THE BEACH BUM a
postscript to REEF DIARY
I don’t know why I should have been gathered to write this,
by the massive skies, by the proof of God in that. But I was, with countless hints and sand grains blasting my
skull and nothing to stop me, and this is the result. A disaster of a time, but once one moves from surfer to bum
you get that continually. Just off
on the periphery, beyond even peripheral vision, until it becomes a stalking
presence so clever at concealing itself and up itself that it must surely be
visible to any spy satellite whom cares to observe. I still surf, of course I do. But that’s not cute anymore, at my age, not a valid option. There’s the rub.
Somehow I did it successfully anyway. Bought the postcard, so to speak,
brought home the vial of white sand.
I was the best in the world at it.
Well, the best at below 5 feet waves, or storms. It was too good a dream, too close to
the sky to ignore. The
conservative voices (and oh so whimpered at his fringe body corporate) can be
ignored. Soon every minute is a
wind of some sort, and you get used to it. Until it morphs like a dune cicada into… into … something else. Something none will be able to define.
Leave that to God.
Anyway, I was surfing the other day and saw a seal, small,
probably a female, fully grown, weaving up from the basin shallows to the
channel edge, threading, not waving like a wave like dolphins do or any said
such. To watch it was like
watching a movie in slow motion. A
nature movie of course. A dart, an
arrow, a radical re-entry. Water actually dripped from my head so I knew I
wasn’t dreaming.
It was a highly self-motivated and agile little fellow,
easily the best example of survival and adaptation I’ve ever witnessed. Having fun whilst dead serious. It stayed long enough to notice me, not
a second longer.
I didn’t expect a seal. It was stormy at the Cove and I was on the lookout for
dolphins. There may have been a
big bull shark out there.
The actual dolphins were late this year, but luckily I was
depressed of sorts and so, on the southern reef edge, you know, about to dive,
when up she pops, faster than lightening ( the seal ), you know, no-one in bum
land is short of money or anything.
As far as I know there is no seal on a stamp as yet ( bound to be
dolphins, killer whales, whalesharks, and hunchbacks ) unless it was prompted
by cosmic forces outside my attention.
I’ve decided there should be, even if the seal was likely
Tasmanian. From the far South for
sure. And that would be
interesting to know.
I wish I could write more. That was the highlight. A bull seal got up the Swan River too, but that’s not really
part of any tale.
I saw a car with GREEDY written on it the other day. Then I got almost too drunk to leave
the hotel.
Don’t respect me or anything. You’ll be disappointed. Actually I prefer to write science fiction, but that’s on
hold. This is a blast from the
past slightly overdue. Don’t ask me how that works. I don’t know.
Spies and lies I suspect.
It was a long long time before the sea offered up this
scarce resource. That was no flies
off a bum like me. I had nowhere
else, and the employment office had ignored me, possibly on instruction, since
1979. I find delight in
bottletops. I didn’t need a
seal. Small mercies.
But I got one.
One happened. Real as my
eyes.
I’ve surfed this stretch of coast more than most. Probably the most. Hardly an outline I don’t know, or a
sandbar I don’t expect.
I met an Irish Mermaid. Banked in on a storm and a fat grey dolphin.
She was dead as a bone of course. Invisible to all but the bum. Real as my eyes.
I started to notice things. It was a gift I guess.
Maybe she liked my dancing.
It wasn’t just surfwax and waves and suncream any more. I noticed things like fish, live or dead,
even blowfish. Seashells filled my
paranoid LSD filtered rainbow mind like new sequins, shivering and stammering
seasongs in a winter sun. I
noticed a vast array of broken shells and shellfish, bits of crustaceans,
wrappers from around the world, smoothed beer bottles shards and silver coke
tins….
All this, bits and sparkly, well, its either what the
Mermaid is going to eat, or what’s left behind. Recycling I suppose you’d call it today.
That was a few years ago, as I write this, but many years ago
as I rediscover this. A memory
burned within the brain walls of being something of an involuntary society
experiment. Peace and pleasant
within. Like Superman’s
little ice castle.
Do you know what a Mermaid eats?
Believe me, the Sea is the equivalent of Eden.
It’s not hard to imagine. Periwinkles the size of icecream cones. Wentletraps the size of gargoyles. The
occasional Spanish piece of eight.
Seaslugs the size of Doctor Doolittle’s Snail. Worms like oars.
