I've gotta tell ya, when the End came it was really quick, too speedy for me to catch, much less to stop. And when the curtain tumbled down on my life, it shot up again on the afterlife so fast it left me gasping. The air smelled a little off, the damp sour tang of street gutters after they soak up the stink of a city. And even though the gauzy blue light twisted and curled in the late night fog, I knew exactly where I was. Well, if not the precise street address, at least I knew the name of the country.

Let me start at the beginning, with my death. Sunday morning it was. Our regular foursome was approaching number 8 green at Willow Oaks. Actually I had just sliced a seven-iron and was buried in a steep greenside bunker, facing a downhill lie. Short-sided and an extra slick green breaking downhill left to right. An impossible shot.

I'm starting to climb into the bunker and my dad's voice comes to me, as it always does in these kinds of situations. He said, "Barry, son, there's a way to hit this shot it goes right in the jar. Take your time, and find that way." I've taken comfort in that kind of optimism over the years, and the truth of what he said has helped me out in a lot of other situations. You know, there's a way to do this impossible thing so that it gets done.

So, brimming with confidence that I can not only jab this pill out of the dirt but maybe also get it close enough to save par, I start into my regular pre-shot bunker routine. This old song from Simon and Garfunkel woozes its way up and I'm hearing the lyric, 'Time it was, and what a time it was: a time of innocence, a time of confidences'. La-la-la- it went on, and when it gets to, 'preserve your memories, they're all that's left you', that's when I took my swing, and that's when this gnarly little aneurysm skulking deep in the cool caves of my brain decides to explode. Little bugger cracks open like a ripe red boil and spurts a wad of hot ruby goo all over my unsuspecting cerebellum. There was a flashing instant of Fourth-of-July fireworks, and before I could topple over face down in the sand, I'm popping out onto the street in The Bottoms. The whole thing was pretty sudden, not at all like they tell you in books, or you see on TV. There was no long tunnel, no glowing lights, no hi-speed instant replay of my life. Just Boom, and that was that.

I remember a sharp little explosion, and there I was on a city street that looked like something out of a '30s gangster movie. The streets of gold didn't look so much like gold, but more like brass, or that kind of cheap, shiny stuff they put on little decorative pots and gift planters at Kmart. It felt like a lower-end neighborhood or maybe a warehouse district, felt as though during the day these streets would be busy and bustling with... people. Do they (or we) call them people here? Are we angels? Or are we just dead? Or are we somehow alive in a new, unforeseeable, and therefore unforeseen, way?

All I knew when I burst out onto the street was that I didn't want to be there at all, and my first move was to turn around and look for a shimmering hole in the wall, or some shiny wavering portal, you know, where maybe I could jump back in and scurry down the tunnel and head straight on home. I was a whole lot disappointed when there wasn't any wide-open door, no mysterious portal, no channel of any kind. The gateway to my now former world was shut behind me, and I was alone.

That's another thing that bristled: there was nobody there to greet me. Looking back on it now, it's not that I expected a happy multitude of smiling faces, folks dressed in, you know, togas and all cheering and backslapping like I'd just scored the winning touchdown. What got to me is that there wasn't anybody at all, and I was feeling a little lost and a whole lot forgotten, as though I was the one left to clean up the party mess after the crowds have all gone home.

So I sat down on the damp curb feeling disenchanted with the entire prospect. Already missing like crazy my one and only life. And furthermore feeling less than thrilled about not being met by anybody, but just left there alone, at night, my soggy butt parked on the gold-colored bricks.

Anyway, after a long time (Hours? Days? Time is really hard to get here) I caught my mental balance and scoped the streets up and down, checking out my bearings, looking for a place to grab a bite. Hunger was the last thing I expected, but there it was.

I gave my body a once over and found myself intact, so to speak. Six-one, good shape, long arms and legs all worked fine. I checked my hair and head, and while there wasn't any halo - no big surprise there - I did hear music playing down the block. Not a hundred feet away was this blue neon bar sign flashing "Angelo's." OK, so there's an ironic sense of humor at play here, and that can only be a good thing, right? The music got louder as I strode toward the sign, and when I pulled open the frosted glass door and stepped inside, it felt like a neighborhood tavern, a working class sort of joint, round wood tables and a bar where they had stools with no backs. The place was rustic and faded and a little frayed around the edges. Through the blue haze of heavy smoke, I recognized some people, although I'd never met any of them, you know, Before.

