Mordialloc Pier by Matthew Lee

Sometimes I go to Mordialloc pier to watch people fish. I never fish myself. I hate the smell and getting my fingers sticky with bait and having to watch behind you to make sure you don’t snag anyone with the hook and permanently blind them. But I like watching. Interesting things happen when you watch for long enough. Nothing of the adventurous kind. Just odd, amusing things squeezed between stretches of monotony. I am then assured that my life will, at the very least, be filled with amusing details if I care to look. I don’t hope for adventure anymore. The feeling I get when I return home from one is dreadful. I’d like no more of them.

Near the pier are jetties made of large, uncaring rocks with huge gaps you have to jump across. You wouldn’t want to walk across the jetties while drunk or at night. But people do. People like standing at the edge of a jetty in the middle of the night. Some cry. Some scream. Some dance. I have seen all this myself, from the foot of the jetty.

Something I learned is that when you haul a fish onto the jetty, the fish might fall off the hook and through the gaps in between those rocks. Then they are lost forever. The fisherman laughs and says, you win some, you lose some, and ties another bait. That fish becomes food for the mice that live in between the rocks. Sometimes they come out at night and steal your bait. They are not scared of you, even when you stomp at them. Of course, you’ll never hit them. They are too quick.

People usually fish from these jetties, not the pier. The pier is too crowded. One summer day I am out at the pier and a bunch of white boys are diving from the edge. They land with a splash, a moment passes, then they break the water, wipe the water off their face, wade for a while, then swim back to the pier. They do this again and again, for hours at a time. Sometimes they shout things when they jump. Most of the time it’s nonsense. Sometimes it’s a girl’s name. Other times it’s a racial slur. To them this shouting is very important.

I look down at the water. There are jellyfish everywhere. They are small and orange and rather slow. To the boys this is all the more reason to jump. They see the jellyfish and look at each other and go ‘Yeah? Yeah?’. Then they have to jump. Those are the rules. After they jump they have to swim as quickly as possible back to the pier without making it obvious that they are swimming as quickly as possible. It’s a sport with difficult rules, but I’m an avid fan and have been watching for a long time, so I know the rules inside out. There are three white girls a little distance away. They are dressed exactly the same, except for the fact that their crop tops are of three different pastel colours. They are pushing each other around. From what I can read of the situation, two of them want the third to talk to a boy. The third is very upset. Boys are an upsetting subject matter. I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t like that boy or because she does. It seems to me that the two other girls definitely like the boy.

But when girls are interested in boys they refuse to talk to them. When boys are interested in girls they jump off the pier into jellyfish-infested waters with the loudest shouter they can muster. This is not the most efficient way to start love. But those are the rules.

The back and forth between the three girls continues for a while. Then the third girl (or at least I think it is, I lost track of who was who long ago) turns angrily and leaves. When I look back the two other girls have disappeared. The game is over.

Now some of the white boys are swimming to a buoy some distance away from the pier. They reach it and climb onto it. Only a few can hang onto the buoy at a time. It’s a fierce battle. The losers become food for the jellyfish.

Now two police officers drive down the pier in a golf buggy. One man, one woman. There is an elderly fisherman there, a little closer to the foot of the pier, away from the white boys. The officers stop for a moment beside this fisherman.

Caught anything? The male officer asks. That’s what they always ask.

Not yet, replies the fisherman.

Then, of course, they ask, what are you hoping for?

Just anything, really, is the reply. Anything you can eat?

Anything I can eat. My husband tells me that stingrays come around here, says the male officer. Anything except those, replies the fisherman. Jack says that there’s a big one that comes just there sometimes. Picked the wrong spot then. They all laugh.

The golf buggy starts up again and the fisherman turns to face his rods. He has bells attached to them so that when something catches, he can hear the ring. Other fishermen prefer to feel the tug with their hands. Still others are better with their eyes trained on their line. But today none of their philosophies seem to yield any fish. There are too many white boys at the pier. The police golf buggy drives towards these boys. I wonder how they will turn around at the end of the pier. The male officer points at something on the ground. The female officer looks. I notice that the number plate says POLICE. The golf buggy then disappears into the crowd of white boys.

A while later, they emerge from the white boys. Most of the white boys give way but some of them don’t, and the buggy does not have a horn. They have to poke their head out of the small frame of the buggy and tell them to move aside. Eventually they all do.

Because my view was obscured by the white boys I couldn’t see how the buggy turned around. Now I wonder what would have happened if the police buggy accidentally ran over the foot of one of the white boys. There would be hollering and oh my god we are so sorries. Or, what if the white boys all got together and pushed the golf buggy off the pier? The officers would be unharmed (I have the feeling that their vests must be buoyant), but the golf buggy would be destroyed. The boys could run and the officers would never catch them. The idea would sound crazy and bold and appealing to the white boys. But how would they feel as they see the golf buggy sink into the waves, the jellyfish floating lazily around it? They would have to laugh to justify their deed. I have a feeling that it would be the same laugh that the fishermen laugh when the fish fall in between the cracks of the rocks and are lost to the mice below. It is a laugh that trails into solemness. The pier allows this solemness. It carries that moment in the salty breeze and the gentle waves and the spiky projections of that moment are bevelled so that they can fit neatly into our dull lives.

I’m having silly thoughts. It’s time to go home.

When I get home it is dark. Mother does not look at me when I enter. She is clipping her toenails, hunched over, her legs bent into a strange shape. Father is smoking. Caught anything today? he asks. No, I say. Pity, he says. I tell him that I saw the police going down the pier in a golf buggy. For a moment I consider telling him that the white boys got together and pushed the golf buggy off the pier. I consider telling him about the way fishermen watch their rods. It’s the same way I watch the little mice emerge from the rocks at night. I consider telling him all this. But I don’t. The reason why I don’t is the same reason why, having reeled their rod in and finding the bait gone, a fisherman decides not to bait it again and turns to head home. Instead, I tell him that the number plate of the police buggy was POLICE. Father laughs. Then the laugh dies into solemness. He looks at my mother. I look at her too. She looks at neither of us. She is still clipping her toenails, but she is almost done.

Matthew Lee

Image – Mordialloc-Pier-View-From-Water – Google images