I sat at the corner of a big, rectangle, wooden table in what would be the least busy part of the bar. It was a dive bar, with grit and grime and smoke tar embedded into the walls and ceiling tiles. The stage was only elevated about ten inches, giving an audience an intimate relationship with whoever was on stage. I watched him sweat as he played and sang the aggressive bluesey notes he was so accustomed to performing every day and night. Always leveling up a little more with every performance. The excessive volume of the amplifier was used as a guitar effect, rumbling and rattling with every half note tuned down growl of the E string. There was nothing artificial about him or the music that was bleeding out. The man was a combination of a Godly touch along with years of finger bleeding practice and experimental guitar tone.

If there was an audience, I couldn’t see them. I was just barely off on the corner out of sight. It seemed like there was no one out there. No accumulated beer bottles. No murmur or spattered applause wafting smoke from cheap cigars. I couldn’t even see a band on the stage or even their shadows. Not even the sound of any music being pumped out of sour beer stained amplifiers. Just a silent, muffled hum like a soft rain. It was as if there was a sound barrier in front of me. A curtain between me and the rest of the house, completely invisible but permeable for the thick air of the claustrophobic space to infiltrate. But still, he was performing with all the vigor of satisfying a full house.

The blank silent song ended and I watched as he exited the stage with a quick wave and was headed towards my table. It wasn’t a coincidence, I picked this table in hopes I would meet the dude.

He was exhausted as he stood with his hands flat on the table and looking straight down. It’s always a bit of a surprise when someone famous appears larger than life but turns out to be a little guy. I knew he was a man with a small frame from years of seeing pictures of him standing next to other people. Still, it was a strange thing to take it all in. I was enamored with his simple presence. I knew this would be the only time I would ever be this close.

He looked up at someone behind me as a signal that he was ready for a refresher then briefly glanced over at my eager face. I extended my hand for a handshake and he just shook his head, like he was saying, not now man, not now.

My eyes fell downward as my arm went limp. He saw my disappointment and quickly reevaluated. He reluctantly offered his hand out of pure kindness. His grip was weak from his lack of enthusiasm, and his eyes continued to look straight ahead, acknowledging me as little as possible, but I was just happy to shake the hand of my biggest hero.

As he withdrew his hand and sipped on his glass of ice water garnished with a dull, yellowed lemon, something awakened in him after a few seconds, like he got his energy back, and he was suddenly amused at my presence. He took another look and saw something in me that was friendly and real, like we could actually be friends. He smiled and extended his hand again. This time grasping my hand with a firm, energetic grip.

I eagerly shook his hand again, this time with overwhelming happiness as he drew in my arm closer, uncomfortably forcing my hand to touch the top of his belt. He was joking around like he was making me touch his crotch. I started laughing and said, “What hell am I going to tell people? Hey, I touched his pecker!” He was laughing at my expense but it was all in good fun. It was completely spontaneous, not a power play or show of aggressive dominance. It was just a funny, stupid thing to do in the moment. A way to make a monotonous ritual a little more interesting and unexpected.

Then it was if time had hiccuped. It was suddenly a different moment where I saw him again, but it was later, after the show in a dimly lit corridor. It was somber. Something had changed. He was a little sad and a little confused and very alone. Time jumped for him as well. He knew something had happened, something was different, but he didn’t know what it was.

He walked towards me through the crawling haze coming from the stage in the background creeping into the corridor, the lights slowly drawing up behind him, just bright enough to see the back room turn white, erasing everything in the distance and filling the area with a dull, smokey glow. He approached me with a question on his face. It was THE question.

All I could say is, “Do you feel it?”

He asked, “Yeah. Is this it? It’s over?”

I replied, “It’s over, but you gotta know, it’s not really over. You touched a lot of lives and you’ll keep on touching people, for a long time. You did good”.

He asked, “So why are YOU here?” and I answered, “I don’t really know, I think to say goodbye. And to meet my hero”.

He smiled and said, ” Yeah, well, you know I don’t do anything that don’t just come to me”.

“I know,…still…” I said with an affirming grin.

He put his hand on my upper arm, just below my shoulder. He gave a subtle squeeze I would feel for the rest of my life, and he nodded. He was sad but it was okay. He simply accepted his fate like he’d always done. Death was just the final encore.

As he turned and began to walk away, he stopped, as if to ask one final question. He looked back at me, and was getting ready to ask his carefully worded thought. He wasn’t sure of how much he really wanted to know. The how and why? The details. He wanted to approach it with delicacy. He started to ask, but I interrupted, “It was okay, not the worst, but not the best either, but it was okay”.

He seemed to be satisfied with that, and with a single nod, he continued to walk on. The details didn’t really matter anyway.

I watched until the moment stopped in time, like I was watching a movie scene that was suddenly frozen in frame. He was walking away with one leg stepping ahead, then it all just suddenly stopped.