Benjamins, in mid-town Manhattan, across the street from Central Park, catered to an upscale, professional crowd. Decorated like a men's club with lots of brass, dark mahogany and plenty of pictures of local New York athletes, the bar wasn't as touristy as Mickey Mantle's down the street and that's just the way Damon liked it. Although a few months ago the New York Times rated Benjamin's the top authentic sports bar in Manhattan. For the next three weeks, a regular couldn't get a seat in the place; that is until ESPN opened up its ultra-modern Silver Slugger a block away with twenty-five 70-inch plasma screens and smaller televisions built right into the tables.

Like all things New York, the retro faze had come and gone in the blink of an eye with no one remembering it had ever happened in the first place. This city was about now, not tomorrow, and definitely not yesterday.

"Damon, how ya doin'?" shouted the bartender over the noise of the Yankees game that played on the television over the bar.

"I've had better days," replied Damon as he tried to slip the bartender some cash while Karik watched curiously.

The bartender kept his hand tightly closed, leaned over the bar and spoke directly in Damon's ear. "Are you kidding me?" he said, "I can't show a Sox game while the Yankees are on. Benji's right there."

The bartender moved his head to the left. "Are you trying to get me fired?"

Damon's father had been a Red Sox fan ever since his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. When he was younger, Damon couldn't get through one whole day without his father talking about his new love, one that stuck with Damon as well.

Karik placed his hand on his friend's shoulder. "I'm sorry about the game," Karik said to him. "I suppose you'll just have to talk with me now."

The bartender snickered. "Ya, Damon. Go on and talk to your 'friend'. Who knows, you might even get lucky." A regular customer that Damon knew only from the bar nearly spit out his beer from laughing so hard.

"Shut up," Damon snapped back at the bartender. "And you, too," he said to the guy with the beer.

"He's just kidding," Damon said to Karik. "Don't worry. I'm straight."

"It doesn't make a difference," replied Karik, very seriously.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Damon.

"Your sexual orientation makes no difference to me. Nice people are nice people no matter who they share their bed with."

"Let's get one thing clear," began Damon as more of the patrons began listening to their conversation, and laughing, "I like chicks--beautiful chicks, ugly chicks, thin chicks, fat chicks. Anyway, they're made; I like 'em all."

"I never doubted you for a moment," replied Karik.

The two of them sat at a booth. Damon kept his eyes on the television, watching the Yankees game.

You are watching Yankees baseball on ESPN SPORTS LIVE, with no talk. This portion of Yankees baseball is brought to you by Boddington's Pub Ale, Great bods drink Bods, and Walt Disney World's Arabian Adventure. Join Mickey and his pals at their newest theme park in Cairo, Egypt.

"I love this sports channel," Damon commented to Karik. "No announcers, just the pure sounds of the ballpark."

~ ~ ~

Karik didn't watch the game. Even participating in sports was of no real value to him. It invariably led to animosity between people who otherwise may have been friends. The only exception, Karik found, was fighting. To improve your abilities you needed to compete against someone who was also intent on winning; but that was for survival, not bragging rights, so it couldn't be described as a sport at all, rather he called it a discipline.

Instead, Karik found himself completely engrossed by the atmosphere of the bar. This was a new experience for him, being able to observe up close what he had previously only envisioned in his mind. Reality was far better.

The smell of alcohol blended strangely with the odours of excessive perfume and aftershave, one being sweet and inviting while the other was a more pungent odour that hurt the sensitivities of the olfactory as it burned its way to the receptors in the brain. The two of them together seemed to form a new smell that brought out the ritualistic nature of the occasion.

Idle chatter about nothing invariably turned to overtures of flirtation, an attempt to get some satisfaction from the attention of one just as needy. These people were decompressing from a hard day's work.

Of course, they had to decompress, surmised Karik. Who wouldn't need a drink to numb their senses if they had just spent the best part of their waking day being paid to amass wealth for somebody else? There are so many better ways to expend one's precious energy.

Karik focused his eyes on the people within his view. At the bar, two men in business suits drank scotch and watched the ball game, their mood controlled by the never-ending changes in the event. "Throw a goddamn strike!" ..."It's not his fault", the other one replied, "he's really a lefty but hasn't figured it out yet." This was fun, Karik thought, enjoying every moment even though he knew full well that his fun would soon have to end.

At a table nearby he spotted a couple of men in their early thirties seemingly talking about their sexy waitress. They were well-meaning, he decided, only admiring her sensual shape with no ill intentions. In reality, they were both too insecure to make any overtures towards her.

Karik then turned his attention towards a well-dressed man in his forties. He had a furrowed face and brown hair, balding at the top and wore a suit that said he wasn't wealthy but wanted you to believe he was. He leaned against the bar to try and start a conversation with a striking brunette. His glances were sexual as he looked her up and down imagining what it would be like to have her in bed.

Karik felt a tad sorry for him realizing that it was loneliness that caused him to act in such a sleazy way. This man had been rejected so many times that it became second nature for him to behave in a manner that was sure to be unappealing. If he was rejected it would be due to his approach and not him personally, but if a woman returned his flirtations in kind then he knew that he would be in for a wild evening.

With this brunette, however, he had a specific plan. Next to the brunette was her friend who was rather ordinary in appearance. Since the brunette seemed to be completely disinterested in the man's overtures he turned his attention toward her friend who seemed to enjoy it.

The strategy was obvious. The man wanted the brunette but when he realized that her cold demeanor meant disinterest he gave the attention to her friend hoping the brunette would see him as a nice guy.