Green weed salad, red, kelp like a giant’s dream. Sea apples the size of beachballs. I found out all this by studying clam
science. Not abalone or squid of
course, too tough, but in any case what a feast!
Of course, anytime a mermaid eats art is produced at the
post offices and hotels. Sailor’s
knots, ships fair and free like the cold South breeze, giant gianormous
earshells in howling cacophonies of happy bathers, sex, millions of crabs,
reefs of stars and moons high above a cornetto or a bowl of oysters. All these
things appear on the walls around town.
After a mermaid eats by the awy, though I don’t know why,
there rises a thirst in every seaman in a roughly nuclear bomb radius and or
there abouts, though Irish Merchant Men will be tickled by the radiation no
matter where they are . It is a
thirst, almost a bloodthirst, for everything just about, including Rum. I discovered I enjoyed this ‘party
after’, but really didn’t need it.
Luckily there was lots and lots of dancing at all hours and weathers.
Mermaids, as you might, by now, tres well imagie, are full
of secrets. Boy do they like
secrets! If I wasn’t from Venus
myself (four, no, five stars in house, though one is Torus) I’d be mighty mighty
scared. I’m sure all others
are. Sure of it. Terrified
even. But I’m just a beach
bum. Venus keeps no
secrets. What of it?
The ones she shares with bums like me are these:
The sea moves much less after nightfall, because that is the
time of Moons, and there is everything to dance to.
Spirits of the day ride rainbows. Live for them.
Never disappoint. Sure as
your sunburnt nose.
The Irish Mermaid is the original surfer chick. But no one noticed.
Venus noticed.
Sent me.
(This is also a little bit why the sea moves less at night,
though it is just as spacey, and good for swimming, if you have the guts.)
The best seaweed is loosed by storms, only by storms, and
it’s a telepathy thing.
And this time is the time when and where Mermaids and bums
like me find the best restaurants. (Fishing for urchins and bottletops and
trident shells and hammerhead oysters.)
Storms do not make for good surfing. This is when things of the deep feel
brave enough to bight legs.
They will never bight mine. I love storms, in or out of the water. I am not an example to follow in this.
Phew, what a mouthful.
Glad we got that off our chests!!!
There are plenty of secrets we don’t know of course.
Do dolphins really herd their women, like girls at a hotel
entrance?
Do seals swim back and forth from the Poles?
Do mermaids exist at two places at once?
I do not know these things, or if I do you will have to
second-guess me.
Everything Oceanside gets about, or doesn’t, or so it
seems. Tides.
I’ve been surfing so long I sweat wax, my feet do hot dog
bottom turns without thinking, or even looking.
Storms have a colour.
For that you have to look.
Is all.
Just as rain has a distinct smell. In both our worlds.
I’ve seen Tun Shells and Violet Floaties and Plagues of
Starfish and Swarms of Desert Flies Swarm On Rocks On The Seaweed Shore. I’ve seen seadogs and sharks and
stingrays and at least two types of gull, maybe three. I’ve felt Neptune knock me off my feet
on one ride and then put me right again on the next one. I’ve had Venus save me from hundreds of
reef collisions, and saved her back just as many times.
I’ve smelt colour and heard rainbows. I’ve danced on shallow reefs in the
rain and pirouetted on the crests of storm waves whilst currents howled divine
justice beneath. Way beneath. I’ve kissed an Irish Mermaid and had an
all day barney with Neptune, only ending with bloody feet and cut pride. I’ve smuggled bars of sacred peat from
South America to Jamaica. I’ve
carried a traveller’s pack further than the lodges go. I’ve got secrets no one
should have. Whilst Venus
confiscated all mine. I’ve been
stung by Venus and tricked by Venus and had dreams stolen by Venus and then
given back by Venus. I’ve been so
low I saw skulls at the bottom of shipwrecks, and so high and frightened I grew
wings and escaped the Furies. I’ve
had tea with every Nerid in every harbour and weed break that was within my
means to reach. I’ve seen God in
the West Australian Winter Skies and felt ordinary just like everybody else.
Yet there is just one more priceless piece of gossip.
Atlantis, by the way, is down and out and to be found mid
Indian Ocean, just throw a dart at the map. I’ve never been there.
I think the Mermaid has.
Oracle. It will
be found. But not by me.
Around July, 1996
Robert Ellery Phillips
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