Carrot

 

I met carrot man this morning at St Vincent’s Plaza in Victoria Parade. He was busy minding his own business, watching the peak hour traffic hurtle past the Eye and Ear Hospital. It’s the first time I’ve seen him close up. The only other time I’ve seen him is from a distance last summer walking past the Royal Derby Hotel in Brunswick Street towards the Fitzroy Swimming Pool. Sightings of carrot man are an important connection, part of Melbourne existence. You tend to remember. The first thing you notice is the carrot, which sticks out a mile, even when leaning nonchalantly against the plate glass of the tram stop. It is a very vibrant orange with bright green tufts. It’s solid pâpier-maché. Then you notice him, smiling bemusedly at the commuters changing trams, and patients slowly alighting heading towards their doctor’s appointments. As it happens, he was also having a doctor’s appointment today, which is what he said when I asked how he was going. I assured him that colonoscopies were perfectly okay and you don’t know what’s happening at the time. I’ve had one myself, I said, pointing towards St Vincent’s. After being asked, he said his name is Nathan.  Nathan and I agreed that anaesthetics are one of the wonders of modern life, a blessing. He talked about cameras that have been sent in to look at his heart, so obviously he’s looking after himself. I mentioned that he was well-known. Nathan replied, natural as you like, that he’s been viral in China. Not everyone can say they’ve been viral in China. Perhaps this is why he was comfortable about me asking him to have his photograph taken. He gets asked all the time, he said, with a sheepish grin. In all the excitement I overlooked to give Nathan my name, something that probably happens frequently when you’re carrot man. I took his picture. Had he been sitting here long?, I asked, as though this was the most normal thing to ask a total stranger with a huge carrot on a tram stop. Nathan said that he’d been here a while, it was nice and sunny now for an icy morning, but that when he felt like going somewhere else then he’d go there. The 109 to Box Hill was turning the corner into our stop. No mention had been made of the carrot. “Eh, what’s up Doc?” was never going to be a clever conversational gambit. Still smiling, I told him to stay warm, which he seemed to be doing very well already, and I stepped onto the tram. Googling for carrot man articles on my way down Victoria Parade I read that people keep carrot man Instagram accounts, maintaining regular updates of Nathan’s present location, condition, words of wisdom. I suppose it’s time to add my own words to the public record.