I first played poker as a 10-year-old at sleepaway camp; I got cleaned out by a bunkful of hobbit-sized card sharps who'd been playing since they were 9. So I wasn't surprised last month when Sam, my 8-year-old son, started asking me to play with him. I wasn't happy about it, either.

When I was Sam's age, I'd spend Sunday mornings in the fall sitting on the edge of my father's bed, watching him pencil in the betting lines on the day's football games. His handicapping system included circles and stars and other hieroglyphic notations that marked which games were interesting, which were locks and which was going to be the big play of the day.

After he had made his decisions, we would call his bookie. Or rather, he would call, while I thrilled to the secret language he employed, with its inverse logic, where a "dime" meant a $1,000 bet, but a "dollar" only put you down for a $100. "It's Charlie Havana," he'd say to a guy named Pacey P. on the other end of the phone, "gimme three dollars on Houston laying four, two dollars on the Cowboys plus six and a dime on the Vikes." Pacey P. would read my dad's action back to him, and my father would draw final circles and stars around the teams on which he'd actually laid down bets. And then he would set his pad on the night table by his bed. I always picked up the pad the moment he let it go. I was fascinated by this palimpsest of my father's doodles and notes to himself, as if the secret to the man would be uncovered if I stared long enough into his handwriting.

My son is like that with me. The family computer is in his bedroom, and at night I make business calls sitting in front of it. He lies down on his bed, pretending to read Harry Potter or to watch a Knicks game, but I know that he is listening. Even if he doesn't understand everything I am saying, I can see that he is clocking me close, picking up clues, measuring, figuring, comparing. I try not to curse on these calls, or lie in an obvious manner. Or raise my voice. I am aware of the influence of my actions and try to modulate accordingly.

Here's the problem: Sam knows that I co-wrote the film Rounders . It was partially based on my experiences playing poker in New York's underground card clubs, and its growing popularity on video and DVD is often credited with starting the current poker craze. Mostly, I am proud of this. But ….

I remember the start of the 1981 football season. I was 15, and still spent Sundays hanging around with my old man. As the first games of the season were about to start, I saw that my father's pad had nothing written on it. When I asked him about it, he told me that he had decided not to wager anymore, that there were better things to do with our weekends. "Like what?" I asked him. "We'll figure it out," he said.

I've tried, over the years, to get a straight answer from him as to why he stopped betting. What I like to think is that he began to notice how keenly interested I was and wanted to wave me off before I really started gambling myself.

Or maybe he had hit a bad losing streak and just decided he'd had enough. Either way, it was too late for me: The hook had already lodged. I spent years playing cards, shooting dice, betting on anything anytime I thought I might have an edge. Even after it had become clear to me that in the long run, you never really do have an edge, I kept at it. I once bet the best basketball player on Long Island that I could beat him at HORSE if he'd give me a three-letter spot, and lost HOR to HORSE. I played the captain of my college's squash team in squash, for money, even though I had never held a racquet until that afternoon. I have bet on ball games between teams I knew nothing about, and have walked out of more gaming establishments with empty pockets and maxed-out A.T.M. cards than I really care to count up.

Before Sam was born, I used to imagine that I would make him into a world-champion poker player. I know that's not the kind of thing most fathers wish for, but the way I had it figured was this: Someday my kid was gonna find himself sitting at a card table; I wanted him to be the boss. I decided that by the time he was 5, I'd make sure he'd mastered the basics-when to fold, when to press the action, how to spot a bluff. I told myself that I wouldn't let anyone make him a sucker, get him on the wrong side of a big play.

That was before I'd ever actually seen him, ever actually held him in my arms, ever comprehended his potential.

Recently, after years of abstention, I ended up spending three days in a row at an L.A. poker casino. I did not win. Upon my return to New York, I attended a Gamblers Anonymous meeting for the first time. Toward the end of the meeting, one speaker there stood up and told the following story: "My grandfather died when my father was 13. He jumped from their apartment building's roof. The only thing he left my father was a note that said: 'Don't drink. Don't gamble.' Didn't work. I buried my own dad broke and destroyed. Today I came here because I don't want to end up like they did."