The brunette noticed Karik watching and saw the look of compassion in his eyes. She shrugged her shoulders at Karik as if to say, I know what's happening here, but what can I do about it? I don't want to hurt my friend so I guess I'm just stuck. Karik shrugged his shoulders back at her. He was always impressed by how body language could say far more than speaking ever could.

When he was a young child he quickly figured out that honesty could rarely be found in a person's words. Spoken words were a game played to advance one's ambitions. Body language however was usually truthful but whenever there was a doubt the eyes were the final authority. Eyes could never lie. Words, on the other hand, were meant for the written page, an art form that when done at its highest level was a tremendous vehicle that could reach the deepest parts of the reader's soul. That is why he always held writers in such high esteem.

~ ~ ~

"You know," Karik said, interrupting Damon as he watched the game, "instead of editing other people's stories for a living you should be writing your own. You have great ideas locked up in your head just waiting to get onto the paper. You could then edit other people's work as a hobby that you enjoy instead of as a living that you disdain. I wish I had your talent."

Damon was visibly surprised. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" asked Karik.

"How do you know about me?" Damon was shocked that this man, whose name he didn't know until barely an hour ago, knew such personal details about his life.

"You're an editor at Rogers & Stanley, the fastest-growing book publisher in the country," Karik told him. "You always wanted to write your own stories but never felt confident enough to approach your boss about any of your ideas. You even wrote a manuscript a few years back that you keep in your night table drawer."

"I never told you what I did for a living, or did I?" Damon was almost certain he hadn't mentioned any of that to Karik. There must be a whole lot of stuff I don't remember about today.

"When someone thinks that they are about to die an unfulfilled life, their regrets come to the forefront of their mind," responded Karik.

Damon closed his eyes lost in the memory of his most treasured childhood moment. Forty-Eight Hours In Heaven was a book about a young man and his first love, baseball. It was the story of Damon's first trip to Fenway Park where he saw the Red Sox play the Yankees. His father had taken him to Boston for the entire weekend. That was the best weekend of my life. When Damon closed his eyes, even in the present day, his mouth would salivate as he remembered those steak tip sandwiches that the vendors served outside the ballpark. Those were the days.

"I suppose that next you're going to tell me that everything happens for a reason," said Damon, "that my near-death experience happened as sort of a kick in the ass to get me to show the story to my boss."

"I don't have to," replied Karik. "You just did it for me."

"You're serious," replied Damon. "You should speak to my buddy Elvis. He tells me that same garbage every all the time, everything happens for a reason; when a leaf lands on one side instead of another it's for a reason, all part of some cosmic plan."

"He's right you know."

"Of all the guys out there that could have saved my life I had to find one that was a preacher." Damon sighed.

"It's you that has done most of the talking," replied Karik. "I only asked you a question."

Damon looked back up at the ballgame as he realized that Karik was right. Someway, somehow, Karik had led him to come to the conclusions he wanted without saying a damn thing. He's playing with my fucking mind!

"You like that sport, don't you?" asked Karik. "People love sports because it allows their mind to focus on something less important than their own life. Even so, I always found it strange how people can care so much about the outcome of a game when those players and team owners care so little about their fans. Do you think that any of them lose a moment of sleep over whether or not you succeed in your life? Yet when the home team loses, every sports fan in the city gets a little bit depressed. It's as if a person's self-worth is determined by how a group of strangers perform on a sports field. Like I said, it's strange. There are so many more important things to be concerned about."

"Baseball is not just a sport. It's a reflection of life itself," Damon replied. "You need skill and luck to get ahead in this world. Look, no matter how talented you are you can still stink up the joint. On the other hand, even a team's worst player can become a star for a day. Just ask Bucky Dent. Now there was the luckiest son-of-a-bitch that ever was."

"Lucky?" Karik asked. "How is that?"

"Bucky Dent was a relatively unknown shortstop with the New York Yankees back in 1978. He hit a home run in Boston on the last game of the season that cost my Red Sox the division title. The guy went from being an unknown name to a star with one swing of the bat."

"I thought that the definition of luck was when preparation met opportunity," Karik said. "At least that's what the ancient Chinese believed. If Mr. Dent was lucky, it was probably because he had spent years mastering his craft for just such an opportunity."

"It's all bullshit," answered Damon.

"In my experience," continued Karik, "life gives you what your inner mind deserves. Your mind controls your destiny. A pure mind with pure thoughts can accomplish nearly anything by joining you with your creator."

"That's a little too deep for me today. I'm just glad to be alive so please, I beg you, just let me relax and watch the ballgame. I understand that they don't give a rat's ass about me and frankly, that's how I like it. I wouldn't want those guys calling up some talk radio show complaining about my performance, and I don't care what the Chinese believe, Bucky Dent was lucky!"

In reality, Damon felt there was something more to life but didn't want to get into it with Karik, especially not today. He believed in God but never quite understood how God fit into the greater scheme of things. Was he an active God that watched over the daily activities of people or was he simply someone that made his creation and then took off to begin his next project on the other end of the universe?

However, meeting Karik was beginning to make him question his prior beliefs. Is there some sort of purpose and order to the world? This man had saved his life and was now trying to convince him to live his dream and become a writer. His mother, a devout Christian, would probably tell him that Karik was an angel sent to him by God. Damon shook his head from side to side in an attempt to dislodge those crazy ideas from his head.

"Don't worry about it," Karik interrupted his thoughts. "You'll understand everything soon enough."

"And I just want to take your drink order," a soft sweet voice broke into their conversation.