Elias Voss, 53, makes his living restoring antique typewriters from the cinder block workshop behind his small Portland bungalow. He’s held the same high-top spot by the window at The Rusty Key’s Tuesday trivia night for seven straight years, showing up 20 minutes early to claim it, ordering an extra-cold IPA with no fruit garnish, spreading out crumpled reference sheets folded small enough to fit in his work apron pocket. He hasn’t let anyone inside his workshop since his divorce eight years prior, when his ex-wife moved out mid-restoration of a 1950s Royal KMM, saying she was tired of coming second to a pile of rusted metal and yellowed paper. His default response to anyone who tries to strike up small talk is a noncommittal grunt, and he turns down at least three requests for free typewriter repairs a month.
The first sign his routine is broken is when the usual bar back, a 19-year-old kid who plays in a local punk band, isn’t behind the bar wiping down glasses. Instead, a woman with sun-bleached brown hair pulled tight in a braid, a thin white scar slicing across her left cheekbone, is hauling a case of beer from the back cooler. She’s wearing a faded wildland firefighter flannel, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, forearms dusted with freckles and crisscrossed with tiny pale scars from flying embers and brush scrapes. When she brings his IPA over, she leans across the bar far enough that her forearm brushes his, and he catches a whiff of pine and lemon dish soap on her skin, no heavy perfume, no cloying artificial body spray. “Uncle Joe said you take your IPA extra cold, no fruit,” she says, grinning, and he grunts in response, already annoyed by the disruption to his usual silent order process, already planning to give the bar owner an earful about sharing his preferences with new staff. He turns back to his reference sheets, pointedly ignoring her when she laughs and walks off to help a table of construction workers order shots.
Halfway through the second round of trivia, his pencil snaps. He rummages through every pocket of his work jacket for the tiny manual sharpener he keeps on him at all times, coming up empty. She’s passing by his table with a tray of empty glasses, stops, pulls a folding pocket knife off her belt, and sharpens the pencil for him without asking, her knuckles brushing his when she hands it back. The blade has a tiny scratch on the handle, like it’s been dropped a hundred times on hard dirt. “You use those old wood pencils and typewriter scrap paper for a reason?” she asks, nodding at the crumpled sheets he’s been jotting answers on, each printed with the faint watermark of a 1960s office supply brand. He blinks, surprised anyone’s ever paid enough attention to notice. “I restore typewriters. Old stock paper and pencils hold up better than the cheap stuff they sell at drugstores now,” he says, shorter than he means to, braced for her to ask for a free repair, for her to launch into a boring story about a typewriter her cousin once had. She doesn’t. “My grandma left me a Royal Quiet De Luxe when she passed last year. Been sitting in my garage, half the keys stuck, ribbon dried out. Haven’t found anyone who knows how to fix those things without charging more than the typewriter’s worth.” He opens his mouth to say he’s booked three months out, that he doesn’t take on casual side jobs, that he hates house calls. But she’s looking at him, eyes warm, no pleading, no expectation, and the words die in his throat. “Bring it by my shop sometime,” he says, before he can talk himself out of it.
The final trivia question is about the first commercially successful electric typewriter, released in 1961. Elias knows it off the top of his head: the IBM Selectric. His team wins by three points, the rest of the guys hooting and slapping each other on the back. She brings over the $50 bar tab prize and a free shot of bourbon for him, leaning against the edge of his table so her shoulder presses solidly against his, warm through the thick flannel of his work shirt. “Looks like that typewriter nerd knowledge finally paid off,” she teases, her laugh rough and gravelly, like she spends most of her days yelling over wind and fire hoses. A heat creeps up his neck that hasn’t been there in years, not since before the divorce, when his ex-wife used to tease him about his weird obsession with old office equipment. She pulls a crumpled paper bag out from behind her back, passes it to him, and he can feel the faint warmth of the slice of blackberry pie inside through the paper. “Uncle Joe said you’re a sucker for homemade pie. Consider that a down payment for looking at the Royal. I’ll bring it by Saturday around noon, if that works.” He nods, too surprised to speak, the warm weight of the pie in his hand feeling like something he hasn’t earned.
He pulls a matte black business card for his shop out of his wallet, edges smudged from years of being stuffed in jacket pockets, and hands it to her. Her calloused fingers brush his when she takes it, tucks it into the front pocket of her canvas work pants, and pats the pocket twice to make sure it doesn’t slip out. She winks, turns to go clear a table of rowdy community college kids who just spilled a pitcher of light beer across the linoleum. Elias lifts the cold shot of bourbon to his lips, watches her haul the sticky pitcher off the kids’ table with one hand, and smiles so small no one else would notice it.