The other night, I came home from work to find Sam waiting for me in the front hall, carrying a deck of cards and a box of plastic chips. I silenced the part of myself that still wanted to teach my boy how to set a bear trap with a full house against an ace-high flush. "Let's play chess," I suggested, "or read together, or make song lists on iTunes that we can burn onto discs for Mom." He agreed. But he didn't set down the cards right away. He held onto them for a moment, hoping I'd change my mind.

This worries me, because I know a thing or two about agents. Trained to be as tough, unrelenting and loyal as Rott-weilers, these guys are not easily distracted. And my guy-perma-scruff, huge biceps, dark Armani body armor-is a prime example of his breed.

My concern turns to horror as I watch him lose the battle to stifle himself.

And then it bursts forth: a full cackle. He reins it into a giggle, and finally he brings it down to a small chuckle.

"I'm sorry," he says to me, "but I have to ask: What the fuck did you do to your hair?"

Good question.

Like all the worst ideas, it came to me as a revelation and went against my most fervently held beliefs. I did it anyway. Just after my 35th birthday, before I was to fly to Los Angeles for a series of pitch meetings, I decided to get the gray out. I didn't actually phrase it that way to myself. I pretended that dyeing my hair was no different than adding some heavy boots to the wardrobe. It had nothing to do with the fact that my prematurely gray hair might begin to mark me as an older screenwriter, even though I had broken into the movie business only five years earlier.

My plan was made all the more odd by the fact that there is no place where I feel more uncomfortable than I do sitting in a beauty parlor, wrapped in a thin satin kimono.

Yet that's exactly where I was mere hours after making my decision: huddled over Elle magazine and trying not to make funny noises when shifting my position on the leatherette couch.

If I didn't know that I was in trouble from the look the receptionist gave me when I said "cut and color," I should have known the moment I met Jimmi* the stylist.

Jimmi's exterior was so well-preserved that the only way to divine his age would have been to cut him open and count the rings. He was Asian and employed a hipster patois that sounded as if he had pieced it together by reading Sammy Hagar and Gene Simmons interviews from the mid-70's.

Jimmi explained that although my appointment was with him, he wasn't the colorist. He was overseeing the job-or in his words, "making sure you look killer, man." Maddy*, a 19-year-old who'd modeled herself after Pink but ended up a dead-ringer for Cyndi Lauper, was the one actually brushing the jet-black lead acetate into my scalp.

As Maddy wrapped sections of my hair in small pieces of tinfoil, the salon's radio played "Can't Get There from Here" by R.E.M. Michael Stipe's voice took me back to college. When I was 19, there was almost nothing that my friends and I found more pathetic than the misguided attempts grown men made to cover up their follicular inadequacies. "That'll never be us," we thought. We couldn't imagine a day when we'd compromise ourselves for our careers. Walking into Jimmi's salon hadn't felt like compromise, but suddenly I knew that it was.

Maddy soon left me alone so that the dye could "marry the hair." I blasted through all the Cosmopolitans that were stacked near me. I read Allure , W and Mademoiselle . I read everything I could so that I didn't have to think about what I was having done to myself. Eventually there was only one magazine left; I could either read Jane or try to reconcile who I was with what I was doing.

I looked up at my reflection in the mirror.

The man I saw staring back at me had black goop on his forehead and a lost expression in his eyes. In short, he looked like three-quarters of the working screenwriters in the business.

I stared until Maddy came back. She rinsed out the extra color, dried my hair and sent me to Jimmi's chair to have it cut.

"You are movie writer, yes?" he asked as he used a straight razor on my bangs. I nodded.

"Then I give you artistic look." He switched to a pair of scissors that looked like pinking shears and began cutting in a frenzied manner. "I love the artist. I love the rocka-roll, and I love the movies. Gangster movies, crime films, you know?"

Again, I nodded.

"I know all of the movies. Tell me what movies you do."

Before I could answer, he continued: "I love Goodfellas , The Godfather , Donnie Brasco . Which one you do?"

" Rounders ," I answered.

