in the movies

He slid across the slick orange vinyl

into his favorite corner booth

and smiled at Josefina

as she handed him a menu

and poured a cup of coffee.

what's the pie today? he grinned.

boysenberry or banana cream.

I'll have a slice of the berry. ala mode.

he opened up his laptop

ready to work on his screenplay.

the one he'd been working on

for the last three years.

it was going to set the world on fire.

if only he could get past the first scene:

dawn. 5th Avenue. nothing moving.

no people........

and then what? he was stuck.

but surely it would come to him.

maybe after a few bites of pie

and the first of many cups

of the weak coffee that they

served here. free refills after all.

it was more pleasant to imagine

himself and Josefina sitting

at some ancient bar in New Orleans

discussing what recipe

makes the finest Sazerac

or the tragedy of Iraq.

Or perhaps a cafe in the old quarter of Acapulco,

dissecting French New Wave cinema

or Dostoyevsky, Beat poetry,

or what would Jesus do

if he showed up in Jerusalem today.

Josefina poured him another cup.

He put on his most engaging smile.

She didn't notice and walked away.

He typed a single word: The.....

Better eat this ice cream before it all melts.

Yeah, he could picture it, he and Josie,

(that's what he will call her

because of course they'll be lovers)

stripping off their clothes and running down

a moonlit beach into the warm tropical sea.

and tiny fishes nibbling at their toes

and they are laughing before embracing

and then they are lying on the sand

like that scene in From Here to Eternity.

His coffee was getting cold,

Josefina was standing at the window

to the kitchen joking with the cook.

It's okay he told himself,

that guy doesn't know anything about

French cinema or Sazerac.

All he knows about

is cheeseburgers and Bud Light.

This is where in the movie,

the robbers would burst into the diner

waving guns and shouting and the cook

confronts them and they shoot him down.

Then Josefina tosses a pot of coffee

into the the tall one's face

and the screenplay writer leaps out of his booth

and clobbers the other one with a chair,

grabs their guns and tells them

to stay down on the floor.

and when Josie

(because that's what he's going to start calling her now)

comes over to him, he puts his arm around her shoulder

and she snuggles into him and he can smell

her shampoo when he whispers into her ear,

what time do you get off?

and she smiles up at him and says, Now.

And as they walk out the door

all the other diners in the restaurant

stand up and cheer.