Everything Changes

him, you should have come to appreciate what a precious gift life is and what a crime it is to be wasting it. I mean, look at me, for Christ’s sake. My family despises me, I’m a drunk, I’ve worked over fifteen jobs in my life, and I’ve got less than ten grand in the bank to show for it. If anyone should be scared to live, it’s me. But I’m out there every day, suiting up and showing up, doing my best. Some days I might get somewhere and some days I might not, but I go to sleep every night knowing that tomorrow is another chance for my life to get better. And you know what? I sleep just fine. Like a fucking baby. I might need a pill to make my dick stand up, but the two of you need a pill for your souls.” Norm nods, pleased with his analogy. “Yep, that’s what this is. Erectile dysfunction of the soul.” He opens up the glove compartment and rummages through it. “You have a pen in here? I want to write that down. That was pretty damn good. I should trademark it or something.”
    “Norm,” I say. “You’re one arrogant son of a bitch.”
    “It’s okay,” Jed says thoughtfully. “He’s right.”
    “No,” I say, overcome with a rage that materializes like a sudden storm. “Where do you get off, waltzing into people’s lives and psychoanalyzing them? If you’re such a wise man, why is your life such a wreck, huh?”
    “It’s okay, Zack,” Jed says. “Leave him alone.”
    “Come on, Norm,” I say, ignoring Jed. “How can you think you have any credibility at all? It’s just amazing to me that someone who has fucked up his life as thoroughly as you feels he can give any advice at all about living.”
    Norm turns in his seat to face me. “Sometimes it takes a blind man to teach you how to see.”
    “Oh my God!” I scream into the wind. “You and these fortune cookie expressions. That doesn’t even mean anything!”
    “Cool it, Zack!” Jed says. On some level, it registers in me that the Lexus is picking up speed.
    “It means that you can learn from my mistakes,” Norm says hotly. “The reason wisdom is meant to be imparted is because you acquire it only after it’s too late to apply to yourself.”
    “That’s pretty fucking convenient,” I say. “You’re sixty years old without a damn thing to show for it, but it hasn’t been a thorough waste of life, because you’ve got your
wisdom
.”
    “My life will never be a waste, Zack, thanks to my wonderful kids.”
    “And has it ever occurred to you that your wonderful kids are all hopelessly fucked-up because of you?”
    Norm nods somberly, his hair flapping crazily in the wind. “Not all,” he says mysteriously. “Not yet. That’s why I’m here.”
    “To save us with your wisdom.”
    “Shut up, Zack!” Jed shouts above the engine. I peer over his shoulder and see that we’re doing ninety-five on the West Side Highway.
    “Slow down, Jed,” I say. But instead, he accelerates and starts weaving through cars on the parkway.
    “Whoa,” Norm says, turning back to sit straight in his seat.
    “Both of you need to shut the fuck up,” Jed says grimly. He pulls past an SUV and comes within inches of rear-ending a gray BMW before swerving onto the shoulder to pass it, the warning grooves deafeningly masticating the convertible’s tires. “Jed!” I scream.
    “We’re here to help Zack find his doctor. So leave the other stuff alone for now, okay? You’re depressing the shit out of me.”
    “Okay,” Norm says.
    “Fine,” I say. “Just slow down, okay?”
    Jed swerves off the shoulder and back onto the highway. The speedometer needle holds steady at one hundred miles per hour as we tear through the traffic, passing cars that appear parked as we flash by them. But instead of asking him to slow down again, we just sit back and give in to the speed, melding into our seats to become one with it. We barrel up the highway like a bullet, the engine’s howl drowned out by the screaming wind crashing over the windshield and battering our bodies as we cut through the atmosphere, three lost men allowing the cacophony of velocity to drown out, at least temporarily, the wounded raging of our own heads.

Chapter 28
    The Larchmont Country Club’s main building is a red brick Colonial mansion with high white columns that sits on Westlake Avenue, a major thoroughfare. To establish distance, there are thick, eight-foot-high hedges, and then an expansive parking lot. To maintain exclusivity, there is a guard booth and