Yuri sat on an empty stool, hunched over the bar, and pulled in his elbows. He kept his eyes straight ahead. As soon as he ordered his drink, his accent caused a stir. A number of the youths with supercilious expressions closed around him. Just when Yuri feared trouble was about to occur, the punks parted and a clean-cut man in his late thirties or early forties appeared whom the youths seemed to respect.

The newcomer was dirty blond, tall, and lean. His hair was short but his head was not shaved. The style was more like a military man’s. He, too, was wearing a T-shirt, but it was clean, had short sleeves, and looked ironed. There was a small image of a red fireman’s hat high on the left side of the shirt. Below that it said Engine Company #7. In sharp contrast to the skinheads, he appeared to have only the one tattoo. It was a small American flag on his right upper arm.

“I don’t know whether you’re brave or stupid for coming in here uninvited, friend,” the blond-haired man said. “This is a private club.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuri mumbled. He started to get up. The blond man put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in his seat.

“You sound Russian,” the man said.

“I am,” Yuri admitted.

“Are you Jewish?”

“No!” Yuri blurted. “Not at all.” The question surprised him.

“You live over in Brighton Beach?”

“That’s right,” Yuri said nervously. He didn’t know where the conversation was going.

“I thought all you Russians over there were Jewish.”

“Not me,” Yuri said. The man knew what he was talking about. The majority of the Russian émigrés in Brighton Beach were Jewish. It was one of the reasons Yuri had so few friends. There were all sorts of Jewish organizations that welcomed their fellow religious refugees. The Jews had been the only people allowed out of Russia during the Communist regime, so there was already a sizable community there by the time of the fall of the USSR. Because of his lack of religious affiliation, Yuri had been ignored.

“Do I detect a negative attitude about the Jewish persuasion?” the blond man asked.

Yuri’s eyes darted around at some of the slogans adorning the fronts of many of the skinheads’T-shirts. He saw things like The Holocaust Is A Zionist Myth and Down With The Zionist Occupied U.S. Government. Accordingly, Yuri wisely deemed it opportune to confess his current anti-Semitic bias.

Yuri had never thought much about Jews one way or the other until the most recent Russian presidential election. It was then that he’d been acculturated by neo-fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s and neo-Communist Gennedy Zyuganov’s rhetoric. Because of Yuri’s toska and his wounded nationalistic pride, he’d been an easy target for both demagogues’hackneyed scapegoat theories.

“You know, I think we’ve misjudged you, friend,” the blond man said in response to Yuri’s racist admission. The blond man patted Yuri on his back. “Not only are you welcome to drink here, you can have another one on me.”