Part 5 (2/2)

”Which b.l.o.o.d.y misbegotten Card takes the liberty of recasting in his own insane tongue. As the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 b.u.t.ton 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 Compet.i.tion 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 part.i.tion.

”That's Jack's office,” said Card. ”And there's your 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. 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, n.o.body 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 himself'll show up one fine day and divulge all. Look through back issues. Acquaint yourself with Gammy Bird Gammy Bird. Drive around and learn all four of our roads.” Card turned away, labored over the computer.

”I's got to be out and about,” said Billy Pretty. ”Interview with a feller makes juju-bracelets out of lobster feelers for export to Haiti. Borrer your truck, Card? Mine's got the bad emission valve. Waiting for a part.”

”You're always waiting for parts for that scow. Anyway, mine's not starting too good today. She dies just any old place.”

Billy turned to Nutbeem.

”I rode the bike today. I suppose you can take the bike.”

”Rather walk than snap me legs off on that rind of a bike.” He cleared his throat and glanced at Quoyle. But Quoyle looked away out the window. He was too new to get into this.

”Ah, well. I'll hoof it. It's not more than eighteen miles each way.”

In a minute they heard him outside, cursing as he mounted the jangling bicycle.

Half an hour later Tert Card left, started his truck, drove smoothly away.

”Off to get soused,” said Nutbeem pleasantly. ”Off to get his lottery ticket and then get soused. Observe that the truck starts when he wants it to.”

Quoyle smiled, his hand went to his chin.

He spent the rest of the day, the rest of the week, leafing through the old phone book and reading back issues of the Gammy Bird Gammy Bird.

The paper was a forty-four-page tab printed on a thin paper. Six columns, headlines modest, 36-point was a screamer, some stout but unfamiliar sans serif type. A very small news hole and a staggering number of ads.

He had never seen so many ads. They went down both sides of the pages like descending stairs and the news was squeezed into [61] the vase-shaped s.p.a.ce between. Crude ads with a few lines of type dead center. Don't Pay Anything Until January! No Down Payment! No Interest! As though these exhortations were freshly coined phrases for vinyl siding, rubber stamps, life insurance, folk music festivals, bank services, rope ladders, cargo nets, marine hardware, s.h.i.+p's laundry services, davits, rock band entertainment at the s...o...b..ll Lounge, clocks, firewood, tax return services, floor jacks, cut flowers, truck m.u.f.flers, tombstones, boilers, bra.s.s tacks, curling irons, jogging pants, snowmobiles, Party Night at Seal Flipper Lounge with Arthur the Accordion Ace, used snowmobiles, fried chicken, a smelting derby, T-s.h.i.+rts, oil rig maintenance, gas barbecue grills, wieners, flights to Goose Bay, Chinese restaurant specials, dry bulk transport services, a gla.s.s of wine with the pork chop special at the Norse Sunset Lounge, retraining program for fishermen, VCR VCR repairs, heavy equipment operator training, tires, rifles, love seats, frozen corn, jelly powder, dancing at Uncle Demmy's Bar, kerosene lanterns, hull repairs, hatches, tea bags, beer, lumber planing, magnetic brooms, hearing aids. repairs, heavy equipment operator training, tires, rifles, love seats, frozen corn, jelly powder, dancing at Uncle Demmy's Bar, kerosene lanterns, hull repairs, hatches, tea bags, beer, lumber planing, magnetic brooms, hearing aids.

He figured the ad s.p.a.ce. Gammy Bird Gammy Bird had to be making money. And somebody was one h.e.l.l of a salesman. had to be making money. And somebody was one h.e.l.l of a salesman.

Quoyle asked Nutbeem. ”Mr. Buggit do the ads?”

”No. Tert Card. Part of the managing editor's job. Believe it or not.” t.i.ttered behind his mustache. ”And they're not as good as they look.”

Quoyle turned the pages. Winced at the wrecked car photos on the front page. s.e.xual abuse stories-three or four in every issue. Polar bears on ice floes. The s.h.i.+pping news looked simple-just a list of vessels in port. Or leaving.

”Hungry Men,” a restaurant review by Benny Fudge and Adonis Collard running under two smudged photographs. Fudge's face seemed made of leftover flesh squeezed roughly together. Collard wore a cap that covered his eyes. Quoyle shuddered as he read.

Trying to decide where to munch up some fast food? You could do worse than try Grudge's Cod Hop. The interior is booths with a big window in front. Watch the trucks on the highway! We did. We ordered the Fish Strip Basket which contained three [62] fried fish Strips, coleslaw and a generous helping of fried chips for $5.70. The beverage was separate. The Fish Strip Basket was supposed to include Dinner Roll, but instead we got Slice of Bread. The fish Strips were very crispy and good. There is a choice of packet of lemon juice or Tartar Sauce. We both had the Tartar Sauce. There is counter service too.

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. .h.i.t 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 s.e.xual a.s.sault 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 Gammy Bird was a hard bite. Looked life right in its s.h.i.+fty, 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 was a hard bite. Looked life right in its s.h.i.+fty, 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 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 part.i.tion 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 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 Cove, right here, only a few families left now. Buggits fished these waters, sealed, s.h.i.+pped out, done every thing to keep going. It used to be a good living, fis.h.i.+ng. It was all insh.o.r.e fis.h.i.+ng when I was young. You'd have your skiff, your nets. Finding the fish was a trick. They say true 'the fish has no bells.' Billy Pretty one of the best to find the fish. Knew the water like the hollows in his mattress. He can name you every sunker on this coast, that's the G.o.d's truth.

”You worked your c.o.c.kadoodle guts out, kept it up as long as you could, s.n.a.t.c.hed a little sleep here and there, work in the night by torchlight, sea boils come up all over your hands and wrists, but the work went on. Well, you know, I never got sea boils after I learned a cure. You cut your nails on a Monday, you won't have none. Everybody does it now! You know how fast a clever hand can split fish? No, I see you don't. It won't mean anything to tell you thirty fish a minute. Think of it. Clean thirty fish a minute! My sister could do it in her sleep.” He stopped, sat there, breathing. Lit another cigarette, spurted smoke.

Quoyle tried to imagine himself struggling to keep up with fish-splitting athletes, buried in a slippery tide of dulling bodies. Petal swam forward in a long dress of platinum scales, bare arms like silver, white mouth.

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