|
|
|
KARL KOWESKI
art and commerce I learned the correlation between the two at the age of six when, having crayoned through an entire coloring book, I showed the results to my father for his artistic critique a day later he gave me a dollar and said he sold the coloring book to a lady at work even so young, my dad’s words struck me as implausible why would anyone want to buy a coloring book that’s all ready been colored? my dad furrowed his brow and said something about the woman’s son having been born with flippers for arms unable to color his own coloring books the explanation was good enough for me I rifled through my room gathering all my old coloring books and during a hand cramping crayola marathon managed to fill every blank page therein I presented the eight books to my dad the next night estimating there was enough capital represented in that pile for at least three G.I. Joes he returned the next day empty-handed citing market saturation and an increase of suppliers versus a decrease in customers but I figured he just took the money he made off my toil and spent the cash on cheap whiskey when I read that Michelangelo had only nine colors at his disposal when he painted the Sistine Chapel I don’t feel so limited by my hundred and twenty word vocabulary they call me Captain Gringo Charles the incompetent third shift maintenance man brought the books to work in two Reebok shoe boxes the name of the author escapes me – an obvious pseudonym given the books pornographic nature the twenty nine volumes were gathered under the RENEGADE imprint and chronicled the turn of the century adventures of Captain Gringo and his lusty French sidekick, Gustave, who during the course of their south of the border campaigns fucked a vast array of senoritas, sheep, paraplegics, prairie dogs, and a guy named Lou not to be outdone Captain Gringo with his nine inch tool also fucked everything that walked or crawled or galloped and what he didn’t fuck he usually killed with his twin gatlin guns and often he’d be called upon to kill what three pages earlier he had thoroughly fucked Charles swore up and down these books were classic literature and before long we were agreeing with him men who hadn’t picked up anything meatier than the Sunday Times devoured the books at a three a week clip I found the books to be hackneyed and obvious poorly written throughout but I read them anyway imagining myself tearing through the Mexican low lands, fucking the General’s twin daughters, his wife, their housekeeper, and the bushy tailed Pomeranian before going to town and rampaging through the populace with my big dick and blazing guns of fury and when I glanced about I noticed my co-workers also walking with a bit of a swagger looking for men to challenge, women to ravage and stray dogs to cornhole, and finding none, returning to their machines and the dog-eared paperbacks hidden beneath their work instructions twelve Captain Gringos and not a Gustave among us Karl Koweski is a 29 year old displaced Chicagoan now living on top of a mountain in northern Alabama for reasons that involve a woman. Being partial to cement and culture, the move has not been ideal. His chapbook of stories, Playthings, is available through www.futuretensebooks.com and a chapbook of his poems, Internet Killed the Mimeo Star, is available at www.hemisphericalpress.com. |
|
© 2004 Underground Voices |
|
|