Howie Weener Unclogged: A Colonic Noir Musical Memoir

By Howie Weiner

A human sloth finds himself at the center of a battle between the conventional, and alternative health industries. His journey includes hypnotherapy, yoga, and flossing. Howie Weener Unclogged is loaded with intrigue, murder, romance, and yes, colonics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781624888465

Book preview

help.

PART ONE

Chapter 1

1992. Lower Manhattan, New York.

Jazz horns blared.

Dark night lit by falling snow.

Loose powdery drifts lined a city street.

Some thought it was an avenue, but I knew for a fact it was a street.

Icicles hung from a corner market window sill.

Admire the icicle. So much like life: illusory, temporary, and at times, dripping.

Quick pops of trumpet. Add some drums now.

I was packed into a taxicab with four others. The snow overwhelmed the windshield wipers. They simply couldn’t keep up. They pushed and pushed. I forgot my jacket. Didn’t matter, didn’t feel a thing. I was well coated from the inside. Squeezed in so tight, I absorbed lots of bumps and remained still. I predicted each tick of the meter. I was wrong every time and it made me antsy. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore it, but that just made me blink.

Stan Finn sat in front, chatting with the driver. He was actually able to converse with a complete stranger and be sincere about it. That was talent from the gods. I had known Stan since childhood. He had no inner critic. He popped in and out of my life and that’s exactly what he did three hours earlier. It could have been anyone, because the bottom was approaching, regardless of who accompanied me on that ride down.

It was THREE HOURS EARLIER that I, Howie Weener, was as determined as ever to keep my vow firm, or was it to keep my firm vow? I didn’t know. I was weakening quickly.

It had been a Monday like every Monday within my slurred memory. I was at home and it was the day I opened the week’s new TV Guide. I spent an hour with an orange hi-lighter pen marking my future viewing. One of my thirty daily cigarettes separated my lips. Blurry was my vision, as well as my prospects. At noon, my father surprised me with a visit. He wore a business suit and overcoat. He retained the frigid cold from outside. He slowly shook his pained face at his pathetic son.

I yelled, You can’t just stop by without calling!

He turned and left.

I’ll call you later, I said with apology for what I’d become.

I was groggy at seven p.m. I walked through the slim hallway of my tiny studio apartment. My socks slid on the wood floor, while the back of my bathrobe dragged a Milky Way wrapper. The more I walked, the more debris I accumulated: delivery menus, crumbs, and assorted keys for unknown locks. I sat on my couch, staring straight ahead, mentally wrestling with the demons and angels of my future. I was eating cheese doodles. My fingers were sticky with yellow. Yellow. Chemical Yellow.

I was a 35 year-old man without a job, without a wife, and without a purpose. And it all seemed to happen like a snowball rolling down a mountain, chasing me, as I backpedaled to the very bottom. The reality became bigger, more solid, and increasingly difficult to stop. There had been a point in my life when I was in control, when I was the guy pushing things down mountains. But there I was.

I came up with plenty of excuses for my situation, each one taking on a different place of priority, as they shuffled in my brain. Take your pick of self-diagnoses:

I gave myself a handicap. I had a good childhood, and felt guilty, so I let others catch up. I let it go too far and then was trapped.

I had too many goals and interests, so I became paralyzed.

Too much talking in my head, and it was not uplifting stuff.

Too much talking in my head, and it was over the top, inflated cocky stuff, so when the moment of truth arrived, I wasn’t prepared.

Shy. Easily intimidated by authority.

I got off on feeling sorry for myself.

I would get excited by beginnings, get mired in the middle, lose track, flounder and end up starting somewhere else.

I always thought I could do better, so I continually rolled the dice and there I was, sitting on the Vegas curb of life with a buffet coupon, and a guy poking me so I’ll take one of his sex show flyers.

Stan Finn buzzed my apartment buzzer.

Slooooooooooooth. Let us in.

Stan used to call me Sloth. Short and sweet. Recently, he elongated it, and added a low deep quality.

I threw on a hodgepodge of clothing. I let them all in. Along with Stan Finn, the roster of visitors included his cousin, Lyle from Cleveland, who had a drug glow and a permanent half-smile. Jansen, male model in overalls, was there with his incredibly hot platonic girlfriend Ta-Nia. I had met her numerous times but still couldn’t tell you what country she’s from, what she did for a living, or which syllable of her name gets accented. I can tell you though, I had manufactured a dream or two about her, with her, whatever, you know…

They had their hands full: Thick dripping Sicilian pizza, Sprite, Michelob, a big vat amount of ice cream, vanilla ice cream, the deceiving flavor, smoother and cleaner than chocolate but just as filling, boxes of Good N’ Plenty, Blackout Entenmanns cake, tequila, margarita mix, a blender, and a bag of large greasy egg rolls.

The buzzer buzzed again. Anita Dunn entered angry. Even her short discolored blonde hair was angry.

I thought we’re going to that party on Avenue A.

We will. This is the pre-party, Stan said as he downed a box of Good N Plenty.

Give me a beer, she demanded with her pierced tongue.

Lyle pulled out his baggie of marijuana.

Pre-party, Lyle repeated as he bobbed his head and rolled a joint, Hey, who’s on blender duty?

Jansen looked through some CD’s as he said, Tunes! Tunes?

