Many LOLS…
It’s a hot Tuesday in August.
Three bare-chested men stand around an old green council park
bench overlooking The Point. The bench has half its seat missing
and ‘LOCALS ONLY’ carved in all caps across the front.
A weak windswell ambles down the headland under the mid-morning
sun. But the men, all in boardies or with wetties hanging around
their waists, are paying no mind to the waves.
“…and that’s why I’ll never do a job while there’s a tiler on
site,” No Nose, a tall kneeboarder with deep brown skin and hair
like Iggy Pop, is saying. “They’re all fucken queer
cunts.”
The other two, both short and bald, nod in firm agreement as a
lone seagull zips between their feet and under the shade of the
bench.
The faint threat of an onshore hasn’t yet upset the morning
glass and the pale blue sea stretches up and into the sky in one
continuous fade. A couple of learners loll on the inside on their
bright red soft-tops, more impressed with their postcard vista than
the barely breaking surf.
No Nose turns to reach for his board, ready to call it a
morning.
Just another day on The Point.
Then, like a cloud across the sun, Marco appears.
Marco’s barely five foot tall, an impish build with sporadic
facial hair and narrow, sad eyes. He could be fourteen, he could be
forty. Nobody’s quite sure. Indeterminate stains blot his faded
Pennywise tee and the loose cargo shorts that hang from his round
hips.
He stands just behind the group. Materialising from some unknown
corner. Close enough to be in their space but not quite close
enough to initiate conversation. Not that it stops him.
“Check out all of these bloody blow-ins, where do they come
from?” he drones, motioning to the near empty line-up.
“Yeah, I’m not too sure, Marco,” replies No Nose.
The seagull edges out from under the bench towards Marco and he
kicks at it with a dirty bare foot. It lets out a squawk and jumps
up and onto the half seat, so that it obscures the ‘LY’ in ‘LOCALS
ONLY.’
“Out there, Marco?” No Nose asks.
“Me? No way. My board’s getting repaired, plus I wouldn’t bother
with this garbage.”
He spits out his words like he can actually taste them in his
mouth.
Gaaarbage.
An awkward silence. The group, four of them now, turn in unison
to watch the surf.
“I’m thinking of going up to Angourie next week,” says Marco
finally. “It’s a classic curling right, that wave, like you see in
the books. I think my surfing’s suited to it.”
He picks at his fingernails, kicks the dirt some more. Then he
looks No Nose in the eye.
“You know, my economy of movement.”
“Oh yeah, right… Angourie,” says No Nose, struggling to keep up
with Marco’s staccato rhythm.
None of them have ever actually seen Marco in the water.
“You surfed it before?
Marco looks to the ground, at his dirty feet, then back out to
the line-up.
He shakes his head.
“I don’t think these banks like the low-tide anyway. So I
wouldn’t even bother surfing until high.”
No Nose shoots a confused sideways glance to the short
baldies.
“What time’s high?” one of them offers.
Marco stares at the baldy as if he’s speaking Cantonese. The
onshore is picking up now, carrying with it the smell of seaweed
from the exposed rocks lining The Point.
“Look at these bloody blow-ins. I really don’t know where they
all come from,” says Marco again, even though the learners are
making their way in over the inside shelf.
“It’s enough to make you want to pick up and leave this shithole
altogether.”
“Like, to Angourie, you mean?” asks the second baldy.
Marco shakes his head again.
“Why would I want to move to Angourie?”
More silence.
Baldy #1 attempts to help his mate.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to…”
No Nose cuts him short with a silent glare. Some roads just
aren’t meant to be travelled down.
Out on The Point, the northerly is ripping through the line up
now like a wildfire.
It’s going to be a long summer.
Marco walks off, still shaking his head and muttering under his
breath.
The seagull shifts its position on the seat again so it reads
‘LO–LS ONLY’ and the three men pick up their boards, ready to go
home.
