We knew what Anthony would say before he did,

because it was what he always said, and maybe it was true. Thing was, nobody cared. I don’t mean just Julio and I, but the world. It didn’t give a shit. So we didn’t either, not because we were callous--which we were to a degree because life forces you to grow thick skin in the places where it rubs you raw--but because we had heard it before, too many times to count. You grew callouses or you blistered. Anthony didn’t seem to get that. He expected the world to give when he crashed his head against it.  

It didn’t. But the people around him usually did, for a while at least. It was just Anthony.

But there comes a point when you have to stop giving, no matter how sorry you feel for someone, because if you don’t, you turn into them, ramming your skull against a wall. It’s not a wall made of bricks or stone but of forgiveness. You let things go that you shouldn’t. Then you do it again, and again, until somewhere along the line you realize there’s nothing left, and you just can’t give any more. We were at that point, Julio and I. Some things you can’t forgive, and everybody has their line.

Anthony hadn’t learned where ours were yet, but he was about to.

He came rolling up in his beat to shit Ford Maverick, gunning it hard into the turn onto the wheel-rut trail leading down to the campsite. He almost lost it, cutting the wheel too late and fishtailing, no doubt caught somewhere between a grin and a grimace as he fought for control. I’d been in the car with him when he pulled a similar stunt once, two summers ago, as the Fourth of July bash Nancy and Grover had thrown was winding down. We were on our way to Leonard’s place, to beg a doobie from the grizzled ex-con. Anthony piled it onto a big rock that time, and we walked the rest of the way. I stayed outside when we got to Leonard’s. Janet, Leonard’s wife, answered the door and tried to tell Anthony to come back tomorrow, Leonard was crashed. He barged past her into the trailer and about five seconds of banging and cussing later, came bouncing back out, blood gushing from his nose and the promise of a cut throat following him into the yard.

He said it then, as we were walking back to Nancy and Grover’s. He always said it.

Now he killed the engine and hopped out of the Maverick, sashayed over to the fire and sat on one of the stumps across from us. Julio handed him a beer, asked if I was ready. I shook my head and lit the joint I’d been rolling and passed it to Anthony. He grinned and took a long hit, nigger-lipping.

Nobody said anything until the joint was gone, more beers opened. Then Anthony broke the silence. You could always count on that.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Julio shrugged, looked out across the lake, anger smoldering in his dark gaze.

“Fuck you, Anthony,” I said.

“What?” Like he didn’t know.

He did, I saw it in his eyes, flicking back and forth between Julio and me, never stopping on either of us for more than half a second. They found his feet.

Julio said, “Suzie told me.”

Anthony watched the scuffed toes of his boots dig in the sand, hoping for purchase. They would never find it, because the world was too slippery for Anthony, and he wasn’t slippery enough.

“Finish your beer,” Julio said.

Anthony did, in one long pull. He was a trooper, I’ll give him that, only he had no fucking idea in what army he belonged, or in what war. Nobody had the heart to tell him there were neither. That shit was for the TV news, boardrooms and back rooms where the cigar and single-malt crowd did the quid pro quo shuffle. In real life, where real people had to do or die, there were only skirmishes whose meaning fled before the dust had settled, and sides that were never really drawn so much as roughly sketched.

Anthony let loose with a booming belch.

Julio nodded and stood. “Get up,” he said.

Anthony got to his feet and Julio hit him between the eyes, the sound of it ringing out across the water. Anthony stumbled back and Julio belted him again, a jabbing left, followed by a powerful uppercut that put Anthony on his ass. He sat there, legs splayed, a stupid expression on his face, like he had no idea how this had come to pass. Julio stepped in, his foot reared back to kick that face with its ridiculous chin beard. Then he stalled, his foot slowly dropping back to earth, his anger burning out, leaving disgust in its wake.

“Shit,” he said, “asshole.” He went back to his stump and sat, Suzie’s honor defended and its marring avenged. Steam rose off his shoulders in the chilly air. He opened a beer.

Anthony looked at me as I got to my feet.

I wanted to pick up where Julio had left off, kick that stupid face to mush, leave his mouth a bloody toothless door swinging on broken hinges. He deserved it. At least then he’d have an excuse for not keeping it shut. My uncle was sitting in the Holbrook Hilton because of that mouth, the lack of brains behind it.

But I couldn’t. He was too pathetic. It would be like kicking a retarded dog to death.

“Shit,” I said. “Get up.”

Anthony shook his head, looked away. That really pissed me off, almost enough to say fuck it, start kicking, but not quite.

“Get off your ass or I’ll boot you into a coma, Anthony, I swear.” I took a step forward and Anthony scooted backward, all heels and elbows.

“I mean it,” I said.

He met my eye and saw that I did, that I hoped he would make me angry enough to do it, and he scrambled to his feet, turning over so his bony ass stuck in the air. It was tempting, but I held back.

When he got turned around I was right there, in his face. Before he could move I grabbed his belt and the front of his lined flannel shirt and heaved, and he was up over my head, his whole buck-thirty. I took two lunging steps and threw him into the icy water of Fool Hollow Lake, as far out as I could. His head missed one of the slabs of volcanic rock jutting from shore by two or three inches. Pity, I thought, as I turned and went back to my stump.

Julio handed me a beer and I drained it, took out my bag and rolled another joint. Anthony splashed and cursed his way to shore, sat on his stump, dripping and shivering. Julio threw some more logs on the fire and it reared up, flooding the drowned canyon with that eerie glow only campfires throw, making our shadows into mad dancers.

Capering was the word. Like the dude that lived in Anthony’s head.

I grunted and lit the joint while Julio passed out beers. Anthony took his and grinned. All was forgiven, that stupid grin said. It wasn’t and never would be, but you couldn’t tell him that, could never make him see. He’d served his penance. Like some Catholics. Someday, somebody would shoot him.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Fuck you, Anthony,” Julio and I said, in stereo. We didn’t laugh, because we knew what was coming. It wasn’t funny, not anymore.

Anthony didn’t disappoint.

“Tough job, but somebody’s got to do it,” he said, and tilted his beer, Adam’s apple bobbing.

I looked at Julio, his black eyes like holes in his dark face. He gave a little shrug, an involuntary snort puffing air from his nostrils. Futility, it said.

But maybe Anthony was right, and if so, I wondered why, knowing I’d never find out. God works in mysterious ways and all that shit. Apparently the world needs its walking disasters to remind the rest of us how thin the knife-edge we walk really is, how easily they could be us, we them. Or maybe they exist to serve as an analogy for the entire human race. It’s a good one, I sometimes think. Then I wonder what kind of fucked up God would delight in such absurdity. And then I shrug, just like Julio had, that same little snort escaping me.

Tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

SR

***

We've all known someone like Anthony at one time or another. What did you learn from yours? How far did he or she push you until you pushed back?