I stood in the corner of the Yankee Tavern, where the locals sit; there was a spacious pocket of calm there, by the window. The drunks going to the game seem to know not to invade it. I decided I didn't know any better.

I put my beer on the counter and scrutinized the scene outside. An older man with dark hair and a mustache, well dressed, lighting a cigarette. Brylcreemed, Billy Martin-looking guy. Could be a livery driver. Could be the King of the Bronx. Most of the passersby were the game crowd: families, old timers, Manhattanites and Jersey guys. Mixed up with them were the locals trying to go about their business: harried Dominican women with their kids, odd-job guys and b-boys. I watched a tired black man in a lime-green suit, a matching fedora and two-tone shoes in beige and white. He carried a plastic bag of groceries. Everybody's gotta take the groceries home.

An older black man in glasses and a cap turned from the bar to interrupt my reverie.

"Lotta commotion today. Lotta fuss," he said, putting his red wine on the counter.

"It's a big day!" I said. It was the first game at the new stadium, an exhibition with the Cubs.

"Yeah," he said warily. He launched into an ornery rant about the team: Tickets are too expensive; families have been priced out. The new luxury boxes are half-empty because of the recession so now they're gouging regular people to make it back. The Steinbrenners are making one last, big push for a championship so they can sell the team in the next two years, "while the gettin's still good." That's why we have these great new players.

"But we always picked up great players. Clemens, Johnson," I pointed out.

"Those guys were at the end of their careers," he said. "We're picking these guys up at the peak of their careers. Teixeira."

"Sabathia," I added. He was a hard man to disagree with.

He was dressed middle class and seemed well on his feet but he was missing most of his bottom front teeth. His tongue wriggled behind his lone remaining incisor as he spoke and it was difficult to look elsewhere. I'll not soon forget that tooth.

He moved on to the neighborhood, the burrough and the city as a whole. This Metro North station they're putting in, what do you think that's about? The South Bronx is turning into Westchester, that's what.

"New York City is fucked," he said.

We looked out the window for a little while.

"Listen. My wife has an iPhone that has 10 times the computational power of the computer that sent Apollo to the moon."

Ten times seemed to me to be an underestimation but it was enough to serve his point.

"She can get her e-mail anywhere she goes. Do you think Wall Street matters now? You don't need Wall Street. You could be in Peoria, Illinois."

"Business can be done anywhere now," I added helpfully.

"New York City is fucked."

He digressed further: the economy, politics, the environment. He bemoaned the coal and oil lobbies.

"If we don't do something about global warming right now, we're gonna be fucked, and we might still be fucked."

"We won't really be fucked for a while, though, right? Forty, fifty years?"

"How long?"

"Forty years?"

"I'm 72 years old," he said. "Within my lifetime, we're gonna see disasters from this thing. I work in energy. I know. Flooding of coastal regions. Manhattan? Battery Park? Forget about it."

"Wow."

"Manhattan will be totally fucked."

"I'm still relieved that Obama is in office," I offered. "As bad as things are, he seems to be the right person to—"

The man made a faint grimace.

"Obama has a chance. As long as he picks the right people. His Energy Secretary is very good. His Agriculture Secretary is good. But why you would want Larry Summers and Tim Geithner in charge of anything I can't understand. They're the ones who caused these fucking problems in the first place."

I cited Obama's talent for promoting consensus, for accomodating differing points of view. Again, the man's face soured.

"Accomodation isn't good," he said.

I tried to backtrack. "That might be the wrong word. But he listens to all sides. He can compromise—"

"There's always a wrong side. You don't want to listen to the wrong side."

It occurred to me that I'd assumed he was an Obama supporter—not just because he was black, not just because we were in New York City, but because in the past year I'm not quite sure if I've so much as been in the presence of a single person who did not support Obama.

"Listen, I'm a patriot. I love my country. I think we should bring back mandatory service."

"Military service or some kind of national service?" I asked.

He winced. "Any kind of service would be OK, I guess," he allowed. "I graduated high school in 1955 and then I went into the Army. The Army's the only place in the world that teaches you to get along with people who are not like you. When you're in the Army, no matter who you are, you only want one thing. Do you know what that is?"

"What's that?"

"To go home. All you want to do is go home. And the people you're with are the only people who can help you do that, and you've gotta help them too. If your commanding officer tells you to carry this and that to somewhere by tomorrow morning, you're not going to be the asshole who doesn't do it. If you don't do it, everyone is fucked. You have to find a way to work with people to get it done."

We were interrupted as one of the regulars, an older black woman, creaked off her barstool to say her goodbyes. I stood deferentially apart, giving ample berth to her ceremonious exit. After she was gone I approached again, nonchalantly, not sure if the conversation would resume. The man acknowledged me with a nod.

