It's late in the afternoon, and I’m sitting around playing Hearts with Hirsch, Ruth, and Paolo on a rickety card table in front of a candy store, the type of which I haven’t seen since I was about eight years old.

Hirsch is dealing out the cards while Paolo watches him with narrowed eyes. Paolo is sure that Hirsch cheats, but hasn't caught him at it yet. Ruth told me that she thinks Hirsch fakes cheating to drive Paolo crazy.

"So, Mark -- what the fuck is a nice, middle-class boy like you doing here, anyway?" asks Hirsch, dealing me an ace of spades. He's a balding, fat guy who looks as if he should be smoking on a big cigar and screaming at his downtrodden sweatshop workers. Actually, he once headed up a major cell in the American Communist Party and got beaten up regularly trying to unionize Okies during the Depression. Go figure.

I look at him. "I got tired of dancing around with the other fags," I tell him. "You can only hang out in fabulous bars just so long before you get incredibly bored."

"Bullshit," says Ruth. She swings out of the candy store with a couple of bottles of Coke in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other, letting the screen door slam behind her. Today she is wearing a big-shouldered 1940s dress that makes her look like Lena Horne on a really good day. I've got to admit, that woman has style. "You never hung out at bars. Sugar, you probably had a monogamous relationship with a nice Jewish doctor and adopted 2.5 kids."

"Only one kid," I tell her. "And the nice Jewish doctor was actually a college professor."

"So," she says, lighting a cigarette thoughtfully, "why do you hang out around here so much? Not that we don’t enjoy your company, but it’s not like we have a lot in common."

"More than you’d think," I tell her. "A smashed head is a smashed head, whether you get it in Harlan County or at the Stonewall riots."

"Not true," says Hirsch, always ready for an argument. Excuse me -- debate. "At Stonewall, you at least had reasonable access to media coverage, not to mention a lawyer. However, during the labor movement of the 1930s..."

"Shut up and play," Paolo grumbles. The guy couldn’t have gotten much to eat when he was a kid; he’s small, thin, and wiry. But mean. Really mean. Ruth once told me that he fought in several wars, in several countries. I’ve never had the nerve to ask him for any details.

Sunlight spills along the sidewalk and onto the brownstones across the street. I hear kids playing somewhere, so maybe it's after three p.m., but I don't know for sure. From inside the store, somebody puts the radio on and a clarinet starts to warble. Benny Goodman, I think. I'm normally not much for jazz -- I like opera, and used to play La Boheme until Andrew, my otherwise patient Significant Other, threatened to break the CD player. But I've got to admit, the music does add to the atmosphere.

We trade cards across the table. Paolo throws out the two of clubs and stares accusingly at Hirsch, who smiles and tosses out an ace. The rest of us throw in our clubs, and the game begins.

After a couple of rounds, Hirsch grins and starts discarding spades. Ruth sucks on her cigarette calmly, unimpressed, while Paolo studies his hand with painful intensity. I play almost by instinct, not really caring if I win or lose. It's more fun to watch the others.

On the radio, Benny finishes his set, and Cab Calloway takes over with a slow, sensual riff on Minnie the Moocher. Ruth stubs out her cigarette. "I'm bored," she announces, and stands, grabbing my hand. "Come on, Mark, dance with me."

Paolo looks up from his hand. "In the middle of a game?"

She smiles at him. "The game can wait. Come on, honey, I need to move." And she does. I never liked to dance with Andrew -- he had been a disco king in his youth, and I couldn't keep up -- but with Ruth, all you have to do is shuffle your feet and sway your hips, and she does the rest.

Hirsch sits back and opens a Coke, while Paolo reaches under his chair for the Italian paper that he always keeps there and buries himself in it. Around the second verse, Ruth starts to sing in a deep, almost tuneless voice "She had a dream 'bout the king of Sweden. He gave her things that she was needin'..."

"You never dance with me like that," Hirsch complains, eyes firmly on her swaying rear.

"You want to dance like this?" Ruth asks. "Lose a few pounds."

Cab stops wailing, and Ruth gives me a firm kiss on the forehead. "Not bad," she tells me, and I happily take her hand for the next number when a voice says, "Excuse me?"

Somebody shuts off the radio with a click. We all turn and look. A young man is standing a few feet away, clutching a piece of paper in both hands and looking somewhat embarrassed, as though he just walked in on a bedroom scene. He's a kid, really, no more than 18 or 19. Neat blue suit, perfectly knotted tie, white shirt. Shoes so bright you could see up a nun’s skirts. Short blond hair, a round, clean-shaven face --assuming he needs to shave -- and a pair of shoulders that makes me want to grab him and run.

"Hi, gorgeous," I say. "New in town?"

The kid reddens, and hastily looks down at the piece of paper. "Ex -- um -- excuse me," he stammers. "I’m looking for, uh..."

"Spit it out," says Hirsch, amused. "We won't bite."