Pot was not my drug of choice. It made me tired, and way too analytical. Yet I always joined in. There were only two things I did well when stoned: chess and ping pong.

Anita Dunn wandered. I lost my lighter. It was brand new. Where the hell is my lighter?

Bummer, man. I had no idea if Stan was serious.

The thick joint made its way around. My body or mind was signaling me no no no, but either the cloud in my mind, or the fat of my body was muffling that signal. As the fourth joint was finished off, Ta-Nia said she had to get to her friend’s thang down in Alphabet City and we all could go.

Anita Dunn said, Yeah, Avenue A.

No, it’s on Avenue C.

A.

C.

And we were off. Out into the cold, where we found a cab idling outside a diner.

We arrived at a pre-everything walk-up building on Avenue C, in the East Village. It appeared to be a section of the city the Mayor hadn’t gotten to yet. We piled out of the taxi in a fashion that would have made the Marx Brothers proud. As we slipped and slid to standing positions, Anita Dunn reminded us that her lost lighter was brand new. Stan Finn cackled as we pushed open the front door. I simply flowed with these boisterous people who brought me. The destination was fifteen flights up. I could only follow. My faculties had left me an hour earlier. My blob of a body moved on its own.

Climb, climb. Breathing was shallow and heavy.

Climb, climb. I concentrated on someone’s shoes in front of me climbing and climbing.

Drops slid down my eyeballs from my sweating scalp.

The Metal music from above shook my intestines. The hammering beat squeezed the stairway as if the walls were animated in Bugs Bunny Technicolor. The vibration pounded my temples.

Climb, climb.

I reached the top. The apartment door was open. Strange blurred heads and faces appeared across the door frame. Vivid colors and winding strange music were slaps to my senses.

I stepped inside, feeling as if I were on display. There was lots of yelling in the small narrow apartment. The shower was in the kitchen. It was that type of dwelling.

I hadn’t ordered the platter of tobacco, humidity, funky hair smell, and yet it all arrived in my nasal area. That, and everything that I had placed into my mind and body earlier were reminding me that tonight was not a good idea. I lectured myself, and that quickly turned to praying as I leaned against a wall, with my right profile stuck to a framed poster of some Off-Broadway play that I had no intention of seeing. I had to make a decision. What was the best way out of there? Crawl? Ask for help? Hope a loving soul would carry me? The sweating increased to a level that if it wasn’t me, would be extremely amusing. I knew enough to focus on a spot on the wall, and do my darnedest to block all nauseating thoughts. Someone asked me if I was good. The next thing I remembered was getting into the hallway, and a rush of cooler air revived me somewhat. I began down the stairs like a big clumsy robot. My chest and stomach felt like worms and snakes were swimming inside. My brain felt like it was a solid brick globe.

I descended slowly, slowly, surely.

Step down.

Step down.

I did my best not to scold himself. There was plenty of time for that. It was a long way down, sober or high.

Step.

Step.

The end seemed near. I walked to the front door that would lead out to the street. I opened the door, took a few steps. Something didn’t seem right. An elderly man was sitting in a big overstuffed chair with a newspaper on his lap. A big plate of ravioli sat on a tray with way too much sauce, drowning the pasta out of it. I couldn’t say a word. I didn’t know if I was speechless, or physically couldn’t say a word. It took a couple of seconds to know that I walked into this man’s apartment. I was one floor too short.

I thought the man might think I was robbing him.

I thought why didn’t he lock his door?

I thought just get the hell out.

Now.

The man just sat there looking at me. I turned, muttering something like an apology. Or I could have been muttering a promise to the Almighty that this time, I didn’t care what the situation, pot, liquor, other assorted drugs will never enter my system. Changes will be made. Oh, who are you kidding? Then I dropped, flat on the ground, the sides of my mouth collecting carpet lint.

Dilemmas, I had a few. Time passed. Music ended. I felt relaxed, and simultaneously mucho embarrassed. I heard snippets of siren. As I listened to the panic and nervous voices of strangers, I tried to communicate. I was unable. Suddenly, there was silence, and from my point of view, I was simply an object being observed by footsteps. My head floated. All thought process drifted away. Siren was close. Along with concerned comments and questions, I heard Anita Dunn. I’m telling ya, it was even in the original package.

Moments later I felt myself being lifted and moved like a boxed refrigerator.

Engine rumbled. Slammed shut door metal. I was being driven somewhere fast. More voices. Nothing. Blank.

Chapter 2

Curious. The ambulance seemed to be driving at a safe speed. I was face up on a gurney. A belt stretched across my waist. Ten minutes later we came to a stop. I heard a familiar voice, one of authority, say to me, All is going as planned.

I saw a shadow of a man leaning over me. I felt a needle prick the thick jiggly part of my arm. I realized who the man was, just as numbness began. I had put myself into this situation.

I flashed back to all the what if’s, knowing damn well that my life was not directed by Frank Capra and my brother ain’t showing up at the end declaring me the richest man he knows.

I knew you could go down at any time.

I did, and I didn’t, sort of, I mumbled.

We had to watch you. You were on the precipice of a fall and we had to be there, he said.

"Stop saying precipice !" I said.

It’s the first time I said it.

Whatever he shot me up with was taking me away…away…

Okay, I can accept that, I said forming a big dumb smile.

Do you remember everything we discussed? he asked.

Into the darkness, I declared,