In “Amigo Brothers,” the East River is an important symbol of the distance that develops in Felix and Antonio’s friendship as they prepare to fight against each other. At the beginning of the story, the boys exist on the same side of the river, running along its banks in the mornings. Their closeness is absolute, and there is nothing that separates the friends. However, with the news that they will face each other in the ring, they feel “a wall rising between them” (125). They discuss this tension before the river, looking across the water to Brooklyn with a new understanding of how daunting a chasm of space can be. Antoino watches a tugboat cross the water and “admire[s] [its] courage […] pulling a barge five times its welterweight size” (127), the use of a boxing metaphor suggesting his uncertainty regarding how to bridge this new distance between Felix and himself. When Felix decides to stay with his aunt in the Bronx, he makes this figurative distance literal as the upcoming fight creates both physical and emotional space between the friends.