WILLIAM

Today I talked to William.

I drive by the sea and decide to stop my car to enjoy the day for a moment and watch the boats leave the harbor. On my left side, I see the Marina del Rey harbor and the buzzing city. On my right side, the opening to the vast ocean. The wind is strong and refreshing. Three crabs are playing on the greenish-brown rocks. They crawl from the sunny to the shady side and follow the comings and goings of the water. Next to me a man with a fishing pole stands still. He is wearing a dark ski jacket. His eyes look tired and he has a cold cigarette butt squeezed between his lips. "Are you a fisherman?" I ask. "Yeah," he answers without looking at me. He sits down on the floor, opens a tin box, and cuts a piece of slimy squid. I sit down cross-legged on the concrete about eight feet from him. Above us a black pelican starts to dive and suddenly changes his mind. The man continues to speak, still watching only his hands. "I bought the squid frozen at Redondo Beach. I walked all the way from there. It took me from last night to this morning to get here." Half of his words get swept away by the wind. You can tell that extended loneliness has made that man gruff. He puts the bait on the hook and stands up. I imitate him. And with a powerful movement, he throws the line in the distance. It creates a long sharp hissing sound. His name is William. He is forty-one years old and was born in Ontario, California.

"What kind of fish do you usually catch?" I ask William. "All kind. Small, big, medium. Look at the bird!" he exclaims. The black pelican dives into the sea with a big splash. "There's fish around here," says William with optimism. The bird comes back to the surface. He holds a silver fish in his bill. We watch the fish move for a while and finally disappear in the bird's throat. I ask William where he lives. "In the street," he says. "I've been living in the street since I was seventeen. And I've been fishing around Redondo Beach since then." - "What happened?" I ask. "Mother. Father. Disaster. It's a long story," he replies. We stay silent for a long moment, staring at the line that doesn't move. A few sailing boats pass by. William throws the line again. He catches fish once in a while "when they are hungry enough to bite." When it happens he sells it to the fish market. This is how he makes his money. In the windy sky above us, the same pelican comes back. "He's gonna dive again, he's gonna dive again, here we go, here we go..." says William in his swaying Afro-American accent. Then he throws the line another time. "You can tell I'm an impatient fisherman, huh?" he asks. And this makes me laugh.

No fish. William decides to go to another spot close to this one. I follow him there. We reach a wooden bridge that opens on a canal bordered with luxurious houses. This place is called the Ballona Lagoon. In the rapid current, hundreds of tiny shiny fish are milling around. William slowly lets his line go down. But the bite is so light that as soon as it touches the stream, it gets carried away. A little further on the bridge, I watch a chubby teenage boy clumsily kiss a girl. She giggles and kisses him back. When I ask William if I could take a picture of him, he refuses right away. "I had my picture taken once and the person reported me to the police." I decide to take a picture of the fishing pole with William's hands on it. I write a few words in my notepad. Suddenly William turns towards me. He looks me straight in the eyes: "Take it." He points at my camera with a grave face. "Show them," he adds. I take a first picture. And a second one. This time, William smiles.