The Pizza Prophet

By David Belisle

At 65, Kosma Stankowicz has found his niche as a pizza delivery expert. His background in Polish philosophy serves him well when dealing with the daily travails at Lead Pipe Joe’s Pizza ... including training mobster Jimmy the Weasel’s son, Tommy from the ground up ... dealing with his boss, Mutazz Muhkitimukmuk, who's saddled with paying for five daughters’ marriages ... and co-worker Maggie, a pleasantly plump white cook who pines for African American men.

One day Kosma drives through the parking lot and narrowly avoids a major collision – just as an armoured truck is making a cash pick-up at the nearby bank. Kosma staggers out of the car and collapses to the ground. In the ensuing confusion, pimp Manny Dingo grabs a bag of money from the back of the truck and hides the money in a pizza bag.

Kosma groggily rises to his feet and – being a “company guy” – is determined to complete his delivery. He grabs the wrong pizza bag and makes the delivery to Divine, a hooker under Manny's employ. When Kosma opens the pizza bag and sees nothing but cash, he believes it to be a sign from God. When Divine tips him $3.33 –Kosma’s own professed Gold Standard of Tipping – it cements his belief that he’s a prophet and Divine his oracle.

When Divine seeks a safe haven to escape Manny, Kosma offers his basement suite – giving him carte blanche to eavesdrop outside her door and hear her "revelations". Divine is an unknowing oracle of course ... as Kosma misinterprets her words and doggedly professes them to all as gospel.

Each of Kosma’s prophecies further confounds life at Lead Pipe Joe’s ... as co-worker Randall falls for Divine, Maggie ropes in Manny and Tommy falls in love with Mutazz’s last unwed daughter, Ilykah.

Throw in a wannabe mobster, a Scottish bum and a police force chasing $200,000 ... and Kosma Stankowicz is one pizza prophet in need of a miracle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Belisle
• Release date: Aug 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310817731

David Belisle

Dave Belisle is a Vietnam War draft dodger ... his mother escorting him north of the border at the tender age of 8. He's returned to Calgary -- not as a Stampede side show -- but to transform that Rocky Mountain air into raucous laughter ... give or take a foothill. There's no armistice on anecdotes, no flat tire in satire ... and your busted funny bone IS covered by Canadian health care.

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