The winter of Frankie Machine

2

Ocean Beach Pier is the biggest pier in California.

A big capitalT of concrete and steel jutting out into the Pacific Ocean, its central stem running for over sixteen hundred feet before its crosspiece branches out to the north and south an almost equal distance. If you decide to walk the entire pier, you’re looking at a jaunt of about a mile and a half.

Frank’s bait shop, O.B. Bait and Tackle, sits about two-thirds of the way up the stem on the north side, just far enough from the Ocean Beach Pier Cafe so that the smell from the bait shop doesn’t bother the diners and the dining tourists don’t bother Frank’s regular fishermen.

Actually, a lot of his customers also hit the OBP Cafe on a regular basis for its eggsmachaca and lobster omelette. So does Frank, for that matter, a good lobster omelette (okay, any lobster omelette) being a difficult thing to come by. So if there’s one right next door, you tend to take advantage of it.

But not at 4:15 in the morning, even though the OBP Cafe is open 24/7. Frank just polishes off his sandwich, parks his van, and walks out to his shop. He could drive out there-he has a pass-but unless he has some equipment or something to bring in, he likes to walk. The ocean at this time of the day is spectacular, especially in winter. The water is a cold slate gray, heavy this morning with the ominous swell of an approaching storm. It’s like a pregnant woman this time of year, Frank thinks-full, temperamental, impatient. The waves are already slapping against the concrete support pillars, making little explosions of white water burst into the air below the pier.

Frank likes to think about the long journey that the waves make, starting near Japan and then rolling all the way across thousands of miles of the North Pacific just to break against the pier.

The surfers will be out in force. Not the spongers, the wannabes, or the kooks-they will and should stay onshore and watch. But the real guys, the gunners, will be out for these swells. Big waves, thunder-crushers, that will crash all along the old spots and breaks, which read like a litany in a surfers’ church service: Boil, Rockslide, Lescums, Out Ta Sites, Bird Shit, Osprey, Pesky’s. Both sides of the OB Pier-south side, north side-then up along the coast-Gage, Avalanche, and Stubs.

Frank gets a kick just reciting the names in his head.

He knows them all-they’re sacred places in his life. And those are just the breaks around OB-go farther up the San Diego coast and the litany continues, from north to south: Big Rock, Windansea, Rockpile, Hospital Point, Boomer Beach, Black’s Beach, Seaside Reef, Suckouts, Swami’s, D Street, Tamarack, and Carlsbad.

These names have magic for a local surfer. They’re more than just names-each place holds memories. Frank grew up at these spots, back in the golden sixties, when the San Diego coast was paradise, uncrowded, undeveloped, when there weren’t a lot of surfers and you knew practically every guy who went out.

Thosewere the endless summers.

Each day seemed to last forever, Frank thinks as he watches a wave roll in and smack the pier. You’d get up before dawn, just like now, and work hard all day on the old man’s tuna boat. But you’d get back by the middle of the afternoon; then it was off to meet your buddies at the beach. You’d surf until dark, laughing and talking shit out there in the lineup, goofing on one another, showing off for the bunnies watching you from the beach. Those were the longboard days, plenty of time and plenty of space. Days of “hanging ten” and “ho-dadding” and those fat Dick Dale guitar riffs and Beach Boys songs, and they were singing aboutyou, they were singing aboutyour life, your sweet summer days on the beach.

You’d always stop and watch the sunset together. You and your buddies and the girls had that ritual, a common acknowledgment of-what, wonder? A few quiet, respectful moments watching the sun sink over the horizon, the water glowing orange, pink, and red, and you’d think to yourself howlucky you were. Even as a kid, you knew you were just damn lucky to be in that place at that time, and you were just wise enough to know that you’d better enjoy it.

Then the last sliver of red sun would slide over the edge, and you’d all gather firewood and build a bonfire and cook fish or hot dogs or hamburgers or whatever you could scare up, and you’d eat and sit around the fire and someone would pull out a guitar and sing “Sloop John B” or “Barbara Ann” or some old folk song, and later, if you were lucky, you’d slip away from the firelight with a blanket and one of the girls and you’d make out, and the girl smelled of salt water and suntan lotion, and maybe she’d let you slide your hand under her bikini top, and there was nothing like that feeling. And you might lie with her all night on that blanket, and then wake up and hustle down to the docks just in time to catch the boat and get to work and then do the whole thing all over again.

But you could do that in those days-get a couple hours of sleep, work all day, surf all afternoon, play all night and shake it off. Can’t do that anymore-now you put in a short night and youache the next morning.

