These Dreams of You

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A few weeks after the frenzied campaign rally where he almost is trampled to death, an eighteen-year-old boy recognizes on television the woman who pulled him to safety from that terrible sea of human hope and then whispered in his ear something he’ll never forget, even as he has no idea what it was.

It’s late on the night of the state’s primary election. The news pictures are broadcast from the back kitchen of the old L.A. hotel that several decades ago hosted movie stars and presidents nearly as notable, where the Academy Awards took place; in the early-morning hours of this night, the unspeakable thing that’s on everyone’s mind finally happens. He lies in bed in his dormitory room at the university, listening to the primary returns on the radio. He’s about to turn it off, the candidate having given his victory speech, when the newscaster reports hearing shots.