Tom Junod

He talked about the affair that he had with my first friend's mother, Valerie Shockett.

The one you sensed when you were three.

The one I sensed when I was three.

Then he told me about something that happened to him that at once...

ennobled him as like a tragic character and also made me wonder if I really knew him at all.

Sure.

So this was my last day with him for this story.

I had taken him out to the Dune Deck Hotel on Dune Road in West Hampton, which was sort of his refuge place.

When I was growing up, he would leave the house, our house, around four or five o'clock, you know, dressed in his sort of uniform.

He'd wear an orange alpaca sweater, white ducks, which were white pants, and he would go out for, you know, for a drink at this hotel.

And so I took him there when I was doing the story for GQ.

And there was a moment where I felt... I felt that I didn't have to ask any more questions.

I felt like I was done.

And then that night, when we were at the hotel, an 81-year-old woman asked him for his phone number when we were out at dinner.

He was 77 at the time.

So it was just a beautiful moment.

But the next morning, I asked him, I said, Dad, you know, when that woman asked you for your phone number, is that what it was like when you were in your 30s and 40s and even 50s?

And he shook his head, and he said, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, I'm not pulling your leg.

There was a time that I couldn't walk down Fifth Avenue without being propositioned.

And I said, gee, Dad, did you take any of them up on it?