Masonic Temple

A few months after 9/​11, a Muslim friend of mine from Dubai joined the Masons, feeling tactically obligated to join as many ‘American’ social clubs as possible. During this same time, the Masons realized most of their membership was dying off, so they decided to have a group recruitment, kind of like a Moonie mass wedding. Each person recruited would automatically be bounced up three degrees in status by merely observing the rituals rather than participating (and, no, I’m not spilling beans, but only because I’ve forgotten nearly all of the secret stuff).
So my friend asked me and a couple of others to join, thinking his status within the organization would be enhanced by his zealous recruitment. I really just wanted to see the interior of the enormous and grim building, which is tucked directly behind City Hall, and found myself standing in the lobby of the temple with a guy from Brazil and a long-​haired kid, all of us in suits, milling with a few hundred other guys, the vast majority of them older, chummy businessmen glad-​handing each other like George Babbitt.
All of the ‘public’ rooms were large, high ceilinged, dusty and kind of dowdy, and barer than I’d expected. A billiard room, a very large and sort of institutional dining room, and lots of side rooms hung with portraits and photos of old members and fantastic old representations of masonic cosmology. The space was beautiful in a quietly noble-​despairing kind of way and I finally got to see it, but of course, now I am a Mason.