Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [2]
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He fell into newspapering by dawdling over greasy saucisson and a piece of bread. The bread was good, made without yeast, risen on its own fermenting flesh and baked in Partridge’s outdoor oven. Partridge’s yard smelled of burnt cornmeal, grass clippings, bread steam.
The saucisson, the bread, the wine, Partridge’s talk. For these things he missed a chance at a job that might have put his mouth to bureaucracy’s taut breast. His father, self-hauled to the pinnacle of produce manager for a supermarket chain, preached a sermon illustrated with his own history—“I had to wheel barrows of sand for the stonemason when I came here.” And so forth. The father admired the mysteries of business—men signing papers shielded by their left arms, meetings behind opaque glass, locked briefcases.
But Partridge, dribbling oil, said, “Ah, fuck it.” Sliced purple tomato. Changed the talk to descriptions of places he had been, Strabane, South Amboy, Clark Fork. In Clark Fork had played pool with a man with a deviated septum. Wearing kangaroo gloves. Quoyle in the Adirondack chair, listened, covered his chin with his hand. There was olive oil on his interview suit, a tomato seed on his diamond-patterned tie.
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[4] Quoyle and Partridge met at a laundromat in Mockingburg, New York. Quoyle was humped over the newspaper, circling help-wanted ads while his Big Man shirts revolved. Partridge remarked that the job market was tight. Yes, said Quoyle, it was. Partridge floated an opinion on the drought, Quoyle nodded. Partridge moved the conversation to the closing of the sauerkraut factory. Quoyle fumbled his shirts from the dryer; they fell on the floor in a rain of hot coins and ballpoint pens. The shirts were streaked with ink.
“Ruined,” said Quoyle.
“Naw,” said Partridge. “Rub the ink with hot salt and talcum powder. Then wash them again, put a cup of bleach in.”
Quoyle said he would try it. His voice wavered. Partridge was astonished to see the heavy man’s colorless eyes enlarged with tears. For Quoyle was a failure at loneliness, yearned to be gregarious, to know his company was a pleasure to others.
The dryers groaned.
“Hey, come by some night,” said Partridge, writing his slanting address and phone number on the back of a creased cash register receipt. He didn’t have that many friends either.
The next evening Quoyle was there, gripping paper bags. The front of Partridge’s house, the empty street drenched in amber light. A gilded hour. In the bags a packet of imported Swedish crackers, bottles of red, pink and white wine, foil-wrapped triangles of foreign cheeses. Some kind of hot, juggling music on the other side of Partridge’s door that thrilled Quoyle.
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They were friends for a while, Quoyle, Partridge and Mercalia. Their differences: Partridge black, small, a restless traveler across the slope of life, an all-night talker; Mercalia, second wife of Partridge and the color of a brown feather on dark water, a hot intelligence; Quoyle large, white, stumbling along, going nowhere.
Partridge saw beyond the present, got quick shots of coming events as though loose brain wires briefly connected. He had been born with a caul; at three, witnessed ball lightning bouncing down a fire escape; dreamed of cucumbers the night before his brother-in-law was stung by hornets. He was sure of his own good fortune. [5] He could blow perfect smoke rings. Cedar waxwings always stopped in his yard on their migration flights.
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Now, in the backyard, seeing Quoyle like a dog dressed in a man’s suit for a comic photo, Partridge thought of something.
“Ed Punch, managing editor down at the paper where I work is looking for a cheap reporter. Summer’s over and his college rats go back to their holes. The paper’s junk, but maybe give