Fishing for Boots
Perhaps if I had something better to do, I would have never walked down the wooden promenade and peered into the sea.
There are some images in my mind that come floating into focus every now and again. Moved around a fair amount during the last six years has only made those same images start to take on some sort of mysticism. This story is inspired by one such memory.
There’s a spot at the end of every pier where rods point out to sea and lines dangle below. It looks like a pleasant way to pass a few hours on a summer’s evening or at the break of dawn in spring. But the romance washes away under thrashing rain or glacial gusts. I’ve always wondered why the same rods point out to sea, day after day. Presumably held by the same bronze hands and watched by the same practised eyes. Surely, fishing, even at the end of a pier with all its creature comforts, is a fair-weather activity. It falls into the same category as golf or bird watching. You might dabble every other month, maybe a few times a week in peak season, but hardly anyone is golfing or watching every day, are they?
Thoughts like that tend to be the ones that stick in my head the most, especially when life gets busy and the hours start to shrink. They are useless and consider them long enough, and you'll realise they are stupid too. I’ve never been able to eat mushrooms. They have always felt too slimy, and I’ve never been able to shake my stupid questions about the fishermen at the end of the pier. Sometimes, the world feels conspiratorial, turning my head as I drive past or sending me the wrong way in a new place, so inevitably, I'm looking down a pier, wondering what magic might lay at the end of the lines.
Perhaps if I had something better to do, I would have never walked down the wooden promenade and peered into the sea. But idle minds are the route to evil, or whatever so, peer I did. And now I don’t only peer, I’ve become one of those sitting there in the rain, a figure you might look at yourself and ask, why the hell are people doing that?
***
“It’s a nice day for it,” I say, watching the line shimmer in the dawn light. I left for a walk to clear my head, but after fifteen minutes, I started to wonder again. I took a left instead of my usual right. That part of the high street is covered with an ugly roof made of steel and frosted grass. This morning, every other doorway is occupied. A stale smell lingers under the glass before the sun has fully risen.
“Sure is,” the fisherman says, fiddling with something on his lap.
“Mind if I stay and watch?” I say and take a deep breath of sea air.
“Sure, as long as you’re quiet. The fish hate too much noise,” he says, casting his line.
“Can they hear us up here?”
“I’m not sure they hear, but the vibrations do something to them.”
“Oh, okay,” I say and zip my lips.
This particular fisherman is younger than most, not that I’ve ever carried out a census on pier fishermen and women. But I’ve always assumed it’s for the retired. This man, though, can’t be that. He has a youthful style, white spotless trainers, a black oversized hoodie and grey tracksuit trousers. But his skin looks like it’s heading for retirement. It’s leathery, burnt, and freckled. There’s a smell of dampness and fish in the air, but it’s not even close to the terror under the roof. A box sits at his side like a cubist dog, loyally waiting for a command. It’s been comfortably co-opted for his toolbox. Bait, lures, hooks, lines, and lots of other odd bits that I still can’t name wait patiently for their next appearance. Under the layers earmarked for fishing, his lunch is wrapped in tin foil next to a flask of whiskey-laced coffee. He says it’s coffee, but his breath tells me something different.
The sun’s rising behind us, burning away the fog separating the wooden boards we're standing on and the bottom of the metal stilts. Then the line goes stiff, and his rod arches.
“You must be lucky,” he says and takes a step back as he winds the reel.
“Me?” I say, watching the business end from the edge of the rail.
“We normally wait more than an hour to get anything... This feels big,” he says, letting the line run out a little. “See anything?”
“No, but I don't know what to look for,” I say.
“It’s big,” the fisherman to our left whispers as loud as I’ve heard someone whisper.
“You can stay,” the reeler says, and I smile at the water, still watching the line.
It takes ten minutes of reeling and letting go before I see splashes in the waves. It's as if both fisherman and fish are entwined in a dance. Back and forth they go until the line goes limp, and the rod returns to its usual salute.
“Almost,” the whispering fisherman says.
“Damn it, that could have been the best yet,” the other says, mimicking an accent I don’t recognise. Then he looks at me for the first time. “I think it might have been a shark."
“You can catch sharks?” I ask
“You can catch anything with the right stuff,” he says, nodding at his box filled with weird and wonderful mouth-puncturing apparatus.
“None of that looks sturdy enough for a shark.”
“They ain’t all as big as the ones on TV. But even the babies know how to put up a fight. Want a go?” He asks, reeling in the hookless line.
“Sure,” I say. I have no place to be.
I should have listened to him when he told me it takes him more than an hour or two to catch anything. It took me four, although I wasn’t in control for the duration, so I’ll only accept a minor majority of the blame.
“Here we go,” he says, bursting into action. “Quick.”
The four-hour delay came in handy since I had the time to learn how to react. But it’s all theoretical until you feel something tugging at your line, not to mention the small crowd watching, one of the perks of fishing on the pier.
“And let go,” he says, bent over the bannister at a right angle. “Reel!”
“Is it a shark?”
“Keep reeling,” he says, and I can hear excitement in his voice. I’m reeling like a maniac, but it feels like the line is a million feet long.
