pancakes doesn’t seem to linger farther than the door of the coliseum.


- Chris Mansel