“Tom! What on earth are you doing here this early?”

Tom? Miss Garretson knew my father? Knew him so well that she called him by his first name?

“Vicki! Hey there! I should ask you the same question.”

Vicki?

She simply stood with her hands held in front of her, staring at me. She had big lips and wore too much dark lipstick. It took me a few moments to realize she was either waiting to be introduced or for both of us to stand and show we were proper gentlemen. Eventually Dad stood up but I didn’t.

“Vicki Garretson, this is Bill Clinton.”

I nodded and gave her a midrange smile. She gave me an unsubtle once-over with her eyes. It sent me back forty years to the days she used to give me another kind of visual once over: to check if my seven-year-old zipper was open or if there was breakfast jam on my Mickey Mouse Club T-shirt.

“Vicki is a teacher at our school.”

“Music theory and choir.” She said proudly and dishonestly. The only theory this toots taught was take your finger out of your nose, child, and read the notes. I loved it though—Miss Garretson was lying to impress me.

“And what do you do, Mr. Clinton?”

“Bill’s in politics,” Dad chirped, full of admiration.

“How interesting. May I sit down?”

“Sure, of course, Vicki.” He gestured to a stool where she proceeded to rest her not-small can.

We talked for a while about nothing. Miss Vicki was boring and self-involved. It was plain she liked the sound of her own voice and the trivia of her life. But my mind was only half on what was being said because I was mesmerized watching the body language going on between them: It didn’t take long to read between their lines. When I had, I started grinning like a lunatic and I’m sure acting strange. Because it was clear Tom McCabe was parking his skin Pinto in Vicki’s garage. Their conversation was full of in-jokes, references, secret sexy looks, and a casual history of things they’d done together. Not to mention the serious electricity bouncing back and forth between them. Dad was screwing my old music teacher! They spoke to each other in an intimate unguarded way because who was I? A stranger they met in a diner who neither would ever see again. Some guy who sits next to you on a plane or you strike up a conversation with in the station while you’re both waiting for an overdue train. The only thing that gave me a little distinction was I looked like Tom’s son who Vicki had had as a student years before.

After that egg hit the heated skillet of my mind and started sizzling, another dropped right after it. Why was Dad coming out of that house across the street earlier this morning? Did he have another lover over there that he visited on his insomnia rounds? The secret life of Thomas McCabe. My father—Mr. Drip Dry, cap-toed oxford shoes from Florsheim, Robert Hall suit, one whiskey before dinner and never more. Always paid his taxes on time, his dues, his respects. My mother couldn’t pick him out of a crowd. But now here he was doing the Wawatusi with my elementary music teacher and maybe others too. Yee ha! Isn’t life wonderful? I wanted to take him in my arms and dance a jig. I’ve heard people say that one of the worst experiences of their life was discovering their parents betrayed each other. I was thrilled. I wanted to know details—every iota in Cinemascope and Dolby Surround. Crane’s View was small; the walls had eyes and ears. Did this odd couple sneak off to the Holiday Inn in Amerling with a bottle of cheap champagne, a collection of Rod McKuen love poetry, and a transistor radio that played Ravel’s “Bolero”?

I wanted to hug Dad. Or at least pat him on the back, but in these circumstances that was out of the question. I loved what I had discovered and I loved him. Even more oddly it made me love my mother more for being so totally 180 degrees wrong about her beloved partner. Ma, he’s a hound!

“Tom, I’ve got to hit the road. But it has been a pleasure.” We stood up and shook hands. I remembered he didn’t give a very strong shake and there it was again after all these years. Tears came to my eyes. Shaking hands with your father. If you love him, there’s nothing greater. And I did love this man. Silently I thanked and blessed him for having had so much loving patience. For putting up with a terrible, frustrating son who had made him suffer and worry for almost twenty years. I wanted to say to Tom McCabe, I’m your kid, Frannie the thief, the good-for-nothing you should have hated but didn’t because you’re a good man. But I’m all right now. I survived, Dad, and I’m fine.

Instead I smiled at Victoria Garretson (Vicki—never in my life would I have addressed the woman by that name) and turned my back on Thomas McCabe for the last time.

“Bill? Excuse me, Bill?” I was on my way to the cash register when he called my name.

“Yeah, Tom?”

“Could I pay for your breakfast? I’d really like to do that.”

“Why?” Here came my tears again. I looked at Scrappy.

“Because of what you said about my son. Because maybe you’re right and I just worry too much. Because, I don’t know, it’s a nice morning and meeting you was an unexpected surprise.”

I handed him the check. “You’re a prince, Tom.”

He made a strange face. I asked if anything was wrong.

“Frannie says that sometimes. ‘You’re a prince, Tom.’ But when he says it he’s always sarcastic.”

I tried to sound cool and offhand. “Well, you said we looked alike. Pretend for a minute I am him and am saying it for real. You are a prince, Tom. Have a good life.”

“And you too, Bill.”

I couldn’t resist. “Vote for me when I run for president.”

He laughed and went back to his lover.

How does weird get weirder? I’ll tell you. Feeling pleased and lifted by what had just taken place, I left the diner smiling and cheerfully blissed out. That lasted maybe five minutes. Out the door and turn left toward the heart of downtown Crane’s View—all one block of it. Curious to know what would be there, I tried to remember what Main Street had looked like then. My town, thirty years ago. How much had they charged at the Embassy Movie Theater for a ticket? How much had a box of Goobers chocolate-covered peanuts cost at their candy counter? What were the names of the different candy they sold? Charleston Chew, Zagnut, Raisinets, Good & Plenty, Fifth Avenue... Retarded Johnny Petangles knew every one of their television ads and would recite them ad nauseum. The theater had been torn down two years ago and was replaced by a Blockbuster video store, which I thought was ironic. Trading the big screen for the little one. Let’s keep walking down McCabe’s memory lane. Back then the Embassy Theater stood next to Dan Pope’s Bar and Grill. It was where we all had our first legal drinks the day we turned eighteen. In my mind I could still smell the place—boiled cabbage and cigarette smoke. Next to Pope’s was—

A man wearing one of those helmets that had kebab’d my brain. The learning helmets from my last days in Vienna. That’s right—walking down Main Street in 1960-something Crane’s View, New York, was a guy wearing a black full-head helmet. Slapping a hand over my mouth, I made some kind of strangled uh-oh sound. It felt like someone had spilled cold raw egg down my spine. What’s more, there were people around but none of them paid any attention to him. Brian Lipson in his Crane’s View varsity letter jacket stood talking to Monica Richardson in front of the town library. Helmet Head walked right past them. They both looked, no expressions changed, they went back to their conversation. My town is conservative and changeless. Always has been that way. Anything new is instantly noticed and discussed endlessly. Whether it was Crane’s View today or thirty years ago, if someone walked down the street wearing one of those goddamned goofy helmets people would notice. Watching these two kids glance but turn away indifferently meant they were used to the sight. That gave me the big bad creeps. Everything was possible now—chaos reigned. Back when Lipson and I sat in geometry class and I cheated off his exam papers, I never saw any helmet heads go by. If I had, I sure as hell would have told the world about it.