Everything Changes

and why, mixed in with songs like “Bring Your Sister” and “Jerk-Off Jimmy,” you’ll also find ones like “Vonnegut’s Weed” and “Mr. Palomar” in his body of work.
    I tiptoe upstairs to my room, peeling off my wet clothes as I go. As I rub the rain out of my hair with a towel still damp from this morning’s shower, I enter into a staring match with the toilet. I’ve managed to avoid it all day, since this morning’s agonizing unpleasantness, but the telltale throbbing in my groin says that I can run, but I can’t hide. I decide to go sitting down. My piss is razor sharp, and in the mirror over the sink, I catch a glimpse of my face contorted in pain, the cords of my neck standing out in protest as I gasp through the stream. But then it’s over, and in retrospect, it wasn’t as bad as this morning, although I don’t know if that’s actually the case, or if I’ve only taken the element of surprise out of it. There’s definitely less blood than this morning, although that’s hardly a cause for celebration.
    There’s a message on my machine from Hope, telling me that she’s arrived safely in London. She sounds somewhat put off, no doubt wondering why I didn’t call to check on her and why I’m not at work and not answering my cell in the middle of the day. She leaves me the number at her hotel, says she loves me, and hangs up. I should call her right now. I really should.
    Matt stirs when he hears me come into the living room, and then sits up with a grunt. “Hey, man,” he says groggily.
    “Hey,” I say, pulling on a sweatshirt.
    “You puked in our van.”
    “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
    He shrugs, a seasoned veteran of wayward regurgitation. “It’s raining out?”
    “Yep.”
    “What time is it?” he says, sitting up slowly, groaning at the stiffness in his ribs.
    “It’s one thirty,” I tell him. As he turns to face me, I can see the dark shadows under his bloodshot eyes, the gaunt lines of his face. Not for the first time, it occurs to me that my little brother is slipping away, being slowly devoured by the anger that propels him. The healing bruises from a loan shark beating he suffered a few months ago form a crescent-shaped penumbra from the corner of his ear to his temple. Yes, my little brother’s been into some shit: drugs, debt, dealing. If it involves any form of self-destruction, Matt will usually be up for it. Sitting on the floor, he looks so small and wasted, and I just want to throw my arms around him, like when we were little kids, and feel like I can protect him, tell him that it’s okay to let go and get some rest, that I’ll be here to watch over him. “You look like shit,” I say.
    “It’s only rock and roll,” he says with a smirk, his tongue darting out to lick his desiccated lips. “But I like it. What are you doing here?”
    “I actually live here.”
    He nods. “I mean now, in the middle of the day.”
    I sit down on the floor, my back against the couch. “I am either on the cusp of what may very well be a grand epiphany or else a minor nervous breakdown.”
    He looks up at me appraisingly and nods his head, his brief smile revealing the jagged line of his cigarette-stained teeth. “Zack, my brother,” he says with a yawn. “Welcome to the monkey house.”

    By the time Norm shows up later, the three of us are good and stoned on some stale joints Matt produced from the depths of his cargo pants, watching
The Terminator
on the Sci Fi network, while Jed passionately holds forth on the inherent contradictions and liabilities of fucking with the space-time continuum. When Norm walks into the room, a wet duffel bag slung over his shoulder like Santa Claus, we all stare up at him as if he might be a clever group hallucination.
    “Hello, boys,” Norm says, dropping his duffel onto the carpet with a thud. He’s wearing jeans and a faded red sweatshirt, his hair plastered against his scalp from the rain.
    “Hey, Norm,” Jed says agreeably.
    “What are you doing here?” I say, too stoned to get up.
    “The door was open.” He looks over to Matt, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the television, his bent silhouette framed by the large screen. “Hello, Matt,” he says formally.
    “Norm,” Matt says with an exaggeratedly formal nod.
    “Great show the other night,” Norm addresses him gingerly. “I was really very proud of you.”
    “Thank you, Norm,” Matt says, staggering to his feet. “That makes it all