Behind the counter were candy, gum, and ciga­rettes, to the left and right were big magazine stands. Four freestanding paperback-­book racks, heavy on war novels, stood about, and the picture-­window display area was piled high with comic books. News­papers were stacked on the floor around the front counter, so in order to make a purchase, one had to stand several feet from the counter and lean over. Joshua liked that, putting people off balance.

He had all the local trade. This tidy, pretty little town supported its local embarrassment, its local war hero, its token broken Vietnam vet that it fed and cared for like a pet. Joshua slopped up its charity like gravy with a big, chewy crust of scorn.

And it had made him old.

I had stacked two bundles of newspapers and was sitting on them, loosening my coat, when I heard Joshua finish on the toilet, heard the clank of his metal crutches, and soon he swung back through the curtain.

“Did you take care of that run of customers for me?” He smiled. I felt somehow as if I were the only one in town whom Joshua didn’t make fun of. He threw me a paper bag, which I caught in surprise reflex. “Eat something, willya?”

I opened the bag and found two hardening doughnuts.

“Oh, thank you, Joshua. I’m not hungry.”

“Wasting away. What the hell’s the matter with you, anyway?”

“I’ve been ill lately, I think, but I’m over it now.”

“Well, that’s good. Don’t know anyone else who’d come sit with me at night.” There was a long pause while Joshua focused his attention on the bottle in the paper bag. He never drank while I was with him, but he stared at his liquor as if it were his only reference point. “Why do you?”

“I like you.”

“Bullshit. Nobody likes me. I’m crude.”

“I like you.”

“Yeah?” I almost saw the flicker of a smile in the corners of his mouth, but he wouldn’t allow himself that. “What do you like about me?”

“What’s on the other side of your crude front. What you could be if you took off that face and put on one that’s more human.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You lose both your legs and your balls and then let’s talk again about being human.” The expression on his face never changed. This, too, was a part of his front.

“Does nothing touch you? Have you sealed your­self so tightly that nothing can touch you?” Suddenly I felt as if Joshua were me, and I was confronting myself, a strange, inconceivable part of myself.

“Maybe you better go.”

“I’ve touched you, then, haven’t I?”

“Get outta here, Angelina. You’re boring to­night.”