At the gate waiting for our KLM flight to Amsterdam then on
to Budapest. Finally getting to sit down
after a long and interesting day.
Had managed to get most of my packing done last night, and
all I had to do this morning was take Butkus round to a neighbour’s along with
a couple of large bags of food. This has
happened often enough now that he knows the drill, but he’s not happy about
it. Every time I leave on one of these
trips--and he seems to sense the difference between my getting on the ferry to
go to the city and getting on the ferry to go away—my last image of Midden
Harbour is Butkus standing at the edge of the ferry dock staring at me. And each time I half expect his Newfoundland
instincts to kick in and he’ll dive in and start swimming after the boat. He doesn’t of course.
Anyway, the quiet, predictable day I had imagined didn’t
come to fruition.
This morning, not long after I’d climbed out of bed and
before it was light or I’d had my first cup of coffee, there was a knock at the
door. Not unprecedented but certainly
unusual. My cabin is down a lane—a short,
sandy set of tracks through a sparse stand of ponderosa pine—running west from
Beecher and ending at my door. If I hear
a knock or even a vehicle, I know someone’s coming to see me. This time I didn’t hear a vehicle.
When I opened the door, Jason Snow was standing there. My first thought was for Bertie. The only reason my caffeine-deprived brain
could come up with for Jason being on my doorstep at 5:30 in the morning was
that something had happened to his mother.
This was not the case, he assured me.
He had come to talk about business, and he was here so early because he
would rather not have the town aware that he had come.
As I moved around making us some coffee, Jason began, “Duncan,
everyone knows that over the past few years you’ve become less and less
enthusiastic with the task of putting out The Shoreline every week. That is entirely understandable, it has to be
a grind and you’ve been doing it for decades now. On top of that, you—or me for that matter—are
not getting any younger.”
At this point, at least part of my mind had stopped
listening and was frantically trying to figure out where he was going with this
line of reasoning. Reporter instincts
kicking in and looking for a way to take control of the conversation. Questions began forming.
As Jason continued to create a case for how miserable I must
be, a theme began to emerge. “I am
confident that you have put feelers out to test the market for a buyer for The
Shoreline. I am also confident, given
the lack of rumours about the impending sale of the paper, that those feelers
were unproductive. My visit here to see you this morning is based
on those two assumptions. Let me be succinct: Duncan, how would feel about selling me The
Shoreline?”
My immediate response to the unexpected and extraordinary offer
was silence. I sat there, mouth agape,
staring into Jason’s eyes trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Duncan?”
“Yes, Jason. Guess I’m
so stunned by the question that I’m speechless.” By this time the reporter in me was in full
flight and the questions were rolling through my mind at a pace I couldn’t
follow. So, I did the sensible thing and
deferred. “Look, Jason. This is so sudden, I’m still half asleep, and
I’m supposed to be on a plane to Budapest in a few hours. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your
interest, and I’ll certainly give it some careful thought, but I can’t do it
right now. When I get back in a couple
of weeks, we can sit down and have a long conversation about this. I’d be happy to come into the city to see you
if you’d rather keep this out of The Harbour rumour mill for the time
being. How’s that?”
“To be truthful, Duncan, it’s a little disappointing because
I had wanted to move quite quickly on this.
But if that’s the best you can do, so be it.” Jason rose and went to the door. “But call me as soon as you return.”
I shut the door behind him and stood watching him through
the glass walk back up the lane. “What the
fuck do you think that was all about?” I
asked Butkus. He didn’t seem to know
either.
Flight’s up and on time.
Damn the Dutch are efficient.
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