At the market this guy was asking me how old I was when I started playing guitar.
He said I played like I was born with a guitar in my hands, like the guitar is a part of my body.
He was an old black man, homeless I think, hard to tell—he admired the tip jar.
I told him a long time ago I would sit outside at night while my dad and his kin drank beer and played hillbilly music.
I was three when my brother Dick won a plastic ukulele at a carnival and gave it to me. That’s the part I feel in my hands in dreams sometimes.
He told me his mom played piano in the dark for himself and his sisters at bedtime.
He still closes his eyes at night and can hear that piano.
He told me she taught him some piano, but he never learned to read.
I played with them uncles and cousins on that plastic uke until finally somebody let me play their guitar after they got too drunk.
I was probably five when I could play three-chord country songs on a six string.
He said one summer he got to practice on a xylophone and a vibraphone.
It was a long time before I got my first guitar. Mom bought it for me at a dime store in Ottawa.
Dick had sat down on the uke; I shouldn’t have left it on the couch.
She told me never sell my guitar; if I couldn’t find work, I could always play on a street corner.
I can play for hours and not know it.
I told him I never learned to read either.
He said it wouldn’t have made any difference.
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