Boom Chicka Wah Wah

by Kevin Zdrill

Overview

Gus Adams is a middle-aged debt management counselor in Winnipeg's Osborne Village who does not believe marriage and adventure go hand-in-hand. Trapped in the routine of a mundane relationship with his live-in girlfriend, Mitch, Gus secretly nurses a compulsion to explore his wild side, do something borderline insane, and test his manhood.

After Gus confesses to Mitch that he needs to indulge in one last reckless activity in order to scratch his perpetual itch for excitement, she tells him her teenage niece is coming to live with them for the summer. Despite being faced with adolescent angst and a girlfriend who is making it more than obvious that her biological clock is ticking loudly, Gus still daydreams of satisfying his thrill-seeking pleasures. As he attempts one wacky stunt after another, Gus reignites the caveman inside of him-while Mitch wonders if all the time she has invested in their relationship has been worth it.

Boom Chicka Wah Wah tells the tale of one man's roller-coaster journey to the realization that what he thinks is the end of a big adventure is really just the beginning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475995244
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/25/2013
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

Read an Excerpt

BOOM CHICKA WAH WAH

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By Kevin Zdrill

iUniverse LLC

Copyright © 2013 Kevin Zdrill
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-9521-3

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CHAPTER 1

"Breathe, Alvin, breathe," I coached. We both took huge gasps of air from brown paper bags in unison, the bags expanding and deflating rapidly. "Stay with me!" I was leading my counselling client in deep-breathing relaxation techniques and getting light-headed.

Alvin Shunt, forty-seven years old, bald, with an immense stomach, narrow eyes and a tongue that flicked like a lizard's, slumped back in his chair, a dazed, contented look in his bloodshot eyes. His panic attack was over.

"Thanks, Gus." His voice was barely a whisper, and sweat beaded on his narrow upper lip. His eyes closed.

I carried forward with his treatment, silently patting myself on the back. Good work, Gus Adams. Another soul saved under your treatment as a debt counsellor psychologist.

"Alvin," I said, pulling up my chair beside him. I held his hand. It was sweaty. Inwardly, I flinched.

"It's okay to have debts." I lied, but I needed to start somewhere.

"What's not okay is how you accumulate debt. It's not only unhealthy but a risky behavior."

Alvin nodded in agreement, still breathing hard. "I know, debt is bad. But, Gus, the girls ..." He faded out in a blissful memory of Sushi. His cholesterol-induced pot belly rose and lowered rapidly, in unison with each breath. I prayed he wasn't about to touch himself in such a way that I would need to intervene with latex gloves.

"Alvin! Alvin! Stay with me!" I squeezed his hand hard and brought him back. "Debt no good. Sushi no good," I chastised. When I looked at Alvin I shuddered, thinking, This could be me. I wasn't that far from his life. The only difference was I was in a relationship; Alvin paid for his. Yet I was also looking for excitement: something edgy, brazen, borderline life-threatening, to spark me out of relationship doldrums.

Alvin had been under my treatment for debt management for the last several months. I could identify no mental health diagnosis that drove Alvin to escalate his debt—unless somewhere in the DSM-5 diagnosis book was a category labelled "Sushi." Sushi was an exotic dancer who'd used her female wiles to persuade Alvin to fund her 42EE breast implants in two monthly installments totalling six thousand dollars. That was six thousand dollars Alvin didn't have—until his new MBNA credit card arrived. Sushi's new breasts arrived the following week. Next, Alvin and his MBNA credit card became the queen bee of breast enhancement surgery, financing all the exotic dancers at Sushi's strip club Red Panties. Not one to miss a blossoming business opportunity, the plastic surgeon stuffing all those chicks set up a booth inside Red Panties and had his bank automatically debit Alvin's MBNA card for each procedure. Twenty-seven pairs of boobs later, Alvin's monthly silicon payments were exceeding his take-home pay as a transit bus driver.

"But she loves me," Alvin said.

