Everything Changes

don’t believe it,” he says.
    “What?”
    He points. “Look.”
    And there’s Norm, trudging up the service road, duffel bag over his shoulder, face flushed, panting lightly from his exertions. I slow down and we watch Norm from behind.
    “For an absentee father,” Matt says, “he sure is around a lot.”
    “He is rather ubiquitous,” I agree.
    “It’s like he thinks everything can be fixed through sheer omnipresence,” Matt says.
    “Like his erections,” I say. “He thinks he can condition us into accepting a new standard.”
    Matt looks at me like a small, perfectly formed flower just sprouted from my nose. “Okay,” he says slowly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you need to come up with a better analogy, preferably one that doesn’t involve Dad’s schlong.”
    “You just called him ‘Dad,’ ” I say.
    “No I didn’t.”
    “Sure you did. You said ‘Dad’s schlong.’ You see. His diabolical plan is succeeding.”
    “It was contextual.”
    I grin. “Whatever, man.”
    “Fuck you. It was.”
    I pull up alongside Norm, keeping pace with his trudging gait. He’s completely focused on his walking, eyes straight ahead, head bowed into the wind, and it takes a minute for him to realize he has company. “Hello, boys,” he says, beaming at us as he sucks wind. “Great to see you.”
    “What are you doing here?” I say.
    “I thought you might need a little backup.”
    “What are you talking about, Norm?”
    He steps off the sidewalk to lean forward over Matt’s door. He’s sweating in his decades-old Members Only windbreaker, and underneath it I can see the same red sweatshirt he wore yesterday. “I’m here to help you get Peter’s money back.”
    “How do you even know about that?” I say.
    “Now, don’t overreact to this,” he says. “I heard you on the phone with your mom.”
    “I was upstairs in bed. How could you have heard anything?”
    “He’s staying with you now?” Matt says incredulously.
    I shush him. “Not now.”
    “I listened in on the downstairs phone,” Norm says.
    “You’re a guest in my house and you’re eavesdropping on my phone calls?” I say, furious.
    “So he is staying with you,” Matt says huffily.
    “I just wanted to hear her voice again.”
    “Then you should have called her,” I say. “Jesus Christ! You’re out of control, Norm.”
    “Let’s not overlook the larger issue here,” Norm says.
    “Oh. And what’s that?”
    “Someone screwed Peter.”
    “Fuck off, Norm. Someone’s always screwing Peter,” Matt says. “And we’ll handle it, like we’ve always handled it. Without you.”
    Norm stands up straight and looks down at us. “Boys,” he says. “I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that I didn’t ask your permission to come with you today. The reason for that, in case you were wondering, is that I don’t need it. I’ll bottom-line it for you: it’s not your call. I took a subway and two buses to get here.” He leans all the way forward now, forearms pressed against the car door, his head hovering directly over Matt’s, his expression stark and determined. “I’m not turning back,” he declares emphatically. “So, having freed the two of you from the onus of that decision, you should now be able to make the one decision concerning me that you are, in fact, in the position to make.”
    Matt looks at me, his eyes wide and smoldering with indignation.
No fucking way,
he mouths to me. I look at Norm, peaked and flushed from his walking, his features contorted into a rictus of grim purpose. I sigh. “Hop in.”
    “I don’t fucking believe you,” Matt mutters to me.
    Norm can’t fit in the Lexus’s backseat, so he sits up on the seat back like a returning hero at his parade, face turned pleasurably into the midday sun like a dog, while Matt slinks down in his seat sulking, and in this unsightly manner we leave the service road and navigate gracelessly through the business district of our old neighborhood, toward our childhood home.

Chapter 23
    Pete gets off at two on Thursdays, so the plan is to stop at the house to say hello, then pick up the Mustang and drive it over to the Diamond Hardware store that Satch runs. At that point, I’ll explain the situation to Satch, who, I’m hoping, is open to reason and is not as prone to violence as he was when we were kids. In the meantime, Matt will stand in the background with his game face on, flash his tattoos, and look menacing.