These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

Back at the pizza joint, the indignant Cuban owner reached for the phone to call the police. “Don’t,” said the eighteen-year-old.

“Bullshit,” said the owner.

“I told them we wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“The San Fernando Valley Riots, over a pizza? I’m O.K.” Reluctantly the Cuban put the phone back in the cradle. No further deliveries, however, were made to the dormitory. Two decades later there would be a famous movie by a black filmmaker about a pizza place at the center of a riot in Brooklyn one hot summer night. When Zan sees it, he’ll wonder if he thwarted history just long enough for someone else to make it up.