Pause. "I do not know that one."

He finished. I paid for the work, left the salon and headed for home. As I entered my building, my doorman asked me if I'd lost weight, but he was just covering up for the fact that he was staring. My wife, Amy, met me at the elevator and shook her head. My daughter burst into tears.

That night, I left on the last flight for L.A. As the passengers around me drifted off, I found it impossible to sleep. It wasn't just because Jimmi had never heard of my movie. Before, I'd always prided myself on being a New York filmmaker-independent, uncompromising, all the rest. But now, sitting there with a head of faux black hair, I didn't know who I was.

An image came to mind: It was of my first trip to L.A., after Rounders had been sold to Miramax. I was full of confidence, didn't give a shit about my appearance and treated the studio execs as if they were lucky to meet me. It worked. At the end of the trip, Levien and I left L.A. with script deals at two studios.

Since then, though, something had changed. Gradually, over time, I had become attached to the success, begun to let myself need it. And as soon as that happened, fear snuck in. I started second-guessing my ideas a little, started taking studio notes a little more seriously, started reading the trades. And eventually, I starting worrying about how I looked.

"Damn," I thought in the darkness of the plane cabin. "I've gone Hollywood."

I lifted the window shade next to me and gazed out into the black sky. Los Angeles was still three hours away, but I could picture how it would look upon our arrival. Lit up in the night, it would glisten. But during the day, the smog would lay heavy over the city, limiting vision and making my head hurt.

The next morning was the meeting at Nate 'n Al's.

One week later, I was home and the phone rang. It was my agent. "The pitch sold," he told me.

"Great," I said. I hung up the phone, walked around the corner to my neighborhood barber and sat down in his chair.

"Shave it off," I said.

"All of it?"

"Yeah, all of it."

*The name has been changed.

Club/LA under the 59th Street Bridge. They have pickup games there every night,

and this time I'm guarding the Litigator. We're all calling him that because

his T-shirt features a three-piece-suit-wearing, briefcase-carrying alligator

of the same name. The Litigator is not fast, but when he charges to the hoop,

his cheeks puff with determination.

Someone back-picks me off him. One of my teammates, a

football handicapper for a local newspaper whom I'll call "the Kid," switches

over to guard him. The Litigator is trapped, but still moving forward. He puts

his shoulder into the Kid. The Kid's arms shoot up in response, knocking both

the Litigator and the Litigator's glasses to the floor.

The Litigator's square frames are still gliding across the

high-gloss court when he bounds to his feet, fists raised. The Kid puts his own

dukes up and begins daring the Litigator to throw a punch. The Litigator's eyes

blaze, and he starts stomping around the gymnasium like Chief Jay Strongbow of

the old WWWF, shouting obscenity-laced threats. The Kid stands his ground.

The Litigator closes the space between them and almost trips

on the basketball, which has rolled to a stop at his feet. He kicks it, and I

watch it ricochet off the bottom of the low bleachers. Then I look up at the

faces of the other ballplayers to see if anyone is going to step in to stop the

fight. Nobody does. They do not want to stop it. They want to see it.

I do not step in either. I, too, want to see blood.

Basketball is supposed to be a game of teamwork, creativity

and beauty. I have always considered it a fair game; it rewards hustle, effort

and commitment with success. But at the Sports Club/LA, it's become something

far less wholesome.

I first got the basketball jones from my father. When I was

a kid, we had a short, narrow court on the side of our house, and that's where

he'd find me when he came home from the city. I'd be working on my left-hand

dribble, turn-around fade-away or Earl Monroe–inspired spin through the lane

when, still in his suit and tie, my dad would step on the court with both palms

extended, calling wordlessly for the ball. I'd throw him a hard bounce pass

like he taught me, thumbs snapping down to create maximum backspin.

He'd grab it, turn quickly toward the basket and let the ball

fly. More often than not, it would go in. The net on our hoop was a rusted-out

chain, so instead of the usual "swish," we heard " ch-chink " as the ball shimmied through. I'd get the rebound and

feed him again as he started moving on the balls of his feet from one side of

the court to the other. Bounce, catch, shoot- ch-chink! Bounce, catch, shoot- ch-chink!