"No, she loves the 42EEs you bought her," I replied.

"But Savannah said—"

"You bought her fake boobs too."

Tears welled in his eyes. "So?"

I sighed. "So?" Not always the touchy-feely type, I still felt compelled to do something. I placed a hand on his shoulder. "They're just saying such things to get you to sign off on their fun bags."

Alvin sat there. His jaw worked like he was chewing a bit of cud. "It doesn't hurt no one."

"It hurts you."

He shook his head.

"It hurts your mom."

Alvin shrugged off my hand. His face jerked up to meet my gaze. "What about my mom?"

"Alvin, my man. You're living in her basement. You're forty-seven, she's, like, ninety.

"Listen to me, Alvin," I said gently, "throw away your club's platinum member card that entitles you to fifty percent off door admission and cut up the MBNA card. No more. The women are using you. The plastic surgeon is using you, man!"

"I don't understand," he whimpered. His hand twitched in my own. I pulled it away, realizing how many boobs it had rubbed against.

I refocused on Alvin's weak plea against my demands. I was perplexed and annoyed. "What don't you understand?"

He moaned. "Those girls enjoy my company. Amber. Carisma. Mojo. Dove. They cater to me, Gus. They use my first name. When I sit in the club, I get noticed. They have a special chair for me. The least I can do is fulfill their dreams of the perfect body."

I nodded. I took a long gulp from my energy drink. "I see what you're saying, Alvin. Let me just ask you this, okay? have any of the dancers—mojo, Carisma, Sushi—come back to your table after you paid for their booby work?"

Alvin hesitated, breathed in, exhaled, flicked his tongue like a piston between his lips and turned his head to one side. He stared at the ceiling, his pot belly rising up and down double time.

"No, Gus. Now that you mention it ..."

I nodded with understanding. I offered him a tissue box to wipe the sweat from his palms. I didn't want it smeared on my chair's microfibre.

It was time to pull out the heavy guns of therapy. I took a deep breath.

"Alvin," I suggested, "close your eyes, sit back and listen to me." He did as I asked.

"Now. Pretend that you have gone to sleep. You have a dream. And in this dream a miracle has occurred. In this miracle your problem will have been solved. When you awake, Alvin, what will have changed for you because of this miracle? open your eyes, Alvin." He stared into my eyes. I nodded. my point had finally gotten through. At such times I actually enjoyed my job.

Alvin spoke hurriedly. "My MBNA card would have its limit doubled, silicone would go on sale for half price and the girls could get even bigger boobs!" He squirmed in his chair. I swore under my breath. I hated this gig.

I pinched my eyes shut and struggled to suppress the primal urge to scream. I wished I had a Lorazepam. Alvin was the very reason I needed a strong dose of action adventure in my own life, before I sank to his obsession with syringes of silicone in order to evoke a flicker of feverish joy in the life of a forty-six-year-old.

Alvin shook his head vigorously. "Please help me, Gus. I don't want a depression! my mother had depression, and she had so many pills. I hate taking pills." Alvin clutched his head between his hands and confessed. "I've made a lousy decision with my money."

I thought to myself, More like a few dozen sets of lousy decisions. I hoped his navigation skills driving a transit bus on the streets were far better than his financial planning.

I spoke in a soothing tone. "I will help you rediscover the love of money—a succulent positive bank balance, intoxicating compound interest."

Alvin released his head from his hands; impressions of his pudgy fingers remained on his hairless scalp.

"Stand with me," I urged, pulling Alvin to his feet. We held hands.

Together Alvin and I recited the words written in bold letters on the wall poster in front of us. It was the customary ending to every session with all my clients. It did not leave room for the client to pull a doorknob bombshell on my clinic exit.

"I like money. I love it. I use it wisely, constructively and judiciously. Money is in my life. I use it for good only. I'm grateful for the good money can grant me, and that is why I respect it."