But those were the golden days, Frank thinks, and suddenly he feels sad. Nostalgia, isn’t that what they call it? he thinks as he shakes himself from his reverie and walks toward the bait shack, remembering summer on a cold, wet winter day.

We thought those summers would never end.

Never thought we’d ever feel the cold in our bones.

Two minutes after he opens, the fishermen start coming in.

Frank knows most of them-they’re his OBP regulars-especially on a weekday, when the weekend fishermen have to go to work. So on a Tuesday morning, he gets his retired guys, the sixty-five-and-ups, who have nothing better to do with their time than to stand on the dock in the cold and wet and try to catch a fish. Then, more and more over the years, you have your Asians-mostly Vietnamese, along with some Chinese and Malaysians-middle-aged guys for whom thisis work. This is how they put food on the table, and they always still seem amazed that they can do this pretty much for free, buy a fishing license and some bait and throw a line into the ocean and feed their families from the bounty of the sea.

But hell, Frank thinks, isn’t this what immigrants have always done here? He’s read articles about how the Chinese had a fleet of fishing junks down here way back in the 1850s, until the immigration laws shut them down. And then my own grandfather and the rest of the Italian immigrants started the tuna fleet, and dived for abalone. And now the Asians are doing it again, feeding their families from the sea.

So you got the retirees, and the Asians, and then you got the young blue-collar white guys, mostly utility workers coming off night shifts, who consider the pier their ancestral turf and resent the Asian “newcomers” for taking “their spots.” About half these guys don’t fish with poles at all, but with crossbows.

They’re not fishermen, Frank thinks; they’re hunters, waiting until they see a flash in the water and shooting one of their bolts, which are attached to long cords so they can pull the fish up. And every once in a while they shoot a little too close to a surfer coming in by the pier, and there have been a few fights over this, so there’s some tension between the surfers and the crossbow guys.

Frank doesn’t like tension on his pier.

Fishing and surfing and the water should be about fun, not tension. It’s a big ocean, boys, and there’s plenty for everybody.

That’s Frank’s philosophy, and he shares it freely.

Everyone loves Frank the Bait Guy.

The regulars love him because he always knows what fish are running and what they’re hitting on, and he’ll never sell you bait that he knows won’t work. The casual fishermen love him for the same reason, and because, if you bring your kid on a Saturday, you know that Frank is going to hook him up right, and find him a spot where he’s most likely to catch something, even if he has to nudge a regular aside for a little while to get it done. The tourists love Frank because he always has a smile, and a funny saying, and a compliment for the women that’s a little flirtatious but never a come-on.

That’s Frank the Bait Guy, who decorates his shack every Christmas like it’s Rockefeller Center, who dresses up at Halloween and gives out candy to anyone who comes by, who holds an annual Children’s Fishing Contest and gives prizes to every kid who enters.

The locals love him because he sponsors a Little League team, pays for uniforms for a local kids’ soccer team, even though he hates soccer and never attends a game, buys an ad in the program for every high school drama production, and paid for the basketball hoops at the local park.

This morning, he gets the bait for his early customers, and then there’s the usual lull, so he can relax and watch the surfers who are already out on the Dawn Patrol. These are the young, hard chargers, getting in a session before they have to go to work. A few years ago, that would have been me, he thinks with a slight pang of jealousy. Then he laughs at himself. A few years? Get real. These kids with their short-boards and their cutback maneuvers. Christ, even if you could do one of those, you’d probably just throw your back out and be in bed for a week. You’re twenty years out from being able to compete with those kids-you’d just get in their way, and you know it.

So he sits and does his crossword puzzle, another gift from Herbie, who had turned him on to the puzzles. Herbie Goldstein has been on his mind a lot these days, particularly this morning.

Maybe it’s the storm, he thinks. Storms bring up memories like they drop driftwood on the beach. Things you think are lost forever, and then, suddenly, there they are-faded, worn, but back again.

So he sits and works the puzzles, thinks about Herbie, and waits for the Gentlemen’s Hour.

The Gentlemen’s Hour is an institution on every California surf spot. It starts around 8:30 or 9:00, when the young guns have hustled off to their day jobs, leaving the water to guys with more flexible schedules. So the lineup consists of your doctors, your lawyers, your real estate investors, your federal worker early buyouts, some retired schoolteachers-in short, gentlemen.

