Apart from Robert and EJ, the person Wolf spent the most time with was Anthony. He was a scrawny man, who lived beneath the blue tarp affixed to the chain-link fence on the far end of the lot. He had attended one of Mike’s morning coffee socials, which Aria had yet again been motioned over to attend. The seam just between the brim and cap of his olive-green baseball hat was stained with sweat. He had small, dirty-green eyes with so much sclera that they reminded Aria of shark eyes. His sandy blond hair was cut short, his beard and mustache trimmed. After years of harsh treatment, his body was stiff and weathered. His skin bore the corrupt color of a permanent sunburn. His hands, graceless in their movements, were covered in cracks and callouses.

Anthony had killed a man. When he was young, he had been a bucker at a logging company in Idaho. When he found out that his wife had been cheating on him with a man who worked beside him every day as a faller, he drove over to the man’s house in a rage to confront him. The screaming match escalated until the other man threatened to call the police on him for trespassing. When Anthony didn’t leave, the man pointed a rifle at his face. This made Anthony so angry that he grabbed the gun and wrestled him for it. When he ended up with the gun, as if overtaken by something other than himself, he pointed it back at him and shot twice. Anthony tried to skip town, but was arrested two days later. He was charged with voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

His parole papers had been signed off years ago. But to get a job, or buy a car, or qualify to rent an apartment, as a convicted felon had proved to be impossible. So, he turned to robbery and had spent his time since then in and out of jails. On occasion, he would intentionally get himself arrested to escape the cold of the winters before deciding to come out west to California.

Anthony found life outside prison unmanageable. He no longer felt wanted in society. There was no way to transition from life behind bars to life outside them. Perhaps Wolf offered him a sense of tribal belonging that society would not afford him. Perhaps Wolf was on a mission to save the part of himself that lacked a tribe externally through Anthony. But unless Wolf had sunk into the intentional isolation of one of his downward spirals, the two were inseparable. Anthony followed Wolf around like a beta member of a two-man wolf pack.