I released Alvin's hands. Alvin was crying. He leaned forward to give me a hug. I slipped to the side and opened the door for him. I handed him another Dollar Store tissue as he walked past and told him I would see him same time next week.

I turned from the door and flopped down in my chair, mentally drained.

My twenty-seven-year-old free-spirit assistant Christy Chambers, with her unconfined long, curly hair and never-ending large, bright smile, turned in her chair, laughing at the way I looked.

"For a guy who saves souls, you look like you need yours saved, buddy."

I grabbed and fiddled with a desk coaster given to me by Christy when we took over our recent location six years ago. It read, you can do it without antipsychotic drugs. Just listen to your voices. Right now I was simply wishing I had a voice to tell me what to do to snap me from my crypt of boredom.

"Christy, look at me," I said, "I'm forty-six years old. my life, my daily routine, my weeks, my years are like the same pattern of soiled wallpaper on every wall in every room."

Christy barked out a laugh. "Oh boo hoo. If Mitch heard what you just said, you'd be sleeping on the sofa the remainder of this summer."

I closed my eyes, thinking of what she just said. Mitch Franks, my faithful, thirty-five-year-old, between-jobs, sneaker-wearing, tree-hugging, wash-your-hands-with-bacterial-soap, common-law partner of six years would twist my ear so hard that the pain would erase the sulky images of how I viewed my life. Yet, despite my annually expanding rolls of fat, she still voluntarily hugged me, saying how sexy she found me. Whispering to me about how hot I still was made her ignore the disturbing reality that I was leaving more head hair on the shower floor than from a cat grooming.

Christy leaned forward in her chair, stretching her upper body across her desk. Her eyebrows bunched together.

"You idiot," she said. "You don't have it bad. Not even close. I don't remember seeing you ever pick your dinner out of a trash container."

She was right, of course. my debt management counselling practice had done well during the last six years. People spent—a lot, thanks in part to furniture and appliance stores and their financing slogans. Ho ho ho all the way to bankruptcy, no pay, no interest, no more credit.

"I do need to remind you," I replied, "this humble space we have is fast coming to an unhappy ending." our landlord had given us ninety day notice that he was not renewing my lease. I'd done nothing about it, and I now had thirty days to find another location.

"Are you saying that crying in front of his wife had no effect on cancelling his eviction notice?" she said.

"Nope. The guy is cold as ice."

"Too bad," she remarked. "This place has kinda grown on me, even though a snake cage at the zoo is far larger."

"Besides," I said flatly, "after the Real Estate king who sold me the condo suffered a stroke and fell off the rooftop balcony during a showing, I'm clueless who to call to help us out here. Can I trust the competence of someone who plasters an image of their own head under my ass on the bench of a bus seat?"

I looked around our second-level Osborne Village debt-counselling clinic in the city of Winnipeg. I rented a subdivided space to save costs and had to allocate the 325 square feet wisely. A corner of the room held my bachelor-pad-size desk from IKEA, a chair, a coffee table and two individual chairs for my clients. If we were a spatially competent group that day, we could align ourselves in a circle without knees touching. To cut down on wasted space I had the landlord install a stainless-steel urinal and a sink in the opposite corner from my desk. Christy had a small desk against the wall by the door to the hallway. I loved the open concept. I used an iPod and a docking station with speakers for my music. Eighties music was back in, and so was the Bananarama now playing. I'd hired an interior designer named Brad, who'd convinced me bright pastel colours were the new look for office design. I bought into his theory. Because of that, I stared daily at the five different shades of green in my office. Glancing out the two-foot by four-foot window, all I saw were endless streams of car roofs moving past on Osborne Street. I realized the Village was the place to operate a business, and I was dreading my eviction because it also meant leaving the tenant next to me: FUDE, a restaurant whose aroma beckoned me daily and added inches to my growing waist.

"Well, I can't be without a job," Christy said. "If we have only thirty days left before our asses have to be out of here, I'm going to take the initiative and make a few calls to line up a real estate agent. You obviously think this will all fall into place on its own. Use some of your own advice and take ownership of our destiny."

