An interview with a bigot
I didn’t pay much notice to the two guys kicking around the soccer ball in the carpark, I was much more interested in seeing what the surf was like. It was still early, maybe 6am, and there weren’t many people around so it was nice and quiet. My peaceful solitude was suddenly broken.
“Mate”
I got up from my squatting position on the edge of the cliff and spun around, and saw him walking toward me.
“Ow’s it goin’ mate?” he asked as he got my attention, “You goin’ out?”
I told him “yeah maybe”, as he called his mate over. He didn’t even know my name, but he’d recognised me. I’d surfed with him a few times… he’s a pretty good surfer… and maybe even lent him a block of wax in a carpark sometime last year. I recognised him as a member of a club that has a reputation in tinytown - the most aggro and territorial you’ll find anywhere. I keep the peace with these guys because it makes my life easier, not because any of them are my friends. They can make things very hard for anyone they take a disliking to.
As he gets close I can smell the alcohol on his breath, and I can’t tell if it’s from last night or this morning. His speech is slightly slurred, but he’s not paralytic. He starts talking, and tells me how he hasn’t surfed for 3 months - and instantly I can tell it’s going to be one of those one way conversations with a drunk guy who has just decided your his bestest buddy.
“Yeah… on fucken workcover mate. Dropped a load of steel on me foot ay.”
He takes off his single plugger and lifts up his foot, hopping on the other to keep his balance. I’m suprised how stable he remains.
“Look at this mate. Have a look…. it’s fucked ay? Had surgery twice now, gotta have more in a week. Can’t even go in the water”.
His foot looks pretty mangled… and I can tell it’s a medical work in progress. At this point I am geniuinely sorry for the guy. Seperating a surfer from the surf is about the worst thing you can do do them. It’s like any other addiction - removal of the drug of choice quickly leads to withdrawl and depression. I don’t know how I’d cope.
“Shit” I offer, “that’s nasty”.
“Yeah… fucken oath mate. It’s comin’ good though ay. Gotta be careful though - those private dicks from Workcover follow ya with video cameras and film ya. I shouldn’t even be kickin’ a ball around ay? Fucken bullshit mate”.
“Mmmm” I say.
I then get a blow by blow account of exactly how it happened, and what the doctor said and how “they don’t know shit” and so on, and I stand and nod politely while empty waves reel off behind me. Then suddenly he notices the cut on my forehead.
“What’dja do there mate?” he asks, pointing.
I explain that I copped a board in the face a few weeks ago, and the healing process isn’t as quick as I’d like.
“Shit… thought you’d been in a fight or something” he explains. He then goes on to detail the last fight he was in, and how he is always getting into fights. He rattles off a list of pubs abd clubs he is banned from “because sometimes I just fucken nut people, ay?” with a sense of genuine pride. And I for one am not about to tell him how much he sounds to me like a violent thug with serious anger management and alcohol issues.
Now the bullshit is starting to flow, and he moves on to how he’s “punched out a six foot bronzey that tried to bite me leg”, and how him and his mate regularly paddle out on their boards into the middle of large schools of salmon carrying bait. The bravado is moderately amusing and remeniscent of someone like Steve Irwin - and I take it with a pinch of salt. He talks about his dad and how he’s such a “waterman” and hard nut, and how he’s from a long line of hard nuts. To my surprise, he talks about marine conservation, and how him and his dad see themselves as defenders and protectors of a valuable resource. For a brief few moments, I am impressed. Then it begins.
“But those fucken Asians”, he suddenly pipes up, his eyes narrowing.
“They fucken come down here and take everything. Fucken undersize Abalone, shellfish, baby crabs… they just fucken clean out the place”.
I just nod.
“And those fucken Maori pricks too” he continues. “I’ve caught ‘em down at ( Southern beach ) with fucken bags of undresize Gar, and you know what I do?” he asks, rhetorically.
I shake my head.
“I fucken smash up their cars and windows and shit ay, and call… call… … call the fucken fisheries inspectors, and they come down and I say ha ha look for the smashed up cars that’s where the c***s are”
And he’s tapping me in the bicep with the back of his hand as he’s telling me, and grinning like a junkyard doberman, as if he just knows I would approve and think he was such a champion.
“fucken Asians” he goes on. “I fucken hate them. I see ‘em and I fucken tell em to fuck off ay?”
By this stage I am starting to feel like some innocent bystander who has managed to get caught up in a Redneck white pride rally, or a One Nation recruitment meeting. The next thing I expect to hear is “they’re taking over”.
Internally, I groan, and wish this ignorant arsehat would just shut the fuck right up.
My salvation comes in the form of a car pulling into the carpark, driven by someone else he recognises. He waves them over, and seeing my chance of escape I take it.
“Anyway mate, I gotta bail… gonna go and have some brekkie” I explain, gesturing with my thumb in the direction of the road.
“Yeah mate… good idea. You goin’ out for a surf later?” he asks.
I tell him “maybe”, but decide I’d rather not elaborate on precisely where that might be.
I really couldn’t stand having to listen to any more of his ignorant racist diatribe again in the same day.
Make that the same lifetime.
