Page 71 of Theo of Golden

Before Ellen could give Theo final instructions about what to do, he straddled the bike, let out a laugh, then pushed off and began to pedal. “Here I go!”

He was wobbly at the launch, but with several slow, strenuous pumps, the drive chain bit into the sprockets, the tires became steady and upright, and Theo was on his way.

Ellen watched nervously until she was satisfied he knew what he was doing. She climbed on the Noble Invention and stood on the pedals until she caught up with him. They rode side by side just long enough for her to tell him their destination.

“We’re just going to ride till we get somewhere.”

She pulled ahead of Theo and stayed a comfortable distance in front of him, twenty-five yards, more or less, so that he would not have to worry about a collision with her. She was able to watch him through a small mirror mounted on her handlebar.

In short order, Theo was a man at ease, enlivened by the wind in his face. If Ellen had been able to see the picture in his mind at that moment, she would have beheld a little boy on a simple child’s bike, painted red with a basket on the front, pedaling vigorously through Pinhão, en route to the local baker for bread and cheese. The scent of crushed grapes is rich in his nostrils; his feet, ankles, and calves are stained slightly purple; and his elbows are spread wide, like bent wings, as he speeds by tile-fronted shops and houses under the Portuguese sky. At intersections, he glances downhill to the Douro, where boats are loading and unloading.

More than once, he waves in greeting to some familiar face.

But all Ellen could see was an old man, a very happy old man, whose face was radiant with sunlight and youthfulness. He was moving forward in space and backward in time. His lungs filled, and his heart beat with a vigor that belied his eighty-six years.

He entertained the idea of taking his hands off the handlebars and holding them above his head, as he had done when he was a boy, but he decided against it, fearing the lecture he would have to endure if Ellen caught him in the act.

When he picked up speed on a slight downhill slope, his silver hair blew from the sides of his cap like windblown pennants.

He laughed out loud. Ellen did too.

The Noble Invention was most important to Ellen because of its sheer usefulness. It transported her from one place to another efficiently and safely. Sometimes she rode in pursuit of a sense of peace (“motion is lotion” for the soul too), but she rarely rode for sheer pleasure in the way children do.

At that moment, however, that rare moment, she did. Seeing Theo behind her, entirely absorbed in his ride, inspired her to pedal harder, to lean forward, head almost even with her elbows, and to pursue speed for its own sake. The humid, warming air stung her eyes, pushed her hair back from her forehead, and hissed in her ears.

Theo’s old soul and Ellen’s weary soul were wide awake to the promise of the August morning.

They settled into an easy pace that allowed Theo to enjoy the river and its environs. Late-summer patches of goldenrod, aster, and ragweed were starting to bloom. Sourwoods were already turning scarlet, and other hardwoods showed signs of heat stress — withered branches, leaf loss, and seasonal fatigue.

At one stretch of the Riverwalk, Theo and Ellen rode under archways of branches and over a pavement made gold with early fallen poplar leaves.

At one bend, they surprised and put to flight a doe and fawn that had been grazing in the shade of an oak grove.

Ellen looked over her shoulder at Theo. “Hydration break!”

She stopped at a designated rest area on a low bluff that gave them a long view up and down the river. She and Theo parked their bikes, sat at a picnic table on the river side of the trail, and drank water in big gulps.

“Ellen, thank you for letting me join you. This was a splendid idea!”

“Did I go too fast?”

Theo waved off the very thought. “Not at all. My legs might be sore tomorrow, but for now, I feel fine.”

He rubbed his thighs and calves and drank more water. He refilled his bottle from a nearby fountain and walked to the edge of the bluff. He feared that if he sat for too long, his legs might stiffen. Ellen joined him. They surveyed the long span of river.

“Ellen, do you ride here a lot?”

“Not so much now. I used to ‘cause this is where I lived when I first came here. The Mission was too crowded. And I didn’t know anybody under the bridge, and those people can be crazy anyway. So I came down here and lived by myself in a little tent I made.”

Theo wanted to ask questions: What did you eat? Where did you sleep when it rained? What did you do all day? Obvious questions. Instead he listened, sensing that Ellen would reveal what she felt comfortable with.

“I came to Golden because I met another homeless person in Athens who told me about it. He told me about the coffee shop and the bookshop, and he told me people were nice down here, even at the Mission. So I hitchhiked and walked all the way from Athens to Golden. And I like the name Golden. There’s a Golden in Colorado, but that’s too far to go, and it’s real cold in the wintertime.

“When I got here, I liked it, so I stayed. You never know. William and I thought the people in Charleston would be nice, but look how that turned out. Did you read Saroyan yet?”

Theo assured Ellen he had indeed read selected writings of William Saroyan. Especially the bicycle stories.

She congratulated him and then posed an odd question. “Do you know where night comes from?”