I board the bus with Eddy and Chris. I sit at the far end of the section of three seats by the back door. Eddy sits next to me. Chris wanders into the bowels, swallowed by a section of street punks with ripped jeans and bad-itudes.

There is a guy on the other side of Eddy, pasty, dredlocked, who taps me on the shoulder as I press my fists into my chronically itchy eyes. I look up and behind Eddy.

"What's your name?" he asks.
"What?"
"What's your name?"
I panic and blurt out the real thing: "Angela."
"Oh... I'm going to write a poem about you."
"Okay," I say, because, what else can you say?
"That's why I needed to know your name," and with that, hey guy gets up and bolts out the back door.

Eddy appraises me and says, " I was wondering why he gave me the evil eye when I sat down next to you."

Fantastic!