JIMMY AND THE PANCAKE MAN

 © 2026 Ken Janisch

It had rained all evening. When it stopped, I couldn't stand being inside any longer and went for a walk to the park down the street. I padded past dripping awnings and under trees decorated in raindrops that sparkled like diamonds in the moonlight, waiting for a breeze to dislodge them and sprinkle the streets—and me—with the happy tears of late summer; it was the first time I would meet Jimmy.

He was sitting on the ground, back against a park bench, arm resting helplessly over the seat, with a half-full bottle of cheap bourbon clasped loosely in his hand. There was a puddle in front of the bench left over from the rain, and he slouched in the middle—boots, jeans, t-shirt, all soaked with rain and tears and sweat. He was sobbing through giggles and howling softly at the moon, crying out a name I could not catch. As I neared, he rolled his head so that I could see his tear-streaked face, and he smiled and slowly, painfully, raised the bottle toward me—an offer I assumed; I took it. The bourbon was warm and burned, filling my body with a wandering trail of sorrow as it flowed through me, seeking the off switches in my brain. I had seen this kid in school: smoking in the courtyard, standing at the ends of hallways in shadows, head bowed in a book, or gazing defiantly from the balconies at the pretty colors the girls wore and were, daring them to look away when they were captured by his eyes. I had never seen him in class, though I was sure he was sixteen and in my grade. A trail of spittle mixed with his tears, dripping from his chin as he tried to focus on me standing above him. Eventually, he gave up and let his head fall to his chest.

"Why don't you sit down?"

I did and drank from the bottle again. I was enjoying the fog it created in my head. Jimmy told me—or mumbled to the sidewalk, actually—that Tania Jenkins could go to hell, that he loved her, that he hated her, that it all hurt so bad when he breathed his heart shot angry daggers through his brain. We sat on the bench and finished the bottle. I had to sneak in my window later that night, clumsy and drunk, hoping desperately that I was as quiet as I was trying to be; my mother questioned my smell in the morning and frowned, knowing but saying nothing.

Jimmy and I would run into each other from time to time during the year. We never hung out—Jimmy was never overly social that I saw. I would see him with different girls and find him in the park or the vacant lot behind Furley's corner store or in the old abandoned warehouse downtown, and we'd talk—or, rather, he'd talk. We graduated, and Jimmy disappeared. I went to college, moved to the city, got a job, woke up in the morning, went to bed at night, and slowly began to die.

I ran into Jimmy in front of a pizza joint around the corner from my apartment. He was smoking a cigarette and talking to a dark-haired beauty from the neighborhood. I had always wanted to speak to her, but the opportunity had never presented itself. He looked at me and nodded.

"Hey, how you been? Long time."

I had not seen him in over fifteen years, and he looked pretty much the same, a bit more worn but lively, and his eyes still sparkled with mischievous glee.

He dismissed the baffled beauty with a nod of his head.

"Good luck with the art. Maybe I'll see ya around."

He tossed his cigarette on the ground and turned to squint at the t-shirt I was wearing. It had a picture of a bloody Jesus nailed to a cross made of gold bars, perched atop a pile of dead children, and said: Ignorance is Bliss?

"Interesting; I bet you get some nasty looks with that one. I like it."

"Yeah, an old lady spit in my face and slapped me once, though I don't think she could even read it; last Friday, I got fired for wearing it to work—casual Fridays ain't so casual, I guess."

He nodded and smiled as he lit another cigarette. The sleeves of his dried-blood-red leather coat carried the shadows from the lighter like dancing tattoos on his forearms.

"Yeah, what were you doing—for work, I mean?"

"Dying. So what have you been doing?"

"Fucking, dancing, smoking, drinking; you know, dying as well."

I watched him for a moment, and when he looked up from his cigarette at me, I started laughing. It was good to see him again. It was snowing. Lazy, fluffy feather flakes drifting through the air, tickling the nostrils; the stars were just beginning to appear, and the crisp air carried the casual voice of the street, conversations in a dozen languages, the gentle murmur of slow-moving cars, the beautiful click of high-heels, and distant laughter from an open window. I steered him to the bar on the corner for a drink. We had a few and talked, and Jimmy met two girls from Madrid, and we spent the night surrounded by lights, the clink of glasses, and tendrils of smoke. I slipped from the bed in the early morning and smoked a cigarette. They were covered in a blanket of moonlight, three exhausted bodies panting happy, dreamy breaths. I watched them for a while and then left to find my apartment. I deleted my resume, feverishly burned the twenty copies I had prepared, and threw my past life out the window, watching it sail through the graying sky to crack onto the pavement of the empty lot at the end of my street. I had to crane my neck out the window to watch, but it was worth it.

The sun dripped like butter through my window. Rivulets of daylight flowed across my back and legs, and I could hear hundreds of tiny birds, covering the leaf-barren trees outside my window like a feathery puffy frock, singing gloriously to honor the new day. I smiled groggily, trying to figure out if I was late for work or not. The clock flashed a brilliant nine-thirty, and my emancipated eyes skipped from the window to the bed and then to the coffee pot in the kitchen. I wasn't sure why I was still wearing socks, but the Fred Astaire slide across the open wooden floors to the coffee pot on the counter was well worth the confusion. I flicked the on button and marveled at the immediate gurgle—I love my coffee pot. I shook the sleep from my head, remembering that I no longer had a job to rush to or a week to dread. I smiled and breathed in the gratifying smell of brewing coffee.

As I sipped the bitter elixir, I thought about how long it was since I had sat in my kitchen without a feeling of loathing, another week at the center of my noxious antipathy: denials to invitations to the outskirts of the city and glossy homes filled with children and cookies and dull, odorless corridors with collapsed stars at the end; rejected blind date proposals, lies about plans, guilty thanks. After college, I had entered the place like all the rest and watched my co-workers plan, fall in love, and leave the city with their families and retirement plans. I wondered where my golden ticket was. I began to hate them, the pictures, the weekends, and the chase. So I stopped going, avoiding the suburbs altogether, and eventually, completely withdrew. One strange day, I woke up and realized I didn't want what they had—didn't have to want it—and I began to look for my life. I wandered the night and stumbled through the days, and my work got worse, my attitude darkened, and finally, I forced the confrontation and the brilliant dismissal. I had not gotten fired for the t-shirt, but it was simply the last slap from my ink-stained palm in the face of convention.

My windowsill was warm against my naked skin. I watched the birds flutter in the tree and sipped hot coffee without a whisper of concern. The frigid air seeped past the window seals, giving me chills. I missed the summer.