The old man’s hands belied their age as he nimbly manoeuvred the thawing prawn onto the hook; in through the head and out through the belly, as always. I feigned disgust, of course, but the process fascinated me.
“Next time, Bigs, you’ll be baiting your own hook,” he said in his usual brusk tone, then handed over the rod and reel. Our eyes and smiles caught for a fleeting moment, then I sent the bait sailing into the tepid ocean. A plonk, a ripple, then nothing but the sound of water lapping against the dock.
A geriatric and a pre-pubescent, two beings at opposite ends of troubled lives, sitting peacefully at the edge of the world, waiting for a fish.
The vagrant was the only one who understood me. Counsellors pretended to care, the other boys in my high security mental health facility sometimes offered a warped corruption of companionship. But this pitiful creature with unruly hair and a beard like a banksia bush was the only one who really got me.
A loner like me, the hobo rarely talked about his wretched past, but he didn’t need to. The pain was projected across his rugged face; the nights spent under bridges echoed in his words; the loss of humanity and respect reflected in the lamentable way he walked.
Who knows, maybe I was the only one who actually got him.
All life folds back into the sea
“You know,” I said, shattering the silence, “they say there’s a fish the size of a car out at Manilla. He has a top hat and everything! Maybe we could run away and see him together.”
“Hey muscles, you’re scaring the fish away,” snapped the vagabond, feigning annoyance once again. I smiled to myself, content in my knowledge that it was simply his way of showing affection. Exhibiting love and admiration can feel like chewing razor blades for people like us.
“We can’t catch fish every day,” I whispered glumly, wanting to lay a reassuring hand upon his shoulder but knowing that would likely trigger one of his infamous ‘freak outs’. “Maybe you’ll catch the eye of a pretty lady on the way home.”
“Squirt, I don’t have a home. I live in a bed made of milk crates behind Clint’s Crazy Bargains. Now make yourself useful and go get me a box of wine. And none of that fancy stuff. Last time you got me a rosé and – whilst, yes, it was delightfully fruity with an earthy, somewhat nutty aftertaste – the other tramps beat me quite severely because of it.”
My heart raced as I waited for the moment when he handed over a few disheveled notes and I would have a rare instant of human contact as our hands met.
That moment never came so, with a hollow heart, I set off to find a pocket to pick on my way to the bottle shop. I would’ve done anything for that street urchin.
The August sun hung low by the time I returned with a five-litre box of Sunnyvale. Mist was clawing at the dock. In the distance, a lone seagull cried. The drifter was nowhere to be seen.
The past seems realer than the present to me now
Sitting cross-legged on the weathered dock with only the treasured box of wine for company, I waited for my friend to return. The languid sun sunk solemnly beneath the waves, and a pale crescent moon took its place.
The night scraped its icy fingers across my bare legs, but I didn’t leave my post. My friend, I knew, would return. If not for the wine, then for our zesty conversation and abundance of mutual respect.
But he never did. Over the following months I would regularly wait for him by the water, dreaming of the moment when we would be reunited. My visions were so vivid that I could smell the prawns on his calloused fingers, and feel his whiskers upon my chin.
In time I was sent to another part of the state to run out my days in another care facility. As they drove me away I stared out the window through a sheet of tears, seeing only the abandoned dock.
Someday soon, my sins will all be forgiven
To this day, I can’t walk past a bait shop without breaking down as memories of my friend wash over me. Well, except for when I went to Iluka Bait & Tackle, because there’s a massive marlin out the front and it’s absolutely fantastic!
The festive fish is, apparently, based on an actual marlin caught by one of the locals two or three decades ago. He’s since become a beloved icon of the beachside village of Iluka. When I arrived the bait shop was empty, with nary a tackle box or garish lime-and-orange fishing shirt to be found.
Feelings of abandonment wrapped their frozen tendrils around my throat but, thankfully, the owner Ross Deakin wandered over to assure me that the shop had simply relocated down the street.
“But what will happen to the Big Marlin?” I asked, my top lip trembling
“Bigs, I’ll take it home and put it up in the living room before it goes in the bin. I might get in trouble with the missus, but it’d be worth it!”
“Keep your family close, Ross,” I implored the owner, as he backed away cautiously. “You never know when you’ll lose them. One minute you’ll be violently robbing a pensioner to pay for a few litres of barely-drinkable plonk, the next…”
“Bigs, I really need to get going.”
“Ross, wait,” squealed, allowing a single tear to roll down my cheek. “You haven’t, by chance, seen a world-weary traveller, have you? An unshaven mess of a man, wrapped head to toe in rags of the poorest quality, bathed in the odour of prawns, vulgar white wine and desperation.”
“Bigs, take another look at the Big Marlin. You might find what you’re looking for.”
We contemplate eternity beneath the vast indifference of heaven
As my new friend Ross sauntered off to deal with other business, I cast my gaze one more upon the gilled wonder. His elongated beak and resplendent fins demanded attention, but there was something more.
Within the sheen of his bulbous belly I saw the haunted eyes and unkempt appearance of the man I had been seeking for so many years. I had, without realising it, become the hobo. My seemingly endless search was over.
After bidding adieu to the marvellous Big Marlin, I dragged my bones away to sit once more by Australia’s rugged east coast, look out upon the brine, and ponder the meaning of it all beneath a weary canopy of eternal stars.
