(This was previously published by Literally Stories UK; both images were provided by the author. ‘Tis our pleasure this week to revisit works by our esteemed Co-Editor Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar)

I saw a little man riding a child’s bicycle in Berwyn, Illinois, outside Chicago, on the sidewalk, along Roosevelt Road.

He was carrying a guitar; this was the first thing that caught my attention.

The guitar was strapped over his back. But it was also slung down partly across the side of his body so he could cuddle it with one arm while he steered the bike with the other and pedaled the small pedals with his small legs.

This was a busy neighborhood, but anyone paying attention would surely notice that there was something special between this little old man and his guitar. He held it like it was an animal or a person. He held it delicately while he rode his bike down the sidewalk; he kept it close to him; and he held it with love.

It looked like a small classical guitar covered in road miles. The body of the guitar was red around the edges fading into orange with flower patterns on the pickguard. The strap that held it to his body was an old red one.

The neighborhood was busy, with cars steadily moving in both directions along Roosevelt Road. The famous music venue, Fitzgerald’s, was across the street and both sides of the road were lined with old brick apartment buildings and new corner smoke shops; tattoo parlors; bars; Italian ice and Italian beef restaurants; a bank; a gas station; and Euclid Square Park in the distance.

But the little old man with his guitar was riding the opposite way. Soon on Roosevelt Road, he’d be pedaling into urban devastation, a city’s almost-peopleless wasteland, unless he turned around.

He was small and he was old.

And it occurred to me that he looked much older than he probably was while also seeming much younger in the way he moved, an uncanny doubling.

His long, gray-brown, wiry hair fell all over his shoulders and half way down his back. His small bearded face was wise, wizened, and lean, with deeply sunken cheeks. He was small and old and covered in road miles like the bike and his guitar.

This little, homeless-looking man was not someone you would mess with because of his overwhelming presence no one was noticing.

And he held his guitar like a knight holds his lance; like a warrior carries his club; like a conductor wielding his baton; like a dog walker his leash; like a priest and his chalice.

He had a shocking presence as he steadily pedaled with his guitar down the sidewalk: if you were paying attention. He looked like he was going somewhere, or maybe just anywhere. He wore an old blue button-down shirt over an old white T shirt and he had blue shorts on that went past his knees.

His foot gear had once been white tennis shoes and he had rope bracelets covering both wrists. His skin was dark brown and wrinkled, permanently tanned by sun, wind and sky.

His nose was large and his hands were long, and his eyes were fiery, dark, black-circled, peering intensely and intently from under calm, or calmly troubled, brows. The backpack on his back spilled over from its pockets with plastic water bottles, handkerchiefs, bits of clothing, paper, pens, and other things.

And the little man disappeared into one of the city’s worst neighborhoods, pedaling on his child’s bicycle: carrying his guitar like a lifeline.

A few weeks later that summer, I saw him again. I was taking a stroll around Euclid Square Park with my Siberian Husky, Boo. Euclid Square is a large grassy green space surrounded by houses and trees and Roosevelt Road along one side behind another row of trees. He was sitting directly in the middle of the large, grassy field that was the center of the park. His bike lay in the grass not far away.

And he was sitting cross-legged in the grass in the middle of the park, playing his guitar.

I was too far away to hear well in the wind, but it was fascinating to watch this virtuoso working over his guitar from the corners of your eyes.

He played fast, he played slow, he rocked back and forth, and then he rolled, he rolled half forward as his hands kept flying all over the guitar.

I couldn’t hear it much, but he looked beautiful playing, like a wild man, like a magician: like an escape artist.

Soon I noticed that a friendly-looking old lady had become fascinated with his playing too. The smiling old woman was approaching him on foot across the grass. I saw her reach him, and I saw her bend down, and try to hand him some money, at least a few dollars because she had more than one bill in both of her hands.

But by now he had stopped playing. He had rolled into a little ball over his guitar which he was holding upside down. The man wouldn’t play any more, and he kept his head down, but he reached up and took the money from the old woman. She smiled and was happy and turned away to rejoin her party on the other side of the park.

As she walked away, I looked at the old guitarist.

He flung the money away from him, out across the grass. Both he and I watched the wind blow the bills away across the grass.

Then he looked around to make sure no one could hear him.

And he started playing again.

Notation: Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” is in the Art Institute of Chicago.