Sitting together at a large round table in the middle of the room were Socrates, John Wayne, Leonardo da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, the Archangel Uriel, and St. James of the Infirmary Blues fame. How did I know who they were? Beats me. This place is loaded with strangeness. It comes with the territory. Littered on their table were the scattered ruins of three pepperoni pizzas, a couple of Caesar salads in white plastic bowls, and three round tin ashtrays: one for St. James, Pres. Lincoln, and surprisingly, one for Socrates. The music bubbling out of a jukebox sounded like Stevie Ray Vaughn's blues-bar arrangements of hymn tunes, but I couldn't be certain. In another room in the back were some pool tables and the sounds of people laughing. Behind the bar a red neon sign proclaimed, "Paradise Beer." I stood in the doorway, and the look on my face must have made them all feel sorry for me. I felt like the last kid standing in a round of musical chairs.

When John Wayne pushed his chair back with a loud scraping noise, stood up, and strode to where I stood stiff as a tombstone, I knew that something far outside of my limited experience was about to happen. He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked as though he was about to kiss me on both cheeks like the Russians do. But instead, he grinned all over himself and called out to his table, "Look, you guys! Barry's here!" And then he said as he ushered me toward a vacant chair beside his, "Welcome to heaven, son. Buy you a brew?"

I was speechless, of course, but when in Rome...so I took a quick take around and asked, "Any chance I could get a Hebrew National Polish dog with just cheap yellow mustard and some crispy curly fries?" That I would have the presence of mind to ask for such a thing surprised me, but again, it felt right. Later, after a little settling-in time, I figured that the easy parts of getting used to being in heaven were designed to be, well, easy. There were harder things along the way.

An attractive female server appeared, also newly arrived, assigned to this quasi-off-limits watering hole for the hopelessly holy. She stood jutting her hip out, leaning a little to one side, chomping a wad of gum and looking over the unlikely crowd at the table. She was a true angel, but they had her dressed up like a cross between one of those Victoria's Secret angels and a Hooter's Girl. She sure was cute. Some things are welcome no matter where you are.

"Bring this cowboy one a them great big weenies, willya, sweetie? And a big bunch of crispy curly fries. Make sure they're well done, OK? And lotsa ketchup. And another pitcher of Paradise for the table." The Duke held my chair as I sat down.

"Have a good trip?" This from St. James who, according to everybody but the Catholics, was the brother of Jesus. James had an alarmingly crooked face, curved like an eggplant, oblong with circular features. I got from the way he cocked his head that he had a most unusual and twisted sense of humor, so I decided this was as good a time as any to trot out onto the field and take a swing at this first pitch. "It was OK, I guess. Where I'm from in Florida they say that if you're going to hell, you've got to change planes in Atlanta. Since I didn't see Peachtree Street, I suppose you could say I had an uneventful flight."

They all laughed and made me feel as though I had just dropped in at the 19^th hole. All except Leonardo da Vinci who sat back in his chair with his hands steepled in front of his ancient face, unsmiling.

"Don't worry, kid. This will all make sense soon enough." Abraham Lincoln spoke to me with a kindness that was sweet, like syrup, but genuine and deep. He took a short puff on a Honduran Double Corona and turned the cigar to admire its ash. "Some things you get used to pretty quickly."

John Wayne put his arm across my shoulder. "Look, pilgrim, you just got here. Where you are, this is the section of heaven that's closest to the old world. It looks and feels a lot like where you just came from."

Suddenly my curiosity cried out for satisfaction. "Am I dead?"

This odd assortment of characters hesitated for just a dramatic second, glanced at one another, then burst into good-hearted laughter.

"Cold as a mackerel."

"Ten-four, good buddy. You're over and out."

"Hard rocked and cold cocked."

"Ticket punched and boarded."

"You're a solid goner."

