MOJO CITY, April 7, 2002 -

Riley Collins strolled out of the flame-raged building. With black, charred pine studs and collapsed walls providing the backdrop for this interview, he calmly finger-worried a tortilla in his hand as he spoke.

"You know," he said, "I really thought the people of this town were going to come down on me for originally naming this building the 'Jesus on Two Tortillas Shrine.' But except for the round-the-clock demonstrations out front and the continual paint-bombing, they've been amazingly tolerant. And I did a lot of business showing people those tortillas with the images of Christ on them.

"But as you know, things changed."

Literally, Riley.

"Yeah." He brought the tortilla up to his mouth and began to absently nibble at it. This reporter noticed that the tortilla had two small black circles attached to a large one on it.

"And then when the images on the tortillas mysteriously changed into pictures of movie drive-ins, I had to change the name to 'Drive-ins on Two Tortillas Shrine.'

"That put the kibosh on most demonstrations. Except for Jack Chalmers [owner of the Rio Bravo Theater] getting pissed at all this attention being paid to a drive-in and none paid to his sit-down theater. Did you know that Jack actually got up on my roof and stomped around to discourage the visitors inside? But then he fell off."

[Editor's note: Chalmers hit his head when he landed and was discovered to have developed a complete personality replacement from the fall in which he now believes himself to be Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz. Jack's family is renting him out on Saturday afternoons to children's birthday parties. The family is taking phone reservations at Jack's residence.]

Riley.

"Yes?"

Are you eating one of the famed tortillas?

"Yes," he said slowly. "Yes I am. The other one burned to a crisp, but even after what? … three weeks on display, this is the softest tortilla I've ever had. You know, if there was ever any question of this being a sacred tortilla, the freshness after three weeks should convince everyone. That's one of the things they found about saints, you know? You go dig them up decades after they die, and their bodies are just as fresh as … as this tortilla."

Riley. That image on the tortilla. It looks familiar.

"Everyone knows it," said Riley, displaying the familiar three circles. "It's Mickey Mouse. Yeah, get this … the images have changed again. Now, I've got these three circles in the trademarked image of Mickey Mouse on the damned tortilla."

You're eating the tortilla, Riley.

"Yeah, destroying evidence" he said, angry. "I wake up this morning to the phone. It's some guy who says he's a lawyer. Says he knows I've infringed on the trademark. 'What trademark?' I say to him. 'Mickey,' he says. And I don't even know that the images have changed at this point. And I still can't figure out how he knew, because when I came in to open the Shrine later in the morning, the images of the drive-in were still on the tortillas. I only noticed the change when I rushed into the fire to rescue them and was only able to get this one out."

Must have been frightening.

"Scared me shitless. Look, I'm just a cowboy, but I know you don't screw with Mickey's lawyers."

How do you think they knew the image was about to change, Riley?

"Didn't you hear me? They're Mickey's lawyers."

Some may believe that sinister forces were at work when the "Drive-ins on Two Tortillas Shrine," formerly known as the "Jesus on Two Tortillas Shrine," burned to the ground. Riley Collins, owner of the Shrine(s) believes it was "the work of the devil."

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