WHITE
WHALE

You come at the king, you best not miss.

—Omar, The Wire

I get the trend. Take a bad guy and give him a backstory that tenderizes the madness. Won't work on me. I wasn't mistreated by my mother. Born hated. Nor exiled. Couldn't care less they were hunting my kind and cutting them up. No, I break boats because it makes me happy, and happier still when the captain barking at his harpooners is a monomaniac. White whale, pale cachalot… something about me drives people so crazy they can't help but think I mean more than my body. Wrong again. That incident with the Pequod meant nothing but what happened. I gave them two days to reconsider, punched them up good, splintered some, sent my jaw through a bilge and set my teeth six inches from the head of the one I made one-legged long ago. Instead, they kept coming, and when you press a gangster you get why he's so called, but it's always too late to matter. Dealing with these pea-brained sailors, it's solid to remember humans are too dumb to take a hint: the only way they learn respect is by being devastated. When that third day dawned and I breached to screaming, saw they still thought they could kill me, a black joy diffused through my oils and my colossal heart darkened with destructive love. I pointed my head at the hull of the big one, took a rip of morning air through my blowhole and dove.