“Desire is the diamond ring on the finger of eternity.”

The hand-painted façade of Port 41, scrawled with these words, beckons to the few stragglers who make their way down the alley next to the Port Authority on 41st Street near 9th Avenue.

Mostly the passersby are mailmen, pushing mailbags like wheelbarrows down the nearly empty block toward their warehouse. They ignore the signs.

Others are stragglers who come from the bus. Maybe their eyes light on the awning’s signs first. POOL. Or the other one. BIKINI.

A man stands outside puffing a Newport. “Why not?” he calls after someone who looks intrigued as they pass by.

He ducks back in, away from the cold, unbuttons his jacket. The girl at the bar is indeed in a bikini. Leopard print. A man sips a PBR tallboy and calls her “Maria” when he orders another.

The bar counter is red, with a dinged-up wooden edge, and there’s a sticker plastered on the cash register that says “Down By My Sins.”

The smoker from outside orders another. PBR is his drink as well. Maria bends over the trough full of ice to fetch the tallboy, and everyone peeks at the appealing curve of her ass.

Maria has a slight accent, light brown hair, kind eyes.

A sign near the bar lists “No sleeping anywhere in this bar” as one of its rules. The Newport smoker tells the other PBR drinker that he looks stressed out.

“Shit happens,” he says. “Welcome to the club.”

There are only men in the bar, besides Maria.

“I was critiqued!” A man yells on the TV at Dr. Phil, in response to a pointed question about why he felt he could sleep with other women, but not his wife. Maria changes the channel to a recap of the Giants’ win.

An older man in a black coat limps in on a cane. His Chuck Taylors are an unusual match with the rest of his outfit, which is distinguished, understated. The Chuck Taylors must be the key to why this man is here, in the Port 41 at 3 pm on a Tuesday.

His phone rings as he slides into a stool, and he answers it.

“House of Pain!” he shouts into the receiver. Maria smiles. She’s sitting carefully on the counter behind the bar, so as not to make any creases in her stomach. She fiddles with a personal-sized heater that’s directed at her legs.

The man with the Chuck Taylors hangs up the phone. “Well ain’t that a bunch of shit.”

He nods at Maria and limps out for a cigarette. His smokes are Marlboro Lights.