Shocking Clinton Revelation

—the editors

While I’m walking in the Marais, a gay neighborhood in the heart of Paris, I see a bald guy who looks very familiar to me, then immediately I’m drawn to another man admiring a pair of leather pants in the window of a leather shop. I sense this feeling of familiarity, then the man turns around and yells to the bald guy in the most familiar voice of the past decade, "Hey, let’s try these pants on!" He laughs, and I find myself standing in front of the 42nd president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

I had always dreamed about someday meeting an American president, but giggling in front of a gay boy shop was not the way I pictured it happening. Who but Clinton would have such grace? After my initial shock, I must say I was impressed. Here was the 42nd president, a man of such legacy and power and scandal, and he was just like anyone else, enjoying himself on vacation. He was wearing a leather jacket, jeans, and clean white tennis shoes. The bald guy was James Carville, Clinton’s one-time campaign advisor. They were in town for the French Open, and Clinton was giving a million-dollar speech somewhere in Paris. Soon I realized that the other people on the street were Secret Service men. They were keeping their distance, so the street still felt intimate.

Naturally, I wanted to make a connection with someone, to point and say: "Hey, that’s Bill Clinton," but the only people around were Secret Service dudes. I was so excited that I considered elbowing one of them and saying "Hey, isn’t this something?