E. Proulx - The Shipping News

NOBODY HANGS A PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER

There is a 1904 photograph on the wall of the Killick-Claw Public Library. It shows eight schooners in Omaloor Bay heading out to the fishing grounds, their sails spread like white wings. They are beautiful beyond compare. It took great skill and sea knowledge to sail them.

Today the most common sight on the marine horizon is the low black profile of an oil tanker. Oil, in crude and refined forms, is-bar none-the number one commodity in international trade.

Another common sight is black oil scum along miles of landwash, like the shoreline along Cape Despond this week. Hundreds of people watched Monday morning as 14,000 metric tons of crude washed onshore from a ruptured tank of the Golden Goose . Thousands of seabirds and fish struggled in the oil, fishing boats and nets were fouled. “This is the end of this place,” said Jack Eye, 87, of Little Despond, who, as a young man, was a dory fisherman with the schooner fleet.

Our world runs on oil. More than 3,000 tankers prowl the world’s seas. Among them are the largest moving objects ever made by man, the Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCCs, up to 400 meters in length and over 200,000 deadweight tons. Many of these ships are single hull vessels. Some are old and corroded, structurally weak. One thing is sure. There will be more oil spills, and some will be horrendous.

Nobody hangs a picture of an oil tanker on their wall.

Tert Card read it, laid it on the corner of his desk and looked at Quoyle.

“You too,” he said. “You bloody fucking too.”

When the newsroom was empty that evening he stood by the window, addressed an absent Quoyle.

“Keep your bloody American pinko Greenpeace liberalism out of it. Who the hell are you to say this? Oh yes, Mr. Quoyle’s bloody precious column! It’s against our whole effort of development and economic progress.”

And he rewrote the piece, pasted it up with bold fingers, went out and got drunk. To quell the pain of the irksome canker sores. How could they know he swallowed glassful after glassful to comprehend a harsh and private beauty?

A day or two later Tert Card brought in a framed picture from a shipping company’s wall calendar. He hung it behind his desk. The gargantuan Quiet Eye nosed through a sunset into Placentia Bay. LARGEST OIL TANKER IN THE WORLD. The first time the door slammed it went askew.

Quoyle thought it was funny until noon when Card came back from the printer with the ink-smelling bundles of Gammy Bird . Took a copy, turned to see how his Shipping News story came out. His column had been condensed to a caption accompanying the same calendar page photo that hung on Tert Card’s wall.

PICTURE OF AN OIL TANKER

More than 3,000 tankers proudly ride the world’s seas. These giant tankers, even the biggest, take advantage of Newfoundland’s deep-water ports and refineries. Oil and Newfoundland go together like ham and eggs, and like ham and eggs they’ll nourish us all in the coming years.

Let’s all hang a picture of an oil tanker on our wall.

Quoyle felt the blood drain out of his head; he went dizzy.

“What have you done!” he shouted at Tert Card, voice an axe.

“Straightened it out, that’s all. We don’t want to hear that Greenpeace shit.” Tert Card whinnied. Feeling good. His cheap face thrust out.

“You cut the guts out of this piece! You made it into rotten cheap propaganda for the oil industry. You made me look like a mouthpiece for tanker interests.” He pressed Card into his corner.

“I told you,” said Nutbeem. “I told you, Quoyle, to watch out, he’ll cobble your work.”

Quoyle was incensed, some well of anger like a dome of oil beneath innocuous sand, tapped and gushing.

“This is a column ,” bellowed Quoyle. “You can’t change somebody’s column, for Christ’s sake, because you don’t like it! Jack asked me to write a column about boats and shipping. That means my opinion and description as I see it. This”-he shook the paper against the slab cheeks-“isn’t what I wrote, isn’t my opinion, isn’t what I see.”

“As long as I’m the managing editor,” said Tert Card, rattling like pebbles in a can, “I’ve the right to change anything I don’t think fit to run in the Gammy Bird . And if you don’t think so, I advise you to check it out with Jack Buggit.” Ducked under Quoyle’s raised arms.

And ran for the door.

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re all against me.” The thick candle that was Tert Card gone somewhere else with his sputtering light.

“You’re a surprise, Quoyle,” said Billy Pretty. “I didn’t believe you had that much steam in your boiler. You blew him out of the water.”

“You know how it is, now,” said Nutbeem. “I tried to tell you on the first day.”

“You watch, though. By tomorrow he’ll be back afloat on an even keel. Tert Card snaps right back for all he’s a vitrid bugger.”

“I’m surprised myself,” said Quoyle. “I’m going to call Jack,” he said, “and get this straightened out. Either I’m writing a column or I’m not.”

“Word of advice, Quoyle. Don’t call Jack. He is out fishing, as I assume you know. He don’t like Gammy Bird business to come into his home, neither. You just leave it alone and let me drop around to the stage tonight or tomorrow night. The crab approach is best with Jack.”

“ Gammy Bird . Tert Card speaking. Oh, yar, Jack.” Tert Card held the phone receiver against his sweatered chest, looked at Quoyle. The morning light unkind.

“Wants to talk to you.” His tone indicated bad taste or madness on Jack’s part.

“Hello.” Braced for abuse.

“Quoyle. Jack Buggit here. You write your column. If you put your foot in a dog’s mess we’ll say it’s because you was brought up in the States. Tert will keep his hands off it. Put him back on.”

Quoyle held the phone up and motioned to Card. They could hear Jack squawk. Slowly Tert Card turned his back to the room, faced the window, the sea. As the minutes went by he shifted from foot to foot, sat on the edge of his desk, foraged in ears and nostrils. He rocked, switched the phone from one side of his head to the other. At last the phone went quiet and he hung up.

“All right,” he said blandly, though the red cheeks flamed, “Jack thinks he wants to try running Quoyle’s columns as they come. For now, anyway. So we’ll just go along with that. We’ll go along with that. But he’s got an idea on the car wreck feature. You know there are weeks when we don’t have any good wrecks and have to go into the files. Well, Jack wants to include boat wrecks. He says at the fisherman’s meeting they said there was more than three hundred dangerous boat accidents and vessel losses last year. Quoyle, he wants you to write up boat wrecks and get some photos, same as you do the car wrecks. There’s enough so we’ll always have a fresh disaster.”

“There’s no doubt about that,” said Quoyle, looking at Tert Card.

THE END of September, tide going out, moon in its last quarter. The first time Quoyle had been alone at the green house. The aunt was in St. John’s for the weekend buying buttons and muslin. Bunny and Sunshine had howled to stay with Dennis and Beety for Marty’s birthday.

“She’s my best friend, Dad. I wish she was my sister,” Bunny said passionately. “Please please please let us stay.” And in the Flying Squid Gift amp; Lunchstop she chose a ring made from pearly shell for Marty’s present, a sheet of spotted tissue for wrapping.