Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [28]
Billy Pretty’s work, “The Home Page,” a conglomeration of poems, photographs of babies, write-away-for hooked rug patterns. Always a boxed feature—how to make birdhouses of tin cans, axe sheaths of cardboard, bacon turners from old kitchen forks. Recipes for Damper Devils, Fried Bawks, Dogberry Wine and Peas and Melts.
But the one everybody must read first, thought Quoyle, was “Scruncheons,” a jet of near-libelous gossip. The author knitted police court news, excerpts of letters from relatives away, rude winks about rough lads who might be going away for “an Irish vacation.” It beat any gossip column Quoyle had ever read. The byline was junior Sugg.
Well, we see the postman has landed in jail for 45 days for throwing the mail in Killick-Claw Harbour. He said he had too much mail to deliver and if people wanted it they could get it themselves. Guess it helps if you can swim. Poor Mrs. Tudge was hit by a tourist driving a luxury sedan last Tuesday. She is in hospital, not getting on too good. We hear the tourist’s car isn’t too good, either. And the Mounties are looking into the cause of an early morning fire that burned down the Pinhole Seafood fish plant on Shebeen Island; they might ask a certain fellow in a certain cove on the island what he thinks about it. A snowmobile mishap has taken the life of 78-year-old Rick Puff. Mr. Puff was on his way home from what Mrs. Puff called “a screech-in and a carouse” when his machine fell through the ice. Mr. Puff was a well-known accordion player who was filmed by a crew from the university. In the 1970s he served four years for sexual assault on his daughters. Bet they aren’t crying either. Good news! We heard Kevin Mercy’s dog “Biter” was lost in an [63] avalanche on Chinese Hill last week. And what’s this we read in the overseas papers about kidnappers mailing the left ear of a Sicilian businessman they are holding hostage to his family? The way the foreigners live makes you wonder!
The editorial page played streams of invective across the provincial political scene like a fire hose. Harangues, pitted with epithets. Gammy Bird was a hard bite. Looked life right in its shifty, bloodshot eye. A tough little paper. Gave Quoyle an uneasy feeling, the feeling of standing on a playground watching others play games whose rules he didn’t know. Nothing like the Record. He didn’t know how to write this stuff.
¯
On his second Monday morning the door to Jack Buggit’s office gaped. Inside, Buggit himself, a cigarette behind his ear, leaning back in a wooden chair and saying “hmm” on the telephone. He waved Quoyle in to him with two hoops of his right hand.
Quoyle in a chair with a splintered front edge that bit into his thighs. Hand to his chin. From beyond the partition he could hear the mutter of Nutbeem’s radios, the flicking of computer keys, old Billy Pretty scratching out notes with a nibbed pen he dipped in a bottle.
Jack Buggit was an unlikely looking newspaper editor. A small man with a red forehead, somewhere, Quoyle thought, between forty-five and ninety-five. A stubbled chin, slack neck. Jaggled hair frowsting down. Fingers ochre from chain-smoking. He wore scale-spattered coveralls and his feet on the desk were in rubber boots with red soles.
“Oh yar!” he said in a startlingly loud voice. “Oh yar,” and hung up. Lit a cigarette.
“Quoyle!” The hand shot out and Quoyle shook it. It was like clasping a leather pot holder.
“Thick weather and small rain. Here we are, Quoyle, sitting in the headquarters of Gammy Bird. Now, you’re working at this paper, which does pretty good, and I’ll tell you how it is that I [64] come to do this. Set you straight. Because you can see I didn’t go to the school of journalism.” Shot jets of smoke from the corners of his mouth, looked up at the ceiling as if at mariners’ stars.
“Great-great-grandfather had to go to cannibalism to stay alive. We settled Flour Sack