Everything Changes

brownstone, and he waits in the living room while I fetch him a glass of water.
    “Great place,” he says, impressed. “You own, or are you renting, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    “It’s Jed’s,” I say, handing him the glass. He drinks the water quickly, wiping his wet lips with his sleeve as he hands me back the cup.
    “You feel that earthquake last night?” he asks me.
    “Sure.”
    “You know, in ancient times, some cultures believed that earthquakes were occasions for intense introspection, the gods shaking up the fates, giving you the opportunity to change your destiny.” He looks at me meaningfully.
    “Or maybe it was just the gods gangbanging the thirteen-year-old virgin that had been sacrificed the night before,” I say.
    Norm grins ruefully. “Listen, Zack,” he says. “All I’m asking for is a half hour, an hour at the most. I know you’re angry, and I’m certainly deserving of your anger, but I’m still your father, and like it or not, I’m the only one you’ll ever get.”
    I have no time for this. I’m still thinking disconcertedly about the blood in my piss, wondering if I should do anything about it. “I really have to get to work,” I say.
    He stares at me for a moment and then nods slowly. “Okay,” he says. “Now’s not a good time.” He fishes into his suit pocket and hands me a bent business card. Few things are more pathetic than an unemployed man with a business card. “My cell,” he says. “I’m headed down to Florida in a few days. A guy I know down there wants me to run his sporting goods store. But I came here first, because this is important. Please, Zack. I’m staying with some friends downtown. I’ll stay a few days more if that’s what it takes.”
    “I’ll think about it,” I say, ushering him toward the door.
    “I am suggesting that that’s really and truly all I could ask for,” he says solemnly. Over the years, Norm’s developed this odd manner of speech, his sentences festooned with flowery malapropisms that he thinks make him sound better educated, the distracting patter of a bad salesman. He extends his hand. I shake it, not because I want to but because what the hell else can you do when someone extends his hand. “It’s great to see you, Zack. You look wonderful, really terrific.”
    I’m pissing blood.
“Thanks,” I say coldly.
    He grins widely, as if he’s achieved a minor victory. “How, then, is your mother?” he says.
    I tell him that’s none of his business, not because I care but because I want to see if I can wipe that shit-eating grin off his face.
    I can.

    As a young boy, I would wake up scared in the middle of the night, terrified that I’d been left alone in the house, and I would come running into my parents’ room, always to his side of the bed. His large arms would hoist me up and onto him, where I would lie with my head pressed flat against him, listening to the beating of his heart through his soft, fleshy chest as he rubbed my back, pulling my pajama shirt up in the places where it clung to my small, sweating trunk. And then, as my staggered breaths became slower and deeper, he would sing to me, his voice hoarse and dulled with sleep.
    Good night, sweet baby, good night
    I’m right here to watch over you
    And the moon, stars, and I
    And this old lullaby
    Will make all your sweet dreams come true
    You can never totally hate someone who sang you to sleep like that, can you? Who calmed you down and eased your fears. You can feel angry and betrayed, but some part of you will always love them for being there on those scary nights, for giving you a place to run to where your nightmares couldn’t follow, the one place where you could descend finally into slumber knowing, at least for the time being, that you were completely safe.

Chapter 3
    My mother did all the household accounting, so when my father started sleeping with his secretary, Anna, he rightly worried that paying for motel rooms two or three times a week could lead to discovery. He decided the smarter move would be to simply bring Anna home during his lunch hour to fuck her in the familiar comfort of his own marital bed. While this precluded the possibility of a money trail, it nevertheless must have left some forensic traces, because when my mother finally stepped into the room to catch him in the act, she was prepared. Rather than get hysterical and throw things, she simply snapped some damning pictures with the Nikon she’d bought him as