Free Everything Changes by Jonathan Tropper Page A

unexpected wave of tenderness for him, and I resolve, as I do so often, to build a life for myself that will enable me to take care of Pete, to afford him all of the simple pleasures that, in his uncomplicated mind, make up the sum total of happiness. The advantage to Pete’s kind of happiness, as opposed to the average man’s, is that it’s more easily quantifiable and therefore, in my mind, more easily attainable.
    “Satch sometimes lets me drive his car.”
    “Satch Bowhan?”
    “Yep.”
    “What are you doing hanging out with that asshole?”
    Satch Bowhan, a year older than me, had been a holy terror when we were growing up, always getting suspended from high school for fighting or drugs, until he stopped going altogether. He always was strangely fascinated with Pete, and seemed to take a perverse pleasure in manipulating him in public, convincing him to drink from the toilet at the arcade or to pull down his pants and dance around the pizza store. Pete, always so eager to please, interpreted the attention as inclusion and was always more than happy to accommodate Satch, who called him his little buddy. I was in more than my share of fights defending Pete from the cruelty of our peers, but it was rumored that Satch carried a switchblade and had used it before, so whenever our confrontations started to verge on violence, I always backed down. When I was in college, I heard that he’d been arrested a few times and joined the Marines to avoid a jail sentence.
    “Satch is a good guy.”
    “Pete,” I say, turning to face him. “Satch is a lowlife. You should steer clear of him.”
    “He’s my friend. He gives me a discount at the hardware store. And he lets me drive his car sometimes. That’s all.”
    “He was always so mean to us when we were kids.”
    “Well,” Pete says, “he’s different now.”
    “Just promise me you won’t let him take advantage of you.”
    Pete turns to me. “I may be retarded,” he says. “But I’m not stupid.”
    “Eyes on the road,” I say, pointing to the windshield. “I know you’re not stupid, Pete. But I’m your older brother. It’s my job to worry about you.”
    Without being told, Pete knows to park in front of the neighbor’s house, to avoid discovery by our mother. “I know, Zack,” he says. “I love you.”
    “I love you too, Pete,” I say. He’s the only man I’ve ever been able to say that to. “You can drive me anytime.”
    “On the highway?”
    “Don’t push it.”
    “Ha!” He laughs and bangs the steering wheel with his hand. I’m about to open the car door when he says, “You still sad about Rael?”
    I lean back in my seat, looking at him inquisitively. “Yeah,” I say. “Sometimes.”
    “Me too,” he says. “He was always real nice to me, you know. He didn’t act like I was retarded or anything.”
    “He loved you a lot.”
    “Tamara would make me cookies.”
    “She still will,” I said. “She just doesn’t feel like making cookies yet, you know?”
    “I know,” Pete says, staring down at his lap. “I used to wish that you and me would live with Rael and Tamara forever. The four of us, you know?”
    I can feel a lump forming in my throat. “That would have been nice,” I say, although his words hurt me in ways I can’t begin to understand.
    He looks up at me. “Tomorrow’s inventory after work,” he says brightly. “I make an extra thirty dollars.”
    “That’s great.” I’ve always envied Pete’s ability to snap out of a funk at a moment’s notice. He works in the stockroom at Bless My Soles, a children’s shoe store on Johnson Avenue. “You’ve been working there awhile already, huh?”
    “Four years,” he says proudly. “Mr. Breece says I’m irreplaceable.”
    “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
    “Ha!”
    “I’ll see you soon, okay, Pete?”
    “On Saturday.”
    “Saturday?”
    “Your engagement party, stupid.”
    “Oh. Right.” For a moment there, I’d forgotten.
    I watch Pete