Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [26]
“Oh yes. An omaloor—big, stun, clumsy, witless, simpleminded type of a fellow. There used to be crowds of them on the other side of the bay,” he gestured toward Quoyle’s Point, “so they named it after them.” Winked at Quoyle. Who wondered if he should smile. Did smile.
Near the window a man listened to a radio. His buttery hair swept behind ears. Eyes pinched close, a mustache. A packet of imported dates on his desk. He stood up to shake Quoyle’s hand. Gangled. Plaid bow tie and ratty pullover. The British accent strained through his splayed nose.
“Nutbeem,” he said. “Nutbeem of the Arctic.” Threw Quoyle a half-salute, imitation of a character in some yellowed war movie.
“That’s B. Beaufield Nutbeem,” said Tert Card, “miserable ugly Brit cast away on the inhospitable Newfoundland shore a year ago and still here. Among other things, imagines he’s the foreign news chief. Steals every story off the radio and rewrites it in his plummy style.”
“Which bloody misbegotten Card takes the liberty of recasting in his own insane tongue. As the bloody bog-rat’s just done.”
Nutbeem’s news came from a shortwave radio that buzzed as though wracked by migraine. When the airwaves were clear it had a tenor hum, but snarled when auroral static crackled. Nutbeem lay across his desk, his ear close to the receiver, gleaning the waves, the yowling foreign voices, twisting the stories around to suit his mood of the day. The volume button was gone, and he turned it up or down by inserting the tip of a table knife in the metal slot and twisting. His corner smelled of radios—dust, heat, metal, wood, electricity, time.
“Only to save you from accusations of plagiarism, me old son.”
[59] Nutbeem laughed bitterly. “I see you’ve regained your composure, you Newf dung beetle.” He leaned at Quoyle. “Yes. Incredible protection from plagiarism. Every sentence so richly freighted with typographical errors that the original authors would not recognize their own stories. Let me give you some examples.” He fished in file folders, pulled out a ragged sheet.
“I’ll read you one of his gibberish gems, just to open your eyes. The first version is what I wrote, the second is the way it appeared in the paper. Item: ‘Burmese sawmill owners and the Rangoon Development Corporation met in Tokyo Tuesday to consider a joint approach to marketing tropical hardwoods, both locally and for export.’ Here’s what Card did with it. ‘Burnoosed sawbill awnings and the Ranger Development Competition met Wednesday near Tokyo to mark up topical hairwood.’ ” Sat back in his squeaking chair. Let the pages fall into the wastebasket.
Tert Card scratched his head and looked at his fingernails. “After all, it’s only a stolen fiction in the first place,” he said.
“You think it amusing now, Quoyle, you smile,” said Nutbeem, “although you try to smile behind your hand, but wait until he works his damage on you. I read these samples to you so you know what lies ahead. ‘Plywood’ will become ‘playwool,’ ‘fisherman’ will become ‘figbun,’ ‘Hibernia’ become ‘hernia.’ This is the man to whom Jack Buggit entrusts our prose. No doubt you are asking yourself ‘Why?’ as I have many dark and sleepless nights. Jack says Card’s typos give humor to the paper. He says they’re better than a crossword puzzle.”
The corner at the end of the room fenced with a particleboard partition.
“That’s Jack’s office,” said Card. “And there’s your little corner, Quoyle.” Card waved his arm grandly. A desk, half a filing cabinet, the sawed-off top covered with a square of plywood, a 1983 Ontario telephone book, a swivel chair with one arm. A lamp of the kind found in hotel lobbies in the 1930s stood beside the desk, thick red cord like a rat’s tail, plug as large as a baseball.
“What should I do?” said Quoyle. “What does Mr. Buggit want me to do?”
“Ah, nobody but himself can say. He wants you to sit tight [60] and wait until he’s back. He’ll tell you what he wants. You just come in every morning and