The kid takes a breath. "My name is Joseph Beckman," he says. "I have, right here..." and he fishes in his jacket pocket until he produces a small business card, which he hands across the table to Ruth.

"Joseph Beckman," she reads. "Assistant Shepherd, Church of Good News."

"Religious crap," Paolo mutters. The kid pulls himself up indignantly and starts to say something, but Ruth shakes her head at him.

"Ignore him," she advises. "He's just being obnoxious. Why don't you just tell us what you want?"

"I'm looking," says Joseph, "for a Mr. Samuel Hirsch."

Everyone looks at Hirsch, who shrugs. "That's me. Nu?"

Joseph puts out a hand. "I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Hirsch. I have a wonderful gift for you. You have been baptized by proxy into the Church of Good News so that you may enter into the glory of His love."

Hirsch ignores the outstretched arm and bares his teeth at the kid in something that resembles a smile as interpreted by a shark. "Excuse me?" he asks softly.

"It’s true," Joseph continues, pulling back his hand and ignoring -- or not recognizing -- the implicit threat. "In order to ensure that all souls have the chance to enter the Heavenly Kingdom, including those who may have not have accepted the Word, we enable them to be baptized by proxy. In this case, your son..."

"My son?" Hirsch shakes his head firmly. "You mean Sidney? The last I knew, the little weasel was married and living in Chicago."

Joseph looks a bit taken aback by this show of fatherly disaffection, but plows on gamely. "Well, about four years ago your son moved to Salt Lake City, where he is doing quite well. He is the father of three lovely children, a prosperous business owner..."

Hirsch's face is starting to get red. "A business owner, huh? I always knew he'd end up no good. Probably pays minimum wage, the little shit."

"...a member of good standing of his church..."

Suddenly Paolo slams down his paper, stands, and points one finger firmly at Joseph. "Boy, you do not understand. The purveyors of false spirituality have brainwashed this man's son into adopting a sugar-coated hierarchical belief system and have persuaded him to kidnap his wife and children and move them to the heart of the fascist religious oligarchy. Thus, instead of carrying on the fight against the anti-democratic forces in the American government, he will be wearing the uniforms of the capitalist forces and press his innocent offspring into the mold of American McCarthyism. He has betrayed his family and his class."

There is a moment of respectful silence.

"Nicely put," says Ruth.

"A real ball-buster," approves Hirsch. "You ever speak in Union Square?"

"What they said," I tell him. "But you forgot to include the assumption of heterosexual privilege."

I look at Ruth, and add, "<MI>White<D> heterosexual privilege." She grins at me.

Paolo shrugs. "Next time," he says, sits, and picks up his paper again.

The boy clears his throat. "Yes. Well, since your son has, through the good offices of the church, enabled you to join us..."

Hirsch's eyes narrow. "Kid, does it look as if, on my worst day, I’d want to join your Church of whatever?"

"The Church of Good News," the boy says patiently. "And if you just beheld the beauty..."

Hirsch pushes himself up from the table and takes a step toward the kid, who prudently retreats. "Listen to me, you miserable gonif, you stealer of souls," he growls. "If my son, may his name be wiped from the face of the earth, chooses to join your miserable institution and spend the rest of his life kissing the feet of a murderous god, I can't do anything about it. But I will not -- I repeat, will not -- accept any responsibility for his actions. Nor will I have anything to do with you, or him, now or in the future. Do you understand me?"

Joseph, who has more backbone than I gave him credit for, stands his ground. "Please reconsider. You don’t know how joyous it is to spend eternity with the saved."

I take a step forward, meaning to get between Hirsch and this maniac, but Ruth puts a hand on my arm. "Don't worry," she whispers. "It's okay."

In fact, Hirsch has gone quiet. From where I stand, dangerously quiet. "Son," he says, almost gently. "Don't you think you'd better leave before somebody gets hurt?"

The kid looks at him, baffled. "But, don't you know? I mean... You can't hurt me. I'm...you're...we’re...dead."

Silence. Hirsch stares back at the kid for a moment. Then he takes a deep breath, sits down, and grabs his cards. "Well," he says to the rest, "Are we playing Hearts, or not?"

Paolo throws down his paper and picks up his hand. "About time," he says. "Ruth, Mark, you in or out?"

Ruth shrugs, and lights another cigarette. The radio goes on again, and Woody Guthrie starts to sing about a union maid who never was afraid. Joseph is still standing there, looking totally confused, so I put a fatherly hand over his shoulders, and walk him away from the table. "They won't talk to you any more," I tell him. "You see, you really shouldn't have mentioned the 'D' word. They're a bit sensitive on the subject."

The boy shakes his head. "I don’t understand," he says. "Why wouldn't they want to enter the Heavenly Kingdom rather than languishing here in this urban Purgatory deprived of the grace of Our Lord?"

I smile. "I'm sure it's very nice where you are," I tell him. "But the thing is -- they're atheists. They don’t believe in an afterlife." I shake his hand, and go back to the card game.