The sixth grade was not one of my favorite years in school. I had trouble getting along in school, perhaps the meanest teacher I ever had and my grades weren't the greatest. At a grocery store-mini shopping center close to the school I attended, there would be this car often parked there. On the day of our school carnival, late in the year, I happened to be waiting to go home when I had an encounter with the car's owner.

I never knew his name,

but I knew the car.

I didn't know he was the one

who drove that sleek red Imperial convertible.

I sat in my mother's car

across the street and light years away

from one of the horror houses

where I went to school.


Pondering dreams of foolish flight,

and make-believe triumphs

I plotted my next escape

while being seranaded

by the cool kids' garage band.


Anticipating the end

of a miserable year.

imagining an escape

from a miserable place


I didn't know his name

that foreign-sounding man

with the sleek Imperial

on that sunny May day.


All I know is that was his car

and I watched as he brought the top down.

He didn't lecture me about my grades,

or hector me about getting along

with those who were tormenting me.


He looked at me

when the top came down

and simply said

"How about that?"

I never knew his name,

the only grown-up

who trated me like

more than a math score.