This is a reading of the classic American novel Moby-Dick, as interpreted by Jack Pendarvis. To embark at the beginning, please click here.

XIII.

But I asked Theresa, and she
never heard lobster tails called by the name… “bulldozers,” right?

THERESA: No.

JACK: She said no. I’m not
sure she said it loudly enough for the mic to pick up. She’s in the hallway
over there, and… but, on the other hand, Theresa’s not from the Gulf Coast, and
I am, but I’ve never heard of it either, much to my mother’s evident amazement,
so maybe I’m just a man without a… country.

THERESA: In Georgia we call
them Tonka Trucks. Just kidding.

JACK: [Laughter.]

[End of recording.]

[New recording.]

Uh, shame on him who doubts
his mother.

I Googled the…

[Something rolling around.
Metal on wood?]

First of all, I take that
back. It’s okay to doubt your mother. I don’t know your mother!

Uh, anyway, I just wanted to
state for the record that there are lobsters known colloquially as
“bulldozer lobsters.” And I assume that’s what my mom was referring to. It was my mistake to think the tails of the
lobsters—that the tail, thus severed from its owner, was called the bulldozer.

Hahhhhhyahhmm.

Anyway, Wikipedia has
“slipper lobster” as the most common name for this sort of lobster, and then
under a long list of alternative lobster names—do you know, I actually have a
book around here, hahh, I have no idea
where it is… I think it’s called… something like Shellfish of Alabama. [Laughter.] Hmm. Where is that, I wonder.

[Long pause.]

Oh, I read Chapter
Twenty-One of Moby-Dick. [Short
pause.] What happened in it?

Well, they’re goin’, they’re
gonna get on the Pequod, and they’re coming through the misty morning… the sun…

What’s that, uh, clattering
sound?

THERESA: Oh, what do you
think? It’s me and this stupid gate.

JACK: [Laughter.] Well. I
thought you had a good handle on that thing.

THERESA: I did.

JACK: Well, is there
something wrong with it?

THERESA: No, there’s
something wrong with me.

JACK: [Laughter.] I’m just
talking about Moby-Dick into this
tape recorder.

THERESA: I know.

JACK: I mean, digital
recorder.

[Interminable pause.]

Uhm…

[Very, very long pause.]

Man, my stomach made a
noise. I don’t know if the recorder picked it up. Uh, my stomach’s making more
and more noises. I suppose—but why do you think that is? Uhm…

And, you know, I have
videoconferences with people. Well, one is in Sweden and two more are in
California. Uh, I have those several times a week, and, uhm, they can hear my…
they can hear my stomach making noises! And, uh, the other day, my stomach made
a noise, and… Adam didn’t know what that was, and he said, “I heard something
roaring!” [Laughter.] “What was that?”
He was alarmed. And I had to, you know, come clean. And admit that my stomach
just constantly issues a… symphony of… complaints.

Anyhow, so…

It’s just the new, the new
normal, as they say. Somebody says that. Or maybe nobody says that anymore.

“Don’t normalize it!” People
said that a lot… in recent history.

Mmm.

[Rattling sigh.]

Wait! Okay. So they’re
coming—I… they’re going through the streets of town… headed for the Pequod, and
they see… well, Ishmael sees… four or five mysterious shadowy figures slipping
through the mist, and…

[Very long pause.]

And then they run into
the—you know, Elijah, the… wild-eyed… prophet.

“Did you see those fellows?”

“Uh, yeah, I saw some guys.”

Queequeg, later, is like, “I
didn’t see anybody!”

Mmmmmmmmm.

“Well, what are you talkin’
about, Elijah?”

“Mm, never mind.”

I tell ya, he’s pretty cagey
for a prophet. They usually like to… you know, there’s a reason that there’s a
word “jeremiad.”

It’s because prophets like
to make speeches! This one’s more, uh… circumspect.

The Circumspect Prophet: A Novel.

A terrible novel.

By Jack Pendarvis.

Uhhrrrhhhhhohh.

Wait. So that’s about it for
excitement in that chapter. We get a comical interlude in which… uhhm…
Queequeg, Queequeg just sits on a guy they find asleep. And Ishmael’s like,
“You can’t go around sitting on people.”

And Queequeg says, “Well,
back home, you know, we just get a bunch of fat guys and kind of put ‘em around
the house like chairs and pillows and just sit on ‘em. Uh, and then, much like
a turtle on The Flintstones, they
turn to the camera and say, ‘It’s a living!’ and shrug. Or like a pelican
they’re using as a garbage disposal.”

Queequeg doesn’t bring up The Flintstones. That’s my own addition.

And, d-uh, that’s about that
for that chapter.

So…

I give you… Queequeg sitting
on a guy.

“Yeah, back home, we get a
couple of fat guys, throw ‘em around the house to just—you know, they got
nothing better to do, and… make a nice, uh… coffee table.”

[End of the recording about
Chapter Twenty-One of Moby-Dick.]

[New recording.]

All right, I’m goin’ off to
do some chores. I thought I’d bring the… recorder with me, instead of [short
laugh] talking to my—walking around the h—top floor of the house like the first
Mrs. Rochester, and uh, you know.

Ehhhhhhhhh.

[Bumping noises.]

Okay, so… well… let’s see. I
had a lot to talk about. [Car door slams.] And I might not even get done before
I arrive at my destination. [Electronic beeping sound from car.] In which case…
be quiet, NPR!

Aauuhh.

That was me turning down the
radio.

Where should I put you,
little… uh, little friend? All these places seem too low.

All right!

Here we go.

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