The nets at the Sports Club/LA don't make that sound. They

are mesh, and they are replaced at the slightest sign of wear. Having just

marked my 35th birthday, I joined to get back into basketball shape. But here I

am in the ultimate high-tech gym, and instead of threading a perfect bounce

pass to an open teammate, or hitting a 10-foot bank shot with defenders on each

arm, I am standing in a semi-circle hoping that someone gets decked.

The Litigator keeps closing on the Kid, and his neck muscles

continue to constrict and bulge, but he seems to be forcing the bravado a

little. If I showed a photo of his contorted face to my 5-year-old son and

asked him to name the emotion on it, I do not think he'd say "anger." I think

he'd say "fear."

And I would bet that fear is reflected on almost all of our

faces. An executive membership at the Sports Club/LA costs about $3,600 a year.

Many of the guys on the court are brokers, traders and market-makers who arrive

at the club within minutes of the markets closing, ready for action. Recently

one such trader, a tough man in his late 20's with a bodybuilder's chest and a

perma-scowl on his face, almost came to blows with a trash-talking nightclub

bartender from Jersey. The reason? After a close game, the bartender's team

wouldn't give Perma-scowl's a rematch. Perma-scowl demanded satisfaction.

On Wall Street, the game's over when that closing bell

rings, no matter how big your arms are or how bad the losses. But at the club,

our man thought he deserved another shot. And he was just about ready to fight for it, too.

But nobody ever throws a punch. We are, for the most part, a

group of men past our athletic prime. Ankle wraps and knee braces keep many of

us in the game, and in a number of years our bodies will stop getting us up and

down the court altogether. It could be decades until that happens, but no

matter; once you've seen the end coming, it's always in your mind's eye.

We know this. We also know

that if we let the pent-up anger from tense days in quiet offices push us into

throwing a left hook, the other guy might let one fly too. So even though we

really want to, we don't. At this age, the fear of getting hurt outweighs the

desire to hurt. Still, we all hope someone else will try. It's like Fight Club for men who are afraid to

fight.

When I was in high school, I used to break into basketball

gyms alone in the middle of the night. I was serious about it: I'd scout the

location for days, leave windows cracked, pull mats inches closer to them for

ease of landing. I was never caught. Even if I had been, it would have been

worth it. I loved the feeling of having the gym to myself. I had a routine.

Lay-ups first. Then jumpers. Foul line, foul line extended, top of the key. By

then, I'd start to sweat. I'd take the ball from one end of the court to the

other, dribbling as fast as I could without losing control of the ball. I

wasn't a gifted player, and I was never a star on any team, but as the morning

light would begin to creep into the gym and I'd make my last couple of foul

shots before sneaking back out, I sure felt like one.

I imagine the Litigator has felt like a star too, but right

now he is running out of gas. Someone hands him his glasses. He slips them on,

and the game begins again.

As I watch him trundle back up the hardwood, it occurs to me

that each man here must have some version of my late-night basketball story. It

may not have been on a ball court, but somewhere they have all felt that moment

of athletic transcendence, of sport as an escape from the self, from the world.

It's a hard feeling to attain, an even harder one to keep. Every day when I set

out for the gym, I am trying for it. But in the frustration of not quite being

able to turn on a dime, or handle the ball under pressure, or make the

three-pointer with the game on the line, I, like the Litigator, the Kid and

Perma-scowl, forget what it was that I came for in the first place.

The place made sense to me the moment I walked in, like St. Patrick's might to a different sort of man. Behind the desk was a girl who looked just like you'd hope she would, counting out green, red and black poker chips. She asked me what level I was playing, and before I finished answering she had the right amount broken down, stacked up and slid across the desk for me to take to my table of choice.

