By now I know him pretty well, I think—or maybe I dreamed I know him; I'm not sure. Anyway, I give him the two beers and wait for him to get around to telling me whatever is on his mind.
He goes through the same act as before—only I can't be sure he did go through the act or I dreamed he did. "Beer for the house," he yells.
"Take it easy," I cautions. "Take it easy, Rabelais."
"You never called me by my first name before, did you, Mike?"
I open my mouth to remind him that he told me to back in 1953 and then I remember it is 1953. That confuses me because I remember, too, that in 1954 I was—or maybe it's that I'm going to be—mayor. I just close my mouth and wait.
Rabelais takes his time. When the early rush clears out, he gets me off to one end of the bar and says, "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mike, but we have to do it all over again."
"Then it wasn't a dream?"
"No dream," he says.
"But everything was going fine."
"Up to a point," he says. "Up to the sixties."