"PCP really got me into a wreck," he admitted over a plate of pasta and a glass of ice water. "But I was never running through no park buck naked."
Recently released from jail after serving time in connection with the car crash, King says he has had recurring nightmares and drugs are the one reliable pacifier. Nevertheless, he maintains that he was not high on PCP that night in 1991 when he was pulled over in his Hyundai after the police chased him through the San Fernando Valley.
Now he has written a rap song about that notorious evening, Beat Down, and with Guzman's help is shopping it to potential investors.
Among his other endeavors, King is completing a book about his life. He could use some money; he's not ashamed to admit it. After all, cashing in on your misery is as American as poker and pornography.
Have we learned to get along, King was asked. Since the riots there have been the OJ Simpson trial as well as a number of sensational cases of white police officers shooting or torturing unarmed black men.
"We're working through change, but it's a slow process," he said. "Race is the biggest problem we face in this country. I don't have to explain it, do I? We all know what's going on."
Across the supper table, King seemed sincere when he said he believed that this was the greatest, most decent nation in the world. And in this political season, as the presidential candidates and the news media relive Vietnam and argue the virtues of invading Iraq, King returned instead to the domestic problems here and now.
There is a saying that carries through the jail cells of America: Every man has committed a felony. The difference between a good life and a wasted one can be attributed to luck and timing.
And so Rodney King does not ask for sympathy, but for understanding. Even good guys make mistakes.
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