“Is it still on?”
“Keep reeling,” I reel a little more, “ta-dah!’ he sings, framing my catch with his arms. It’s a black boot, probably a few years old, and it’s getting lighter by the second as water escapes its leathery cage and dives back into the sea. A line of seaweed hangs on the front where the tongue used to be.
“Nice one, mate,” a kid behind me says sarcastically.
“Thanks,” I reply, but he’s gone.
“Don’t worry, mate. This is the best thing you can catch your first time,” the fisherman says.
“Why’s that?”
“It’s good luck, everyone knows that.”
“He’s right,” the whisper says quite normally.
I leave the pier after a couple more hours. The sun’s hiding in some clouds, and rain is starting to fall in a mist on my way. We swapped names before I called it a day and laughed about why we hadn’t done it earlier.
“You don’t need to know a man’s name to finger him out,” the whisper said. His name is George, and the other is Mo.
“What time do you come?” I asked them both, watching Mo’s line again.
“We’re here most of the time,” George said, and I nodded in acknowledgement. I walked back the same way I’d arrived. The doorways were clear, and the smell that had lingered in the morning was covered up with sausage rolls, beer and fishmongers. An improvement for sure, but barely.
I stopped by the market, went home, cooked, ate, Googled how to fish, watched something mindless on the TV, and then went to bed thinking about that boot.
I went back to the pier in the morning. This time earlier because I’d read the best times to fish were in the morning and dusk. I wanted to capitalise on my lucky first catch. The roofed street was occupied again when I passed through it. This time I counted one less occupant. Five in total and a dog. The same smell lingered, though, and I all but ran through that little stretch of sleeping shops. When I locked my door, I thought I might even beat George and Mo to the punch. I was picturing their faces when they turned up to see me waiting. But by the time I stepped out of that stink, I could see the same silhouettes at the end of the pier.
“Someone’s keen,” Mo said as I reached them.
“I thought I’d come early and try for another boot.”
“Ha, I like to see it," George whispers. “The last time someone caught boots back-to-back, I had hair.”
“You don’t have hair?” I asked, a little shocked.
“Sneaky, hey,” He says, lifting his camouflage cap.
“Very,” Mo says as if he despises the trick. “Here, take this one,” he says. “Cast now while you’re feeling lucky.” My cast lands a few metres from George’s. He smiles.
“Come closer if you want, I need some help.”
The wait was as long as the day before, if not a little longer. Behind us, the pier was coming to life, and people peered over the edge for a view of our inactive lines. I noticed that these were a particular type of people. It’s not other fishermen who want a look. It's always grandma’s, teenagers and other idlers. They're all people who don't mind losing an hour if the day requires it or individuals who still haven't learnt the lessons time teaches.
“Caught anything today,” a man with a cane asks.
“Not yet, but I caught a boot yesterday,” I replied. He laughed, coughed, and then waved goodbye as his wife handed him a bottle of water. The teenagers are less chatty, at least with us. They whisper behind their hands and move their eyes the instant you catch their gaze. At the seven-hour mark on that second day, George started telling me stories about his tours. It was then that I wondered whether or not either of them caught anything. Or are they here to talk and pretend? Sure, I hadn't been with them for long, but even six or seven hours felt like a long time without a catch. And come to think of it, the only bite they got was Mo’s shark on the first day. So, as the sun descended into our eyes and the pier was singing with carnival games, I asked.
“How much have you caught this week?”
“Your boot,” Mo said.
“I mean, how much have you caught combined this week.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re asking. The answer is the same.”
“This isn’t the type of spot you catch much from,” George says and casts his line. Whoosh, I hear as it flies through the pink sky.
“Wait, you’ve got something,” Mo said. And I ran to my pole. It felt easier and lighter, and my reeling was smoother.
“You’re not going to believe it,” Mo said.
“It’s not a…”
“It’s another bloody boot.”
“Wow, you’re our lucky charm,” George said. The boot was different from the first, newer and maybe even stylish. It looked like it might have been thrown in the sea during the night. Maybe someone lost a bet.
“Go again,” Mo said as I placed the new boot beside his toolbox. “Maybe, you’ll get a pair.”
I did go again and once more after that. But I left when the sun was a sliver on the horizon without completing my pair. And I have done it ever since. The boot's beside me now, a few weeks on from that day. I like to look at it and imagine who has worn it, who brought it and why? It’s a Chelsea boot, matte black with white thread detailing the stitching line. Typically fashionable, especially with the posher members of our community. I wonder where the other half of the pair is now? And if anyone has noticed the absence? But most of all, I still find myself wondering why George and Mo sit at the end of the pier from dawn to dusk, Monday to Friday? And what life do they lead that allows them to do it? Idle time is the devil's plaything, or however that saying goes. But are they in a demonic trance, wasting their lives hour by hour, casting into a sea that can only offer boots. Or are they fighting idle time with every fibre of their being, never allowing themselves to stop, always preparing the next lure, Always imagining the impossible? I guess, sooner or later I'll find out.
Love, Luke