THE YEAR THE BUS DRIVERS went on strike in Pittsburgh I was twenty-three and living on the edge of the city in a neighborhood that was on the verge of becoming a ghetto. I had just been fired from a good job as a cartographer in a design studio where I had worked for about four months. The owner of the firm was a tubby, bearded man named Ted, who wore tweed jackets, had offensive breath, and fancied himself a poet. He had somehow come to the conclusion that I was deeply closeted and that if I could only admit this then the two of us would be together. During the day, instead of doing work, he would compose long, meandering letters to me that included phrases like “and yes, yes, I saw you, there, yes,” or “there is a leaning into warmth, a leaningintoness that only eyes know.” I could hear him typing away in the adjacent office, and I would know that the printer beside my desk would soon begin to hum and out would come five, six, seven pages. An hour or so later, Ted would come and stand by my desk, one hand deep in his pocket clinking around coins, pretending to busy himself with files, waiting for me to initiate conversation.