Ruth didn’t know how it was with other men and their happiness, but he knew where his lay—in having the days mapped out for him, just as Brother Matthias used to do for him and all the other boys at St. Mary’s. Otherwise, facing the humdrum unknown of a normal domestic life, Ruth felt jumpy and mildly afraid.

Not here, though, he thought, as the men in the bar began to spread out around him and a pair of large hands clapped his shoulders. He turned his head to see the big fellow who’d been down the end of the bar smiling at him.

“Buy you a drink, Mr. Ruth?”

The man came around to his side and Ruth again caught a whiff of the heroic from him, a sense of scale that couldn’t be contained by anything as small as a room.

“Sure,” Ruth said. “You’re a Red Sox fan, then?”

The man shook his head as he held up three fingers to Dominick, and his smaller friend joined him at the bar, pulling out a stool and dropping into it with the heaviness of a man twice his size.

“Not particularly. I like sport but I’m not beholden to the idea of team allegiance.”

Ruth said, “Then who do you root for when you’re at a game?”

“Root?” the man said as their drinks arrived.

“Cheer for?” Ruth said.

The man flashed a brilliant smile. “Why, individual achievement, Mr. Ruth. The purity of a single play, a single display of adroit athleticism and coordination. The team is wonderful as a concept, I grant you. It suggests the brotherhood of man and unionism of a single goal. But if you look behind the veil, you see how it’s been stolen by corporate interests to sell an ideal that is the antithesis of everything this country claims to represent.”

Ruth had lost him halfway through his spiel, but he raised his whiskey and gave what he hoped passed for a knowing nod and then he took a drink.

The mousy guy leaned into the bar and looked past his friend at Ruth and mimicked Ruth’s nod. He tipped back his own drink. “He doesn’t have a fucking clue what you’re on about, Jack.”

Jack placed his drink on the bar. “I apologize for Gene, Mr. Ruth. He lost his manners in the Village.”

“What village?” Ruth said.

Gene snickered.

Jack gave Ruth a gentle smile. “Greenwich Village, Mr. Ruth.”

“It’s in New York,” Gene said.

“I know where it is, bub,” Ruth said, and he knew that as big as Jack was, he’d be no match for Babe’s strength if he decided to push him aside and tear that mousy hair off his friend’s head.

“Oh,” Gene said, “the Emperor Jones is angry.”

“What’d you say?”

“Gentlemen,” Jack said. “Let’s remember we’re all brothers. Our struggle is a shared one. Mr. Ruth, Babe,” Jack said, “I’m something of a traveler. You name the countries of this world, there’s probably a sticker on my suitcase for every one.”