E. Proulx - The Shipping News

“So I’m on my way home across the bay, the ferry’s making its second and last run. And I’m thinking. I’m thinking, ‘If I’d knew this sucker didn’t have no leather I could have saved myself a trip.’ Now, how do you know things? You read ‘em in the paper! There wasn’t no local paper. Just that government mouthpiece down to St. Johns, The Sea Lion . So I says, not knowing nothing about it, hardly able to write a sentence-I only got to ‘Tom’s Dog’ in school-but I made up my mind that if they could start a glove factory with no leather or nobody that knew how to make ‘em, I could start a newspaper.

“So I goes over to Canada Manpower and I says, ‘I want to start a newspaper. You fellows think you can help me out?’

“ ‘How many people you gonna employ?’ they says. I takes a wild flyer. ‘Fifty. Once I gets going,’ I says. ‘ ‘Course there has to be a training period,’ I says. ‘Develop skills.’ They ate it up. They give me boxes and boxes of forms to fill out. That’s when my trouble begun, so I got Billy Pretty to give over his fishing and come on board. He writes a beautiful hand, can read like a government man. We done it.

“They sent me off to Toronto to learn about the newspaper business. They give me money. What the hell, I hung around Toronto what, four or five weeks, listening to them rave at me about editorial balance, integrity, the new journalism, reporter ethics, service to the community. Give me the fits. I couldn’t understand the half of what they said. Learned what I had to know finally by doing it right here in my old shop. I been running Gammy Bird for seven years now, and the circulation is up to thirteen thousand, gaining every year. All along this coast. Because I know what people want to read about. And no arguments about it.

“First I hired Billy, then Tert Card. Good men. Out there in Toronto half the place was filled up with women yakking and laughing and looking the men over, or them looking the women over. Not working at all. Billy knows all you have to know to write the women’s stuff up. He’s an old bachelor can cook like hell. My wife, Mrs. Buggit, looks it over just in case. I know what my readers wants and expects and I gives ‘ em that. And what I say goes. I don’t want to hear no journalism ideas from you and we’ll get along good.”

Stopped talking to light another cigarette. He looked at Quoyle whose legs had gone to sleep. Nodding slowly into his hand.

“O.k., Mr. Buggit, I’ll do my best.”

“Call me Jack. Now here’s the rundown on this paper. First of all, I runs the show. I’m the skipper.

“Billy Pretty covers the Home Page, writes Scruncheons-don’t you tell NOBODY he’s junior Sugg-handles local news, councils and education. There is more government in Canada than any other place in the world. Almost half the population works for the government and the other half is worked on. And what we got on the local level is meetings up and down the coast going on every minute of the day. Billy does some of the crime, too. And there’s more of it than there used to be. See, what used to be called fun and high jinks they now calls vandalism and assault. Billy Pretty. He’s been with me since I started Gammy Bird .”

“I covered the municipal beat at the Record ,” Quoyle croaked, his voice seized up.

“I just told you Billy does that. Now there’s Nutbeem writes the foreign, provincial and national news, gets his stories off the radio and rewrites. Also covers sexual abuse. He can’t hardly keep up. We run two or three S.A. stories every week, one big one on the front page, the others inside. He does the sports, too, and fillers, some features, but we’re not so big on features. He’s only been on this paper for seven or eight months. And I won’t say he’s perfect. He’s temporary, anyway. YOU HEAR THAT NUTBEEM?”

“Indeed,” from the outer office.

“Tert Card stands in for me when I’m not here, he’s the managing editor and a lot of other things. Hands out the assignments, typeset, pasteup, takes the mechanicals to the printer in Misky Bay, does the labels and mailing, distribution, fills in on some local stories if he’s got time. Been here couple years. I heard a lot of complaints about Tert Card and typos, but typos are part of Gammy Bird .

“Takes care of the ads. Any fishing stories, I want to hear about ‘ em first. I knows the problems, being as I’m still in the fishery.

“Now, what I want you to do. I want you cover local car wrecks, write the story, take pictures. We run a front-page photo of a car wreck every week, whether we have a wreck or not. That’s our golden rule. No exceptions. Tert has a big file of wreck pictures. If we don’t have a fresh one, we have to dip into his file. But we usually have a couple of good ones. The Horncup crowd keeps us supplied. Tert will show you where the camera is. You give the film to him. He develops it at home.

“And the shipping news. Get the list from the harbormaster. What ships come into Killick-Claw, what ones goes out. There’s more every year. I got a hunch about this. We’re going to play it by ear. See what you can do.”

“Like I said on the phone,” said Quoyle, “I haven’t had much experience with ships.” Car wrecks! Stunned with the probabilities of blood and dying people.

“Well, you can tell your readers that or work like hell to learn something. Boats is in your family blood. You work on it. And fill in where Tert Card tells you.”

Quoyle smiled stiffly, got up. His hand was on the doorknob when Jack Buggit spoke again.

“One more thing. I’m not no joke, Quoyle, and I don’t never want to hear jokes about Newfoundland or Newfoundlanders. Keep it in mind. I hates a Newfie joke.”

Quoyle came out of the office. Car wrecks. Stared at the tattered phone books.

“Quoyle!” whispered Nutbeem. “Ahoy, Quoyle, you’re not going to go weepy on us, are you? You’re not going to go running back to the States, are you? We’re counting on you, Quoyle. We’re building a cargo cult around you, Quoyle.”

Jack Buggit stuck his head out the glass door.

“Billy! Elvis have his pups yet?”

“Yar, he did. Last week. Three of ‘em. Every one of ‘em’s black with white feet.”

“Well, I want one of them pups.” The door shut again.

“I DON’T think I can handle this job,” said Quoyle. Who had swallowed two beers and eaten a bag of stale popcorn at the Sea Anchor in Killick-Claw wondering if he was strapped into a mistake like a passenger in a plane that briefly rises, then crashes on the runway.

The aunt looked up. She sat on the round bed, knitting a cloud of angora as fast as a machine, Warren slumped at her feet, only the scarlet-rimmed eyes moving. Bunny tear-stained in a chair with a torn cushion. The chair faced a corner of the room. Sunshine ran at Quoyle, bellowing.

“Daddy, she bit me. Bunny bit me on the leg.” She showed Quoyle two semicircular dents on her thigh.

“She started it!” shouted Bunny. Scowling like Beethoven.

“You’re a rotten bitey shit!” bawled Sunshine.

“For God’s sake, pipe down,” said the aunt. “Nephew, we’ve got to do something. These children need a place to go. Out at the house, if we had a lion tamer, we could have them weeding potatoes and sweeping, washing dishes and windows instead of clawing and biting each other. They’re cooped up here. And Warren ’s half dead from lack of exercise.”