I knew him when I was four years old. He had an ice cream tricycle that he always parked by the door of the German Schule. I accompanied my father as he took my sister to her Grade one class. I don’t really remember what was I doing there. In fact, thinking about it a little longer, we probably were picking her up at the end of the day. Pirulo was always there, with a whistle hanging from his neck, blowing it to announce his presence, although who could fail to see him. He had a special face, with a pinkish tone, not red though. Not like a drinker’s face, or like someone taking cortisone. No, it was just pink, and I’ll never know why. His hair was grey. It resembled a brush, short and bristling, as if it didn’t grow at the sides, but only in the middle.

            Pirulo was very patient. Maybe because he was so old, he was at least fifty‑five years old, children respected him and nagged him at the same time. Nagging, that is, within the limits of respect. They would climb on the tricycle, hang onto the wheels, try to snatch his whistle, and sometime succeed.

            I never knew why but I always imagined him as being lonely. Living in a far away neighbourhood, getting up very early to arrive at the school. Although indeed the college was an excuse, Pirulo probably liked to get up early, feel the city in his veins. I imagine him alone, but resigned to life, accepting it well, so well. Even inviting that loneliness. He had had friends; drinking friends, I suppose. Women, sometimes. On time paying his bills, when he had the money. Trustworthy when he didn’t.

            A routine life, and when I think about this, I see that maybe Pirulo was (is?) a great philosopher on a tricycle. Looking, observing, accumulating details, knowing people, children, parents, teachers, their different reactions to a small child asking for an ice‑cream, or a candy. I think that for many years I suspected that we kids were the least important part of his life; that his friends, his card games, women, talks, vices, those were the important things. Yes, I do suppose that Pirulo had those things. But now I know that we were definitely the most important aspect of his life.

            Certainly Pirulo pedalled through solitary streets, saying hello to the women who were sweeping the sidewalk for the last time that day. I imagine him being afraid of feeling tired. As if his life was a gift, something precious, something that he did not have the right to change, or to ruin. A kind of profound religiosity that has never been inside a church. I picture him like an illegitimate child, learning to live through living.

            During the summer Pirulo sold ice cream. Brand “Laponia”, of course. Ice cream on a stick was the cheapest. If I could wait for two or three days, or if I could ask mom for a little more money, or if Carla and I joined our resources, we could splurge and get an “American cream and strawberries” cup, with real fruit at the bottom. Truly delightful.

            Pirulo used to be at the door of Hebraica during the summer. Under the scorching heat, he would wait there, trying to find a spot in the shade. We went to fitness classes, to the pool, and from there to the cafeteria for a pastrami bagel with pickles or tomatoes. Then, to the door to buy that ice cream from Pirulo which the doorman always made us finish outside.

            In the winter he sold candy. He kept pedalling his tricycle, making us feel cold with the “Laponia” sign. On weekends he went to Palermo, Boca, the river, wherever he had a hunch he would sell something. Yes, the name Pirulo comes from the kind of candy he sold, and I don’t know anybody who knows his real name.

            All this happened a long time ago. More than twenty years. I never forgot Pirulo although, to tell the truth, I never remembered him.

            Three years ago, visiting Buenos Aires, almost about to leave, in those last days that are very emotional for me, where time passes in a subjective way (as always of course, but then a little more), when I say good bye to good friends and family, when I try (and generally can’t) make a final account of another trip, when I look to the past, to the future, live the present moment, still enjoy a good pizza, well, in that beautiful swirl, or collage better said, that is my going away from Buenos Aires, walking by the door of the Zoo I saw Pirulo. I didn’t have any doubts. It was him. He was probably seventy‑five or eighty years old. Still selling. It was very cold, there weren’t that many people. I felt happy and sad at the same time. I got close, started to talk to him. He could barely hear. I yelled, two or three times “German Schule” and his smile, his face, his posture, let me see that yes, he had understood. He talked about his health, coughed a lot, had many layers of clothes, all borrowed, or gotten from the Salvation Army.

            I took two pictures, hugged him, talked a bit, bought many candies, that I gave to Carla, ten thousand kilometres away. I had to go. And I wanted to go. I had a very sad feeling. I had never thought about him. Had I done it, in the last ten years, I would have imagined him dead. But no, there he was, in bad shape, but alive. He managed somehow to have food, a place to sleep, find somebody to take him to the hospital when he needed it.

            I left without looking back, with many sensations inside of me that up to this day I can’t describe. One, however, yes. A fear, a sort of premonition that Pirulo was dying, that death was close, and that the winter would be an excuse for her to enter his sleep one night.

            I left. I didn’t forget, his memory was like a sweet and sour experience that changed a little more the shades of my last days in Buenos Aires.

            The next winter, unexpectedly, I had to go to Buenos Aires. Walking by the Zoo with Analía I saw him, a bit older, coughing constantly, a little more deaf than last year. But there he was, alive, selling as always. It was, also, a very cold, very grey day.

            Analía took a picture of the two of us. I said good bye to him and went to have a coffee with her, happy, apprehensive, but with something inside of me giving me lots of confidence in life, and in the future.

            Only months afterwards I was able to have a glimpse of the meaning of these encounters. I was seeing Pirulo as a good man, a poor man, who depended on daily miracles to survive.

            In a very simple way, his continued existence, showed me that he is not a poor man. He has an infinite richness, that I still cannot fully comprehend.

            I thought that I was anticipating his death, and not only would I never know when Pirulo would die, he was showing me that he knew about more than just death. He knew about life. And perhaps not only his.

This story appears in Still…life, Mosaic Press, Canada. Copyright David Mibashan.