Flip is an "of age" teenager faced with abusive parents, a Catholic Military prep school and all of the events of the early 1960s from the Bay of Pigs to the first Kennedy assassination and 'Atomic Annie', the first atomic cannon. Having lost his virginity at the age of 12, Flip is passed from "Betty" to "Betty", band followers with conveniently incarcerated husbands. His musical talents let him play with Stan Kenton, Count Basie and some of the great traveling road bands of the '60s, to the dismay of members of the local musician's union. His love of Shakespeare results in unexpected income, and his future education may depend on Pope John's Ecumenical Council, the hangover of a Catholic priest who just wants to get married and a fledgling Physics teacher who never quite learned to swim.