It’s an older crowd, obviously, mostly with longboards and straight-ahead riding styles, more leisurely, less competitive, a lot more polite. No one’s in a particular hurry, no one drops in on anybody else’s wave, and no one worries if he doesn’t get a ride. Everyone knows that the waves will be there tomorrow and the next day and the next. Truth be known, a lot of the session consists of sitting out on the lineup, or even standing on the beach, swapping lies about gigantic waves and ferocious wipeouts, and talking stories about the good old days, which get better with each passing rendition.

Let the kids call it “the Geriatric Hour”-what do they know?

Life’s like a fat orange, Frank thinks. When you’re young, you squeeze it hard and fast, trying to get all the juice in a hurry. When you’re older, you squeeze it slowly, savoring every drop. Because, one, you don’t know how many drops you have left, and, two, the last drops are the sweetest.

He’s thinking this when a fracas breaks out across the pier.

Oh, this is going to make a good story for the Gentlemen’s Hour, Frank thinks when he gets over there and sees what’s what. This is rich-Crossbow Guy and Vietnamese Guy have caught the same fish and are about to come to blows over who caught it first, whether Crossbow Guy shot it while it was on Vietnamese Guy’s hook, or Vietnamese Guy hooked it when it was on Crossbow Guy’s arrow.

The poor fish is hanging in the air at the apex of this unlikely triangle, while each guy plays tug-of-war with their lines, and one look at it tells Frank that Vietnamese Guy is in the right because his hook is in the fish’s mouth. Frank somehow doubts that the fish got shot clean through the body with an arrow andthen decided it was hungry for a nice minnow.

But Crossbow Guy gives a hard yank and pulls the fish in.

Vietnamese Guy starts yelling at him, and a crowd gathers, and Crossbow Guy looks like he’s going to pound Vietnamese Guy into the pier, which he could easily do because he’s big, bigger even than Frank.

Frank steps through the crowd and stands between the two arguing men.

“It’s his fish,” Frank says to Crossbow Guy.

“Who the hell areyou?”

It’s an amazingly ignorant question. He’s Frank the Bait Guy, and anyone who frequents OBP knows it. Any regular would also know that Frank the Bait Guy is one of the pier’s sheriffs.

See, every water spot-beach, pier, or wave-has a few “sheriffs,” guys who, by virtue of seniority and respect, keep order and settle disputes. On the beach, it’s usually a lifeguard-a senior guy who’s a lifesaving legend. Out on the lineup, it’s one or two guys who’ve been riding that break forever.

On Ocean Beach Pier, it’s Frank.

You don’t argue with a sheriff. You can present your case, you can express your grievance, but you don’t argue with his ruling. And you sure as hell don’t ask who he is, because you should know. Not knowing who the sheriff is automatically labels you as an outsider, whose ignorance probably put you in the wrong in the first place.

And Crossbow Guy has East County written all over him, from the down vest, to theKEEP ON TRUCKIN ’ ball cap, to the mullet underneath it. Frank’s guessing he’s from El Cajon, and it always amuses him how guys who live forty miles from the ocean can get territorial about it.

So Frank doesn’t even bother to answer the question.

“It’s obvious he hooked it first and you shot it while he was reeling it in,” Frank says.

Which is what Vietnamese Guy is saying fast, loudly, continuously, and in Vietnamese, so Frank turns to him and asks him to chill out. He has to respect the guy for not backing down even though he’s giving away a foot of height and a bill and a half in weight. Of course he won’t back down, Frank thinks; he’s trying to feed his family.

Then Frank turns back to Crossbow Guy. “Just give him his fish. There’s a lot more in the ocean.”

Crossbow Guy isn’t having it. He glares down at Frank, and one look at his eyes tells Frank that the guy is a tweeker. Great, Frank thinks, a head full of crystal meth will make him alot easier to deal with.

“These fucking gooks are takingall the fish,” Crossbow Guy says, reloading the crossbow.

Now Vietnamese Guy may not speak a lot of English, but from the look in his eye, he knows the wordgook. Probably heard it a lot, Frank thinks, embarrassed.

“Hey, East County,” Frank says. “We don’t talk that way here.”

Crossbow Guy starts to argue and then he stops.

Just stops.

He might be a moron, but he isn’t blind, and he sees something in Frank’s eyes that just makes him shut his mouth.

Frank looks square into Crossbow Guy’s methed-up eyes and says, “I don’t want to see you on my pier again. Find a different place to fish.”

Crossbow Guy’s in no mood to argue anymore. He takes his fish and starts the long walk back down the pier.

Frank goes back to the bait shack to change into his wet suit.