Then they all clinked their frosty mugs in a happy toast. Socrates took a long draw from his Olivia Grand Maduro Churchill and blew a contented series of lazy concentric smoke rings over the table. They formed a perfect target, and each ring rotated until a flawless spherical globe of smoke hung like a full moon above the wreckage of dinner. Socrates closed one eye, like a threatening pirate, and said to me, "Born 2000 years too early. Care for a smoke?"

I shook my head in disbelief. This was all a little much. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir hit the jukebox with an acapella arrangement of Heaven's Just a Sin Away that sounded like Bach. "So what's the deal here?" I asked, looking for clues that might be lurking on each smiling face. I wasn't sure about what questions to ask, and was dying, so to speak, to know what I needed to know that they weren't telling me. But all I could manage was, "Where are we, and, more to the point, what are you guys doing here?"

Socrates leaned forward and took a deep breath. He looked just like I would have expected: a snowy head of white hair with a crown of some kind of green leaves, a well-trimmed white beard, and flowing linen toga. His wide-open face was etched with sharp wrinkles and carved with fine furrows of long lines, but it was as kind and as deep as all the ages. He looked like God. "Where are we? We are in heaven. At least, to use an image you can understand, we are in Greater Paradise, something like Chicagoland, only a lot bigger and a lot more...complicated. Like The Duke said, this part of the City is closest to our old world, almost right next door. Just a step away, really."

My voice quavered, real resentment boiling up for the first time. "I can't be dead! No way I'm dead. Hey, I've got things I need to do. And besides, this isn't anything like I expected."

Uriel the Archangel, leaning back in his chair, his perfectly shined and spiked baseball cleats resting easily on the edge of the table, was an imposing figure, fully eight feet tall and dressed in a scarlet baseball uniform. He was so out of place I had to look twice to get him all in. His hooded eyes were lively and alert, missing nothing, calculating every word, every move, and every nuance around him. He plopped his spikes onto the floor, sat forward with his elbows on the table, and looked me dead in the eye. His voice sounded like gravel being poured from a bucket.

"Don't mean to be cold, sonny. But get used to the idea. Dead you are, and dead you'll stay. You may not like it, but there's nothing you can do about it." Then he pushed his long body back, balanced himself on the chair, and crossed his strong arms over his chest.

When St. James spoke again his voice was high-pitched and thin with almost a sing-song quality. "Barry, you were thinking maybe this place would be all about golden harps, fluffy white clouds, and little pink cherubs with short stubby wings, prissy little drums, and white shining robes? And you are wondering, maybe, if there's a way you can go back for a little while to, you know, tidy things up?"

I was not only angry about being here, about having my predictable life, such as it was, so rudely, so permanently interrupted; but now these guys were telling me that I had no chance of getting back to where I was. "Yeah. No. I don't know. Maybe something like that. But this is like New Jersey or maybe the East Village. So how about it: any way I can go back for a while? If it's all the same to you, I've got a life, and I really don't want to be here right now."

Now Leonardo spoke for the first time. His voice was clear and deep; full and rounded. Through the thicket of his long, white beard it poured like honey. "You need to get your thinking straight on this, Barry. First, no, you don't have a life anymore. Second, nobody would believe it if they knew exactly how this place is. It's one of the rules about being here. You can't go back and tell them how things really are."

"OK, fine. Cross my heart and hope to die, I double-dog promise not to tell a soul. Like you said, who would believe this? I really want to go back. I don't want to be dead, and no offense, I don't want to be in heaven."

"Sorry, Barry. We can't take that chance yet." President Lincoln's compassion was almost a physical presence.

"OK," I said, letting my initial anger fade for a moment and hearing my father's voice saying, "No problem, Barry, you can do this."

I gathered myself, trying for a moment to forget who these guys were, sitting at my table. "I'm enough of a realist to know that getting used to being dead is the first thing. You guys are nice and kind and all, but I still don't want to be here. I've got people depending on me. I've got places to go, things to do, people to see. Man, I've got the back nine to play!"

Socrates laughed as he held up his mug in a toast, "Not any more you don't! And no rain checks either! To Barry!" And they all clinked their glasses again.

