Everything Changes

saying?”
    “Nothing,” she says tiredly. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to give you a hard time.”
    “No, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
    “Peter wants to talk to you.”
    There’s a whine of static and then Pete comes on the phone. “Hey, Zack,” he says. Pete has overactive salivary glands, and whenever he talks on the phone, he sucks up the excess saliva in the back of his throat. I got used to it a long time ago, but over the phone it’s more pronounced.
    “Hey, Pete, what’s up?”
    “I got a car.”
    “So I hear,” I say, grinning. “What kind?”
    “A ’95 Ford Mustang. Red. I got a great deal, a thousand bucks. It’s only got a hundred and sixty thousand miles on it. But Mom says I have to give it back.”
    “Well, do you have a driver’s license?”
    “Nope.”
    “What’s the point of having a car like that without a license?”
    Pete says, “Chicks,” and then convulses into a fit of hoarse, snorting laughter. I laugh along with him.
    “Pete,” I say. “You don’t need a car to get chicks.”
    “It helps,” he says.
    “Look at me,” I say. “I don’t have a car.”
    “Number one,” Pete says. “You don’t need to get chicks, because you’re engaged to Hope.” Pete debates in number form, and I can picture him standing there, with the phone tucked into his ear, ticking off the count on his hands. “And number two,” he says, and then pauses.
    “Yeah?” I say.
    “You’re not a retard.”

    Norm is in the kitchen, in boxers and a wifebeater, scrambling eggs when I come downstairs. “Hey, Zack,” he says, full of urgent cheer. “I made you some breakfast.”
    “Did you sleep here?” I ask incredulously.
    “Onions and tomatoes, just like when you were a kid,” he says proudly, expertly sliding a heaping mound of eggs from the frying pan onto a waiting plate. “You still like it like that?”
    “Can you answer my question?”
    He looks at me. “I crashed on the couch. Jed said it would be fine. I wanted to clear it with you, but you were already sleeping.”
    “So, what?” I say. “You’re moving in here now?”
    “It’s just for a few days,” he says apologetically, placing the plate in front of me.
    “I thought you were staying with friends.”
    He shrugs. “I think I might have overstayed my welcome.”
    “Go figure.”
    He greets my sarcasm with the same nullifying smile he always uses, like he’s in on the joke rather than the butt of it. “So,” he says. “When do you leave for work?”
    “I’m not going to work today,” I say. That raises his eyebrows, and I quickly lift my hand to shush him as he’s about to speak. “And if I were you,” I continue quickly, “I would carefully consider whatever it was you were about to say. It could mean the difference between your being welcome to stay here or not.”
    He looks at me for a long moment, then nods his head with a small grin. “I was just going to ask if the eggs need any more salt.”
    I take a forkful into my mouth and chew it thoughtfully. “They do,” I say. “Thanks.”
    He slides the saltshaker across the table. “Don’t mention it.”
    “Did you catch up to Matt yesterday?” I ask.
    “I did.”
    “And?”
    “I told him his father wasn’t perfect.”
    “I hope he was sitting down when you dropped that bomb.”
    Norm shrugs. “He wasn’t listening anyway.” He drops the pan into the sink, and then, as he’s turning, his erection inadvertently pops through the fly of his boxers and there I am, face-to-face with the instrument of my own humble origins, Norm’s purple, nascent member.
    “And we’re done with breakfast,” I say, disgustedly pushing my plate across the table.
    “Sorry about that,” he says, grinning sheepishly, but not without pride, as he tucks it back into his shorts.
    “Okay,” I say. “I’ll ask. What is it with you and the Viagra?”
    Norm sits down across from me. “I’m trying to condition myself.”
    “Condition yourself.”
    He nods and leans back in his chair. “When I was your age, it didn’t take very much to get me going. See a nice rack on someone, a good, firm ass, and I’d get so hard I could write my name with it, hang a towel on it, you know? But I’m sixty now, and my dick has let me down on more than one occasion. You wait until you’re my age—you’ll see. It’s not that easy. So what I’m doing is, I’m programming my body to believe that erections are a normal, everyday