The Anthropic Principal

When Anthony Prock was conceived, his mother was in the midst of an affair with Jerome, the soda jerk at the A&W where all the high school kids gathered in the afternoon. When her husband, Samuel, a traveling salesman, was away on business trips, she entertained Jerome in the two bedroom rambler Sam had bought shortly before their wedding. She broke off the affair when she realized she was pregnant.

Anthony came out looking a lot like his mother, so she could never really tell who the father was. Samuel never found out about his wife’s tryst with Jerome, so there was never any need to settle the argument. Sometimes she would stare into Anthony’s eyes and she would be certain that he was Sam’s son, but then he would break out in that grin of his that reminded her so much of Jerome.

As a boy, Anthony wanted to be all kinds of things. He dreamt of being an astronaut, a fighter pilot, an architect. When the neighbor’s house caught fire, he spent a month with the garden hose, putting out imaginary fires. When his dog, Dee, got sick, he told his mother that he would become a veterinarian so no one would ever have to lose a pet. In the back of his heart, he always kept the option of rock star open, though he’d only been able to learn four chords on the guitar he got for Christmas.

In middle school, Anthony wasn’t popular. He was shorter than most of his class and not very good at sports. The girls didn’t completely ignore him, but it seemed that when he talked to them they had a tendency to look at each other and giggle.

One day he resolved to work up all his nerve and talk to Suzie Orman, the cute girl that sat in front of him in geography class. She was one of the popular girls, but Anthony convinced himself that she was nicer than the rest of them. She had picked up his pencil case for him when it slipped off his stack of textbooks, and when Tommy pulled his pants down after school after the fieldtrip to the museum she didn’t laugh. The two of them had made eye contact, and she looked sympathetic. By holding her stare, he was able to block out the laughs and jeers of his classmates.

He spent the entire forty-five minutes of geography class that day planning out what he would say to her. He would walk up to her during lunch. She would be talking to her friends, but as he approached they would fall silent and look at him. He would tell Suzie about the deep connection he felt with her, how he knew that the two of them could understand each other the way no one else could, how they were meant for each other. Her friends would swoon over how romantic it was, and be intensely jealous. Suzie would stand up and they would kiss.

After geometry was history, and then lunch. Anthony watched Suzie eat her sandwich, and fruit cocktail, and drink her juice box. He watched her talk and laugh with her friends. He kept watching for the right moment to walk over there, but it never felt quite right. Eventually the bell rang, and Anthony filed out of the cafeteria, having chickened out once again.

In elementary school, Anthony was one of the smartest in his class, and his friends were all A students. The summer before he started high school, though, his father took a job in another city, and the Procks moved to the east coast. At the new school Anthony was free to be whoever he wanted to be. When one of the boys at the bus stop offered him a cigarette, he smoked it, trying to act as though he’d smoked a hundred before. The boy’s name was David, and he became Anthony’s new best friend.

David and Anthony, or Tony, as he preferred to be called, got into all the usual trouble. They skipped class to get sodas at the store down the street from the high school, they stole alcohol from Tony’s parents’ liquor cabinet, and egged the houses of all the teachers they hated. The school’s student counselor told Tony that she thought he could accomplish a lot more if he put his mind to it. She told his parents the same thing, but he didn’t listen.

Sophomore year Tony started dating Sandra Sigworth. The two ran into each other in the hallway near the art room while he was skipping Spanish class and she was ditching Health. They ducked into a rarely used supply room and spent the rest of the day talking. Neither went to any of their classes.

Tony was amazed by how much he and Sandra had in common. Both had fathers who were salesmen. Both had sandboxes in their backyards growing up. Neither had siblings, though both thought it would have been nice to have a brother or sister to play with growing up. They both were dragged to church every Sunday, though neither got anything out of it or even supposed there really was a God watching them.

Tony’s grades dropped a full letter on average, but when his mother broached the subject of his spending too much time with Sandra, he stormed off and locked himself in his room. He’d call Sandra on the phone and talk to her until the wee hours of the night. He said that no one understood him the way she did, and she said the same about him. They were soul mates, and nothing could tear them apart.

For three years they were each other’s worlds. They decided to go to the same collage, the State University because Sandra couldn’t get into the private schools they liked. Though his grade point average was low, Tony tested well, and could have gone to any of the schools they applied, but resigned himself to State to be with Sandra.

Tony’s dad told him that computers were the future, and advised him to pursue a career in programming, but Tony didn’t want anything to do with it. He declared himself a psychology major. He figured he could open his own practice and study patients at a psych ward on the side. After a few years he could come up with a drug or a therapy to cure manic depression or something, and then focus his energies on obsessive compulsive disorder or schizophrenia.

Half way through their first semester, Sandra told Tony that she didn’t know what she wanted anymore, and maybe they should see other people. Tony was devastated. He spent hours in the lounge across from Sandra’s dorm room, waiting to catch a glimpse of her with whatever new guy she was seeing. He drank most nights and slept through his morning classes. The school put him on academic probation and then threatened expulsion. His father threatened to whip his ass if he didn’t shape up. By second semester, Tony declared himself a history major because it seemed to be the only subject he could pass.