"Now McCain, the only reason I didn't vote for him was nuclear power. He wants to build all these nuclear power plants. Where you gonna put the waste? Nuclear power is like asking people to store their garbage in their homes. We'd all be fucked."

It struck me that he felt more kinship with McCain as a military man than with Obama as a black man.

"The other thing about McCain," he added, "is that he was tortured for six years. You can't have an experience like that without your brain being addled."

Finally, he put his empty glass up on the bar and gave hugs and handshakes to those remaining in his circle. He shook my hand: Great talking to you. Great talking to you, too. He walked out the door and past the cops and smokers and crossed 161st Street and went on down Gerard Avenue, past the stadium.

The man behind me at Yankee Stadium was recounting the number of times he'd been to jail, and where. Texas, Utah, Connecticut. Germany.

"Germany?" said his friend. "What the hell were you doing in Germany?"

"Military?" asked his other friend.

"I was in the military."

"Right, right, military," said the friend.

"Military," he said. "I spent five nights in jail with two stab wounds. My ex-wife stabbed me and I was on the floor and I told her when I get up off this floor I'm gonna kill you, and the neighbors heard me and that was that. Didn't see no doctor for five days."

"That must have been... How'd you... You must have..." said one friend.

"It sucked," he said.

Dinner in the Bronx

Welcome to Yankee Stadium. An establishment founded a hundred years or so ago by Mr. George Ruth. Legendary gastronome. Peerless bon vivant.

May I interest you in some appetizers this evening? We're featuring a firm corn tortilla, presented in artful shards and accompanied by a distinctive, lukewarm sauce. It is a cheese sauce, to be frank. But it is a subtle sauce, evocative of myriad things, not least the shifting savors of the kitchen, shall we say. I mean, we like to say. It's our chef's first foray into Mexican-American fusion cuisine and I happen to be of the opinion that mere words can't describe it.

Yes, it's a favorite.

Heading East! If you're in the mood for something simpler though no less substantial, allow me to recommend a savory pastry of Austrian origin. We take a dense dough. We roll it and form it into a whimsical knot. Then I think we boil it or something, but anyway, it's great. Hmm? Oh, cold. It's served cold. Like revenge.

Fucking Sox.

What?

It's seasoned with a generous coating of rock salt, if you think that might float yer boat.

Many aficionados favor a mustard topping. If you are so inclined, might I recommend the Gulden's? Spicy brown? Not the French's, for Christ's Jesus sake. We're in New York. Deli style, baby.

Perhaps you're in the mood for something a little lighter, for the table? In that case let me draw your attention to a perennial classic of the carte. Peanuts, in a word. That's right. Peanuts in the shell from our fine, fine nut purveyor, Bazzini Nuts of Downtown Manhattan, founded in eighteen-God-knows-what. They are dusted with a fine and silty layer of salt. You heard me right.

At this juncture in time I feel it is incumbent upon me to signal to you that these peanuts may have been processed and packaged in a facility that processes and packages peanuts. Just to say. This is the allergy era, after all. I do not want to have to stick no one with no goddamn EpiPen, motherfucker. Please. Thank you. Alright.

And for the main course! I need not tell you that the specialty of the house is the frankfurter sausage. Your choices are: Hebrew National, Empire Kosher, Glatt Kosher, Imperial Hebrew, Glatt National, National Imperial, Empire Glatt, Glatt Glatt, Kosher Emperor, Kosher Hebrew, Glatt Emperor, Empire Nation – wait, that's not one, sorry – Hebrew Empire, Kosher Nation, Grand Imperial Wizard and Nathan's.

Again, please – the Gulden's.

Sauer-? Sorry, no. Sorry, I must insist. No. We don't – shh! – we don't have. No. In fact – I'm sorry – we don't ever, we don't breathe that word here. Ever. Rules of the house.

We do seek to honor the immigrants who have made this country great. First off, the Italians. Let me tell you, they do a thing with a flat piece of dough and a little bit of red sauce and some cheese. It's of an unmatched succulence. We entertained bids from scores of thousands of contractors and decided – well, "decided" might not quite be the word – it was prevailed upon us to select the fine family of Famiglia family restaurants to present to our diners a monumental accomplishment of tri-state area ethnic culture: the slice. I beg your pardon? No, that's not a typo. Thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents.

Let's not forget the Chinese and their foods that are saturated in glory. You know right away when you order something from our Wok 'n' Roll menu that you're going to get something old and something new. Something clean and something dirty. I think they call it "yang" and "yin." It's like, opposites attract. Salt and sugar. Animal and vegetable. Mineral, artificial. And when I say they, I mean them. You know. The Chinese. The lo mein in that steam tray is the product of a civilization that's thousands of years old. Gives me the chills, frankly.

