A Taste of My Zucchini
“What happened to your pimp cane, Polish Hammer? Haven’t seen you brandishing it around for the better part of a week.”
“Ah, one of those middle-aged strippers at Uncle Buck’s Booty Bungalow sat on it and broke it. Damn thing wasn’t near as stout as I thought it was. But, you know what, that’s on me. I shouldn’t go to Party City for my fashion accruements. I shoulda learned my lesson when my head kept breaking those Elvis Presley sunglasses I favored. I don’t know. For ten bucks, you expect more resiliency, you know?”
“It’s a damn shame.”
“It’s probably for the best. My wife hated it. She looked at it like I was daring God to make me a cripple or some crazy shit like that. She thinks I’m going to lose a foot to the diabeetus any day now because I keep eating Sour Patch Kids by the pound. But, you know, that’s what I take the shot for. Anyway, my liver is gonna give out way before my feet rot off. Thank you, God.”
“Doesn’t alcohol carry a lot of sugar?”
“Not the kind I drink. I go in for the sugar-free whiskey.”
“Huh? Really?”
“Oh yeah. You can barely tell the difference. Next time you’re at the liquor store, you need to ask the clerk where they keep the bottles.”
“It’s not on the shelf? What, they keep it behind the counter?”
“Yep. They treat that shit like liquid gold. Honestly surprised they don’t ask you to provide proof of your A1C level along with your ID.”
“Why do I get the feeling this is going to be another one of those place holder columns where you try to act clever, but you don’t actually say anything of any literary value. We could be doing some poetry here, man.”
“Well, you know we’re about a month out from the release of my first novel, Mister Joe’s Pirates, available for preorder now from Roadside Press.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about that. About a hundred and sixty fucking times, now.”
“Well, it’s still coming out. It’s a book I shoulda wrote about twenty years ago when I wasn’t so sad and broken down. But I kept fucking around, pissing away my talent, and now I’m fifty. But I got it done before I’m dead.”
“It probably would have been more impressive twenty years ago. Now, they got it where computers can just write novels for you. There’s this woman, made a million dollars, selling her AI novel on Amazon.”
“You seem to bring that up every time I wanna talk about my novel. AI is Satan incarnate as far as I’m concerned. Except when it comes to porn.”
“Well, before long, all art will be computer constructed. Nobody is gonna need your Mister Joe’s Pirates. It’s all gonna be AI. They got data centers going up the size of…. Something. I don’t know. I’ll Google it later.”
“Jesus Christ. The size of Davenport, Iowa.”
“There you go. That’s why you’re the writer.”
“Are you gonna order my book?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. You know, I still haven’t got around to buying your short story collection, Thrift Store Jackets.”
“Oh, I’m aware.”
“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to give me one. I remember giving you some zucchinis right out of my garden. Didn’t ask you for a dime.”
“You literally had fifty pounds of zucchinis lying around that nobody wanted. I didn’t want it. Nobody likes zucchini. Why anybody would want to grow it in such abundance is beyond me.”
“You’re a pretty prolific writer, ain’t you, Polish Hammer?”
“I’m writing this fucking column, ain’t I?”
“You’ve written a lot of columns, haven’t you? Some would argue you’ve written more columns than anybody could possibly want to read.”
“I get the feeling you’re trying to do a metaphor. And I don’t like it.”
“Why on earth would I wanna get meta for?”
“Okay. I don’t like puns, either.”
“Has your wife read your book?”
“She’s actually reading it now.”
“She like it?”
“She’s not crazy about the amount of times I used the word ‘goddam.’”
“I heard she read your last week’s column.”
“Well, you use the word ‘handjob’ in the title, and readers flock to the yard. Anyway, as far as an intro to the Polish Hammer Poetry Corner, she could have done a lot worse. She took it well, though. She understands it’s just an act.”
“Is it… an act?”
“You know it is.”
“And how would I know that? Let me ask you this. Do you think she might be reading this column? Right now.”
“It’s… It’s always a possibility. Just keep your voice down, dammit, no sense calling attention to ourselves. It ain’t easy writing this shit and still manage to retain the respect of your family. That’s why this novel I got coming out August 28th from Roadside Press is in no way autobiographical.”
“Oh really.”
“Mostly, sure.”
“What’s it about, anyway?”
“How the fuck should I know. I just wrote it. It’s about the plight of suffering humanity in the dark face of an indifferent world. Same as all my shit.”
“Oh, fuck. You lead with that, you’ll never sell a fucking book.”
“I’ve never been good at summarizing anything. You just gotta read it.”
“Uh huh.”
“Fuck you. What does zucchini taste like? Describe the taste of a zucchini, right now.”
“It tastes like a childhood wiled away wandering the fields in and around the Pines Church community.”
“That’s zucchini bread from the church bake sale. Anyone can describe zucchini bread. What does zucchini taste like?”
“It tastes a damn sight better than the plight of suffering humanity in the dark face of an indifferent world.”
“Goddam. I wish that hefty stripper hadn’t sat on my pimp cane; I’d beat you half to death with it.”
“It always comes down to violence with you. Is there a lot of violence in your book?”
“Some of the characters can get downright verbally abusive.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
“All right, jackass. I’ll tell you what. Starting next week, the first Tuesday of August, the next four Polish Hammer Poetry Corners will be given over to two thousand words increments of a story I’ve written to coincide with the release of Mister Joe’s Pirates. The story involves characters from the novel in a stand-alone story that will always weave into the novel. You like the story, chances are, you’ll like the novel as well. You hate the story, well, you may still like the novel because I’m hit or miss most days.”
“So, all this, we went through all this, just so you could introduce something you’re gonna be doing a week from now?”
“Yep. A week from now and then for, like, the rest of the month, ushering in my first novel, Mister Joe’s Pirates, available for preorder from Roadside Press, as you read this.”
“You make me hate literature; you know that?”
“You and me, both, buddy.”
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