The next year his grades improved greatly. He put Sandra out of his mind and focused on his studies. He met Emily through a common friend in the history department, though she was an English major. She understood when he told her he felt like his father never fully accepted him. She knew what he meant when he said the world seemed too perfect to be some grand coincidence. They both liked Leonard Cohen. They played a game where they would guess what color the other was thinking, and were right three time out of five.

Tony, well actually Anthony now, graduated with good grades and got his teaching license. He was lucky enough to get a job teaching high school history in Emily’s hometown. They married the summer after graduation, and bought a little two bedroom rambler on the edge of town. Emily worked as a receptionist to make ends meet.

The first couple of years were wonderful. They made fast friends with the neighbors, and Anthony’s fellow teachers seemed to respect him. He found a way to appeal to his students so they would see him as young and cool while still respecting his authority. Emily liked the people in her office, and made friends she would keep the rest of her life. In the summers they were able to take long vacations in Europe.

Their eldest daughter, Susan, was born three days after their third anniversary, and Alison was born fifteen months later. Emily had to quit her job to care for the children. Anthony took any extra jobs the school had to offer to earn the extra income. He supervised field trips, he coached women’s tennis, he became supervisor of transportation and detention. He dreamt he was a juggler, and kept juggling more and more knives. Then the knives were chainsaws, and then snakes.

Anthony had worked his way up to assistant principal when he was offered the superintendent job a couple of states to the north. He was thrilled when he received the offer, but when he told the good news to Emily, she was less than thrilled. She had a large extended family in the area, and thought the girls should stay near their aunts and cousins. Anthony had to turn down the superintendent job. He dreamt that he was drowning in the ocean, and everyone kept throwing him flotation devices, but they threw so many that they covered the surface of the water and he couldn’t push through to breath. A few years later he was made principal.

By this time, Anthony was disappointed with his life. The teachers at work no longer came to his barbeques. He was well aware that the students referred to him as Principal Prick. He had nightmares in which everyone he knew grew to twice their size, but he stayed the same. Sex with Emily had dwindled down to a monthly occurrence. His daughters thought he was dull and out of touch, and they weren’t even teenagers yet. Even the pet dog seemed to ignore him.

It was at this time that Anthony had one of those midlife crises so common to men in their forties. After working late organizing a fund raiser for the sports programs, he went to a bar instead of going home, even though it was a school night. The bar was mostly empty, and he sat down at on a stool and starting putting away rum and cokes.

For the first hour or two he was lost in his thoughts. He hated being a principal. He missed the days when the students liked and respected him. He was sick of this town. He could have taken that superintendent job. It could have been a fresh start. For that matter, he could have stayed focused in school and become a psychologist like he wanted to. If only he could go back and do it right. He could have made more of himself.

If he’d practiced his guitar more he could have been the next Jimi Hendrix. Hell, he thought, he could have married Suzie Orman. They could have opened a chain of restaurants and sold the franchising rights. He could be retired already, just living off the dividends.

When he came back to reality, he noticed a blond down at the other end of the bar looking at him. He bought her a drink and she came over to sit with him.

“Hi, I’m Aimee.”

“Anthony.”

They got to talking, and soon learned that they went to the same collage, though Aimee graduated a couple of years after Anthony. She named a few of her friends she still kept in touch with, but none of the names seemed familiar to him.

Aimee was a divorcee. She said he ex-husband cheated on her a lot.

“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. I think there’s just one person out there for everyone, and James wasn’t it. I thought he was for a long time, but if it isn’t in the stars, what can you do? I mean, there are receptors in the brain that only bond with one specific hormone or neurotransmitter or whatever, so I don’t think it’s such a stretch that every person has one specific person that matches them perfectly, like soul mates. I guess you just have to keep looking until you find the key that fits the lock.”

Aimee and Anthony talked for a long time, and they found a lot in common. Anthony felt an excitement he thought he’d outgrown. They flirted shamelessly. He wondered what would have happened if he had met Aimee before Emily. When he glanced at his watch it was after midnight.

When Aimee suggested they go back to her place for coffee, Anthony snapped out of his stupor. This was getting out of hand. He had a wife, and daughters, and he couldn’t do this. He said a quick goodbye and left the bar. He was still a little buzzed, but he drove home anyway.

Emily was waiting up for him, pacing the living room in her aqua robe. She’d been worried and wanted to know where he’d been and why he didn’t call.

Anthony sat her down on the sofa. He told her he’d been thinking about his life. Things hadn’t turned out the way he ever expected them to, but they were alright. He wasn’t an architect or a rock star, but he had a steady job that provided a comfortable living. He had two beautiful daughters and a wife who loved him enough to stay up and worry about him when he didn’t come straight home from work. His life may have been a little better, but it sure as Hell could have been a lot worse. Whatever the possibilities, his life was the way it was, and he might as well be happy with it.

He hugged Emily and led her upstairs. That night he slept contentedly.