I looked toward Christy and rubbed my eyes. How do I explain a man's emptiness to a woman? "I realize I'm not licking old food wrappers out of trash bins, but it's the big-picture stuff I sweat about."

She reared back in her chair, placing her hands behind her head. "How the hell do you sweat in that swanky Exchange District condo you and Mitch bought? I live in a three-story walk-up that stinks like curry and has no air conditioning. I hear the guy above me take his ten p.m. piss. You have it bad?"

I knew my comments sounded petty. I did reside in a trendy condo, thanks to the push from Mitch. She had finally, somehow, managed to convince me to ditch the apartment living that I had enjoyed on Wellington Crescent, saying rent was a method to burn money and get nothing in return. Owning property was financially smart. It had never occurred to me. But hey, I counselled debt management, not lived it.

Six months before, the Real Estate king, the self-proclaimed "most successful closer of residential home sales," walked me and Mitch through a beautiful retro warehouse conversion in the east side of the Exchange District on Bannatyne avenue. The "good side," the Real Estate king assured us. A Yuppie must-have. Exactly what a pampered, kid-less couple requires. The Real Estate king was good. The Real Estate king made the $375,000 mortgage I signed seem like the right thing to do. He made it seem insignificant that the single parking stall for our car cost more than the car itself. He swore it was all about responsible financial management. He teared up while talking about a future nesting ground for our family.

"Listen to the expert," Mitch insisted. We bought an investment. A refuge from life's daily insanities. An abode for social entertaining. A place our children could call home. Six months later I was still waiting for someone to visit. In fact, the stress hives scattered over my body from signing the offer to Purchase for $375,000 had outlasted my wait for my first guest. But hey, the high-tech, low-water consumption toilet covered all those extra flushes on the cheap.

"You don't get it," I said, in my defence. "It's not always about the material stuff. maybe it's your age, but after a while you wake up one morning and the person in the mirror staring back at you looks frightening."

"Some of my dates qualify for that the following morning."

I leaned back in my chair and placed my feet on the table top. "I'm talking about relationship rot. The romance killer."

Christy laughed. "'Relationship rot.' Vegetables rot. Carcasses rot. Relationships do not rot. Again, I warn you not to use these words to describe your relationship in the presence of Mitch."

I tapped my fingers on the chair's arm rests. "It's the routine," I said trying to explain this to her as if she were an alien. "Beware routine. Honest to God, it translates into mundane autopilot good mornings and Sensodyne toothpaste for achy teeth, not for fresh kissing breath." Christy's eyes grew wide. I continued.

"You know those mysterious darkened corners of a sexy restaurant you can't wait to get to Friday nights? Well, they morph into staying home eating sandwiches while watching A&E Cold Case Files, dressed in full-body pajamas and lying under the duvet your grandmother made for you."

"Now you're scaring me," Christy said, looking worried for the first time.

"Ah, now I have your attention. Good. Because once the insidious slime of rot sets in, it's followed by the arrival of the big white elephant that hunkers its fat ass right down between you."

"What do you mean? I don't get it."

"Marriage." I spat the word out.

Christy looked confused. "That's a good thing, Gus. That's what us girls want."

"Sure," I said, nodding at how naïve the comment was. "When you think marriage, you're envisioning a garter belt and a big party with all your friends. I'm talking about the morning after, called Separation Agreement."

Christy stretched out her long legs in front of her chair. "No freaking wonder you were single for over ten years. I'm shocked you've held it together for the last six years with Mitch. Don't you two ever talk over dinner?"

"Sure. I tell her all about my day."

"Boring."

I shrugged. "The point I'm trying to make is that women simply can't understand guys. You can't comprehend that we have a genetic, primeval need to explore. We are compelled to test our manhood."
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from BOOM CHICKA WAH WAH by Kevin Zdrill. Copyright © 2013 Kevin Zdrill. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
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