Leonardo continued, "Third, it's more than a little strange when you first arrive. We were all just as surprised as you are. None of this fits with what you've been taught to expect. However, if you suddenly showed up and appeared in the middle of what we call Downtown, where the light and majesty and glory of God radiates and permeates everything, you would never survive it. It would be like a newborn baby arriving in mid-town Manhattan. You've got to learn to crawl, then walk, then run before you can fly. So we start everybody off down here."

A more or less somber mood settled over the table while the music twanging from the jukebox switched to John Denver singing Almost Heaven, West Virginia. I was surprised and laughed out loud when Uriel fumbled in his large leather bag and pulled out what was unmistakably a baseball. He held it up to the light like it was the Hope Diamond, turning it, studying the faded red v's of its zippered stitches, and admiring its one scarred flaw.

St. James buried his face in his hands and shook his head.

The Duke whispered to me, "Sit tight. You're gonna love this."

Groans flowed around the table like The Wave.

Uriel addressed the table like a college professor. "The baseball, perfect in its spherical purity, the game sublimely subtle in its conception. All the numbers that work together to run the creation are there. The baseball has 108 stitches, the same number of beads on a standard Rosary."

"And it's double bogey," I blurted out.

"Yes. Golf," intoned Uriel. "If ever there was a game made precisely to enlarge the spirit, reveal one's character, and physically challenge the player, it is golf. Barry, you'll get your golf lesson later. But now you must notice carefully. This particular ball is Babe Ruth's first homer. September 5, 1914. The Babe's pitching in Rhode Island for the Providence Grays. Ends up he throws a one hitter. But in the bottom of the fourth with runners at the corners, he steps to the plate, taps it twice, and facing 0 and 2 he zings this smoking stinger over the left field fence. His first and only minor league homer. You gotta love this guy. And I really dislike tenors."

With this Uriel stood up, and turned his back to the jukebox. He rubbed the ball, getting a feel for its leathery smoothness. He's a lefty. Now he faces the juke, stares it down, his glowing and eerily red eyes icily alert and blazing with focus, the ball behind his back, curling catlike in the palm of his hand. A final loosening stretch, a check of the corners, and then in a motion more liquid than muscular, he throws a perfectly motionless knuckleball right through the face of the music machine. The glass crashed, the music shattered, and John Denver scurried off down some hillbilly country road. He was immediately replaced by Johnny Cash doing a poignant cover of Dylan's immortal Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The place was silent for a second or two, then there was some friendly applause. Uriel took a broad, sweeping bow, and sat back down.

"Tell me," I said when they had settled down, "What are you guys doing here? You people are bona fide bigshots. Why are you here, in this bar? And what's with a bar in heaven anyway?"

"Again, Barry, try to think just a little differently." Leonardo's piercing blue eyes were the color of old ice. "Contrary to what most people think, heaven has within it the very best of our old world. Whatever made your heart sing back there is available to you here. Everything from pool to piano. In the back room, the pool tables are perfectly level, the bumpers absolutely alive. You want to play the piano? Never played before? Doesn't matter. There's one over in the corner. Walk over, sit right down, and play. You like to cook? The kitchens are spotless, completely outfitted with gas or electric, or even wood if you like. The fruits and vegetables are always at the perfect point of ripeness. You can have all the chocolate you want. You can sing in fabulous choirs, tend perfectly groomed gardens, sail a boat across lakes the color of blue diamonds. Really, anything you want. As for us, we happen to enjoy each other's company, so we meet occasionally here at Angelo's for a little guy time together. And to meet the new meat."

Meanwhile Angelina the Waitress dropped in front of me a steaming dog nestled in a warm, brown bun. She quickly returned with a plastic squeeze bottle of Cheap Yellow Mustard, and a big red basket of crispy, curly fries. I rolled my eyes as the flavor and texture of the dog filled me with what can only be described as heavenly delight. But now Leonardo's eyes sparkled with great good humor. "Pretty good kielbasa, eh?" They all laughed and made good-natured grunting sounds.

Leonardo glanced around at his comrades and smiled a large knowing grin. Then to me, "Not at all what you expected, right?"