I played Texas Hold'em that night, but the only thing I was holding when I went home was my MetroCard. I had been cleaned out by men who knew how to fold early, bet strong and run the table like Rudy runs the city: with total authority. These were men with names like Joel Bagels, Freddy the Watch, Joe Angel, Johnny Handsome, Johnny Dark and Johnny Boy, who was neither a boy nor named Johnny. These were men who "knew people," men you wouldn't want to look at the wrong way, men who called the waitresses "dear." Staring down these card sharps over a pair of eights or four to a flush, I felt like Jerry Quarry must have as he glanced across the ring at a young Muhammad Ali. I knew I was going to lose; I just hoped I wouldn't get K.O.'d.

Still, I came out swinging, fighting to ignore the churning in my guts, the pulsing at my temples and the rivulets of cold sweat that were growing on my upper lip when I tried to hard-sell a bluff. Didn't matter. They clocked me as an amateur and busted me out.

When you get broke at a card table-really gutted-here's what happens: You sit there for a moment, grappling to find a graceful exit. You realize there isn't one and push back from the table with your head down and the blood slowly starting to creep out of your face. You rise as some other guy slides around you and into what was, until moments ago, your seat. Then you start calculating: what kind of money you have left at home, what you could've done differently, what you're going to have to do later to find a way to fall asleep.

It's at this moment that most people walk away for good. They've taken their shot with the professionals and decided that they'll stick to the occasional home game with their buddies from school, work, the old days. But as I watched my last chip being raked from the center of the table into someone else's pile, I knew two things: I was out of my league, and I would be back tomorrow.

I came back, the next night and the night after that. I didn't become a top player-that takes too much discipline and talent-but I made a good run at it. I won thousands and lost thousands more. I skipped work when I shouldn't have and came home later than I had any right to. But I have a patient wife, and we survived it. My partner Levien and I even wrote a movie about the place, called Rounders , that came pretty close to capturing what it felt like to go all in with nines full against aces full of nines.

What no movie could capture, though, was the rhythm of a routine Sunday night at the Mayfair. There were usually eight games going, from 5-10 Hi-Lo stud, where you could win or lose $500, to the Top Game, 75-150 HOSE, where you stood to risk upwards of $5,000 a night rotating between Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Stud and Stud Hi-Lo.

The games began around 8 o'clock, and if you arrived early, you'd hang your jacket in the closet, tell the desk what game you were playing, and try to quiet the anticipation that you knew was showing on your face. While you were waiting, you might pick up a pool cue if you were handy with one, or grab the Post off one of the chairs to check the betting lines.

A waitress would approach and ask how you did the night before, even though she probably already knew the answer. "Up a few hundred," you might say, or "They hurt me in here last night," or "Same as always." She'd smile, or nod in sympathy, and ask if you were planning on eating anything. As you watched her heading back to the kitchen, the front door would buzz open, allowing a few more players to enter the club. You'd take your chips, move over to your seat at the table, and forget to look up again until the rest of the city was deep into its morning-exercise routine.

Poker players will tell you that gamblers are suckers. What they mean to say is that, at poker-unlike blackjack, craps or any other casino game-you do not start out with house odds against you. In fact, at poker, you do not play against the house at all. The card room merely collects an hourly rent on the time you spend at the table. This rent is known as "the rake." It is what distinguishes the poker club from the casino, and it is what kept the Mayfair in business for generations until that recent night when the battering ram led New York's Finest through the door.

The Mayfair club is gone now. It's gone the way of the topless joints and the squeegee men and the three-card-monte hustlers on West Broadway, and New York is none the better for it. But the thing about this town is, even Mayor Giuliani can't outlast it. He will be gone soon enough, and soon enough the city will breathe. Space will be rented, and card tables will come out of the closets along with the card players.

In poker, there is a moment when all the betting is done and the cards are turned face up. It is called "the showdown." No more talking, bluffing or angle shooting; the cards speak, and the winner is announced. For the denizens of the Mayfair club, it was when they were most alive, when they had put it all on the line, when they were either going to get cracked or paid off. And that's the way I want to remember the place: at the end of a huge hand, the chips piled to the ceiling in the middle of the table, the cards about to be flipped over, all the players leaning in, even a few waitresses stopping for just a second to look. All of us caught up in it, underground, but somehow above the whole city, waiting to see who held the aces.