Shall we discuss some beer pairings? Wonderful! The discriminating connoisseur will be delighted to see that we have a selection of beers from – are you ready for this? – around the world! You heard me correctly. Let's see we, they, our selection includes choices from... uh... England. That's one. Germany, Holland... Belgium, I think. And... Mexico. That's correct. And there's one from one of those fucking ex-commie countries too, like maybe Poland or France. And Australia too, and I think China or Japan. One or the other. That's around the world, right?

If you're in a patriotic mood we are offering a slop bucket brimming with Miller Lite and lidded in tin foil.

I have absolutely no fucking idea.

May I outline the desserts? The first one's more of a palate cleanser – enjoy it between courses! Soft, frozen, lemonade. Never did Bacchus feast on finer ambrosia. It's like someone took a delightfully refreshing summer drink and said, "It should be thicker." Genius works in mysterious ways.

Speaking of genius, let me draw your attention to what is perhaps the pièce de résistance of our entire menu. It is – oh boy, what to say, what to say. It represents a stupendous technological achievement and you can see that I'm quite breathless just trying to describe it.

Ladies and gentlemen, let Adria play with his foam – we have the future of ice cream. That's correct. Small, hyperfrozen pellets, at first glance fit for guinea pigs or hamsters. But no. No, no, no, no, no! They're for people. Yes. The ice cream of the future for the people of the present – I ask you, is there no bass-drum-beating tail to the parade of wonders that grace our age? Consider yourselves the luckiest diners in the world.

And plus you get it in a little helmet.

We stop at nothing. Nothing!

And, oh yeah – enjoy the game.

May 9, 2007 at Yankee Stadium

I trained a wary eye upon the batter's box. We were sitting a couple dozen rows back, behind first base, in those good, good Union seats. I was juggling peanuts and their shells but keeping an eye out for dear life. Watch out, foul balls. Robinson Cano was up.

Sure enough he cracked one our way, sweetly struck, if early. It arced up to fifteen feet or so then curved sinisterly to the right, so that it appeared at first to be missing us to one side, then not at all, and then – it seemed to glance off someone's shoulder, perhaps, to our left, and then it flew toward us with a terrible, and I mean, velocity. It missed our heads by five feet or so and smacked into the railing behind our row with an awful, staccato ding. Ding. It.

It.

And then it rolled upon the ground amidst the peanut shells for the fat old man across the aisle to fetch.

At Yankee Stadium tonight the game progressed briskly, Randy Johnson purposeful on the mound with stunned fielders all about him reaching for balls like groggy, minute-late commuters waving at departing trains. It was douchebag night at the Stadium, PC pointed out. There was a murderer's row to the right of us, dickhead Yankee fans who hooted and hollered at a young guy in a Red Sox championship shirt, Take that off you faggot, fuck you, you pussy, you fucking pussy, you faggot, what are you doing here, and when he tried to reply it was shut the fuck up. Later in the game the kid must have dropped a beer or something – I can't imagine it was intentional but you never know – and some fat old prick took the opportunity to berate him. Don't be a wise guy, don't you mouth off. I'll beat your fucking ass. You've got some fucking nerve. And the kid did a weird thing. He removed his shirt and handed it to the old guy, made an elaborate show of removing it after shrugging and indicating his chest with both sets of fingertips in that gesture meaning What'd I do? And the old guy threw it back like he knew it was coming, right away and hard in his face. We all watched this with faint smiles, one eye on it and another on the game.

I was sick the day after the Yankees lost, trembling and uneasy at work, hung over and food poisoned or just plain poisoned. Haunted by the thought of the Stadium's dank, infernal halls, the floor and walls glowing that medicinal green from neon and fluorescence. So I proceeded gingerly through the day, sipping little spoonfuls of soup, quiet and resolute with regard to work and shuffling to the toilet to shit ropes of black, acid shit. 

Tonight we watched the Ron Jeremy documentary on TV with little interest, which seemed to mirror Jeremy's own view of himself and of his life. What an odd figure – vaguely pathetic in his short, fat unsexiness and his naive conviction he'd be a real actor someday yet also weirdly neutral, disengaged and adolescent; he's got the blank stare and drowsy speech of an onanistic boy returning to the world from his exertions.

A jackoff Yankee fan was mouthing off to a Red Sox fan at Game 1, taunting from four rows above, doing the gesture of the fingers off the chin. The Red Sox fan scoffed and tried to ignore but then things were said. A flurry of peanut shells. Shower of foamy specks of beer. The Red Sox fan clambered over of his seat in a bullish burst, catching his shoe on the armrest and falling awkwardly astraddle, his tubesocked foot dangling over the chairback. A picture of frustration and fury. The Yankee fan leaned in, emboldened by his rival's prone condition. The Red Sox fan made a  last valiant effort to rise and lunge but by then he was being held back, somewhat protectively, by a more sensible Yankee fan who kept the first one at bay by clutching his cap and pointing to the NY and nodding, see, see?