Good question. What did I expect? Certainly everything these men had told me about, like being alive again, only turbocharged. I sort of expected that, I guess. But curly fries, well seasoned and well-done, served with room-temperature ketchup and chased with the frostiest brew imaginable, that's a pretty good thing no matter where you are.

"OK," I said, wiping ketchup from my mustache and reaching for my mug, "What you've got here, I pretty much expected. Heaven wouldn't be heaven without a bar like this. This is good. But what's the big secret? Why can't you make it plain to the world what this place is all about? Why not just tell them, and maybe things would go better in the world?"

St. James the Oblong said moodily, "If only it were that easy. The Father has endless respect for your free will. Even though everybody has some notion of the Afterlife, nobody knows how it truly is."

"Here's the frustrating thing," said Leonardo, "All the religions make up systems of belief to cover their ignorance. It seems unfortunate to us that the religions market heaven so, how do I say this... tastelessly. As though this place is a division of Hallmark, or that Currier and Ives painted the sets, as though that tacky music they market cable TV ads with is the music that's actually here."

Abraham Lincoln said, "Barry, nobody actually thinks about heaven and the afterlife. Nobody has taken the interest to tell them what heaven might be like."

Socrates continued Pres. Lincoln's thought, "Lord knows, Barry, you wouldn't believe the religiously inspired baggage and psychological junk people show up with. What are they being taught by the so-called religious leaders and experts? They come in here yammering about spirituality, and pontificating about personal expansion and all that 101 drivel. It gives me a headache. All the unlearning so many have to do, well it's just exhausting for everyone. Let me pose a question to this collection of misfits: Can anybody think of another word that actually carries less meaning than Spirituality?"

A cloud of cigar smoke hung heavily over the table, where it began spinning.

St. James sat back and filled his deep lungs with a barrel full of smoky air. "I can." He let out a whopper of a beer belch, beginning deep and rumbling away as the last wisps of oxygen escaped him. All the while pronouncing with studied deliberation, "Relationship."

Leonardo rolled his eyes, but it was clear that all these men cared for one another, and that they cherished their conversations. I felt honored to be among them.

Pouring a fresh mug, the Duke said, "So, little by little you get used to the way things work here. You get your bearings, you figure out the drill, you make some friends, and then you set off for Downtown."

"Downtown?" I asked, "Where's that? Is that the real heaven? And if Downtown is such a great place to be, why aren't you bigshots there? What are you doing here in The Bottoms, in Angelo's?"

Uriel said, "Each of these guys, except me, is getting ready to take a group on the journey Downtown. It is your sad misfortune to have to accompany one of them on the way." They each lifted a mug in a tiny salute, and made it clear that they were assessing my capacities and checking out my qualities. It seems as though the management style in heaven is a lot looser than you might at first expect.

We sat and ate and drank for a long time. They talked about a lot of stuff, but here's what I got out of it: Everybody shows up here in a part of the City the locals call The Bottoms, and everybody gets to mark time at The Bottoms for a while until it's determined that you're ready to start the long journey Downtown. Once you have made the trip Downtown, once you are, you know... purified and made ready, and once you know your way around Downtown, then you get to travel all over the City. And here's the thing: when you're at The Bottoms, you're the densest, the most earthly, the most human you can be in heaven. After all, like they said, you're only a step away from the old life. But as you travel toward Downtown, you get lighter, clearer, less fleshy, and more like spirit. Living the old life was pretty good, and if you liked it a lot, you get to go to The Bottoms just to touch base - get a beer, shoot some pool, tee it up now and again. It's like R and R.

But that's not all. When you first arrive at The Bottoms you might get the notion that you'd like to just stay there. Indefinitely. Forever. But it's not like that at all. It's not that you are required to make the trip Downtown, you just want to. It's something in the air or water. You know the old song that says, "When we've been there ten thousand years..." You know that one? Well, that's how it works here. Some folks will take a thousand years or more just to take their first step toward Downtown. But here's the kicker: the closer you get to Downtown, the harder the journey. And it takes some folks a long, long time to get it done.