From the files: Beyond Blue dates from the mid-naughts
Late morning the radio omitted the cause of the out-bound crawl, reporting it as traffic info. The police response sat angled, lights flashing and other vehicles clustered round. Before it was realised what was happening the break-down truck must have arrived.
In the pass the central figure was sighted last of all, his posture having him look like a fisherman awaiting his catch. Back turned on all the slowing traffic, the police and lined red stanchions, as if none of that had anything to do with him. Jaw and fleshy jowls in profile; drab clothing, unshaved.
Monday late morning. Jobless. The regular & well-to-do would not choose an option like that; something more private and discrete would be needed for them.
With the short, initial banking of traffic the man could not have been sitting long. One of the other cars, an older model near the police vehicle, must have been his own.
Pics from the passing motorists on that side proved irresistible, especially good vantage from the passenger seat and the 40km benefitting.
Wide sky, the bay and the masts of the yachts down in Williamstown before him. The chap would not have been looking down between his legs at the river the whole while.
Clear, bright and still. To date the Spring had not produced many of those windless days. The wind-socks at the football grounds hung limp; otherwise the man could not have sat so long.
Fishing him outta the slime pinched in the brain. When the bridge collapsed in the ‘70s some survivors had ridden the concrete down 60m.
This was a pool-side kinda aspect too, though a man of that profile would hardly have one of those at home. Standing on the rail the matter would have read differently, the alarm immediately clear; sitting as he did the true import failed to properly register at first.
The police on the roadway were young; before the specialists arrived they needed to cope somehow, keeping off as they did a good decision.
Would a man attempt such a thing in rain, or a squall? Those days the blues were not so bad. Bright, sunny days were the real downers.
The posture, the loose-limbs, suggested the fellow might be talked round. Otherwise, if he missed the piers below there was still some chance. Once a fisherman at the power station had snagged a chap, the papers had reported. Dying of fright a lot of them before they hit, the medical people suggested; like in the trenches in war.
Twenty minutes at least the crawl. The man must have tired; in the time of the crossing there had been some sagging of posture. A good deal of persuasion from the critical response would be needed to allow someone to get close enough. After a half hour’s sit, surely the fellow would not have let himself slide away. Doers didn’t delay like that.
West Gate, Melbourne
NB. Beyond Blue is an Australian support service.
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