All the Nuts aren’t with The Pancake’s Part 23

George takes his boot and places it on Chris’ forehead. He rocks Chris’ head back and forth.

“Dead, I’m tellin you.” Bill says leaning over the body. A half an inch of ash clings to his cigarette.

Bill raises his face back up to George and yells.

“This is your mess!”

“How the fuck is this my mess?” George hisses back at Bill through clenched teeth.

Taking a step forward Bill flicks the ash of his cigarette on the floor. Then he places both hands on his hips.

“Girl, if you didn’t hire these hooker boys at the Water Works Pub, then we wouldn’t be in this mess were in!”

“Mess?” George recoils, stunned.

“Correction!”

Bill screams placing one finger in Georges face for dramatic purposes.

“Your mess that you are in, I am not in this goddamned mess, nor will I ever be in a goddamned mess with you ever again!”

“How is this my mess?” George screams taking a step back from Chris.

I now realize that I am watching an ex lovers spat, while a dead body lies on the floor between them.

That’s when in the distance we all hear the siren. Panicked, this predicament turns into an episode of The Three Stooges. Bill and George bounce off of each other, I pivot in place as if trying to run, while I scan the room for something to help us out of this mess. I’m not sure what I am looking for.

Bill starts whimpering something about “Dead, not here, gotta go!” while George is muttering directions to everyone.

That’s when Chris coughs.

We all stop moving and look at Chris.

“Damn, that bitch is alive!” Screams Bill

The siren wails louder.

George and Bill bend forward and grab Chris by the arms. As they yank him up to standing, Chris’ head falls backwards and hangs there.

“Get him out of the house!” George bellows.

Leading the way, I run up the basement steps.  George and Bill are half carrying/ half dragging Chris up the stairs. His feet thump each step as we ascend. 

Now George and Bill have begun dragging Chris up the stairs.

“Thump, thump, thump!”

Chris starts to moan.

“He’s waking up!” Bill Screams.

Bills bathrobe has opened. He is wearing large old man box shorts with vertical stripes.

Chris begins to yell. It starts as a low guttural primal scream that begins to build in velocity.

To be continued…

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life/Down the Rabbit Hole". It cannot be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.