Those that tremble as if they were mad

Part 1

At the end, he picked up the harpoon.

The Pequod had trembled like a frightened bird as the whale scraped beneath her keel, still reeling from the blow, canting back on her haunches before sliding slowly forward again. Starbuck had held the rail, never stumbling on the twisting deck, and watched the whale dive and turn towards Ahab.

The ship felt wrong, she wallowed and dropped her head, he knew instantly that her back was broke and she was lost. Caring not, he watched Ahab's strike, and Ahab's death, even as the maelstrom began to turn and the ship dipped her bows toward the waiting waves.

He picked up the harpoon ready for one last throw. Not because he believed it was right, for he knew with all his heart that it was not, and not for revenge, or any hope of salvation, but because in that final moment he realised he was Ahab's man, Ahab's lieutenant, Ahab's disciple, bound like a helmsman at the wheel to his master. Even as the water closed over his head he held his spear arm ready. At the very end he he chose his captain over his god, and damned himself.

Yet Starbuck did not sink.

Starbuck floated, ignored by sharks, jilted by the strangling depths, unclaimed atop the vertiginous clear sea. Starbuck floated and did not die, not of exposure, not of dehydration nor starvation, and not of old age. For centuries he hung upon the surface of the ocean.

At first, madness took him, within hours of being left alone, his horizon reduced to an empty few feet of water, he gibbered and cried and longed for death, bemoaning his solitude and cursing the never winking eye of the sun. He called till he lost the use of voice and, in perfect isolation, words vanished first from his throat and then from his mind, and he fell into a half waking stupor, languishing for years, tossed like driftwood by the currents, unconscious of the passing time, entirely free from reason.

The world changed around him. He saw first the occasional sail on the horizon, then the smoke of steamers. War came, and his night sky was sometimes lit by the loom of burning ships and he floated uncaring passed fragments of boats and the charred parts of men. Over a hundred years Starbuck turned with the currents around the rim of the North Pacific, spiralling ever inwards towards the deep lifeless desert at the ocean's centre, and there he remained, wallowing in the doldrums, utterly alone.

Until plastic came, plastic which like him did not rot and did not sink, plastic which slowly followed him to the centre of the ocean and, over years, began to form a great slick around him.

Starbuck bumped for days against the thing, a moulding from a ship's bulkhead, and slowly, agonisingly, his ruined mind began to stir, he remembered the sense of touch, and the concept of solid. His eyes, that had relaxed into a long permanent stare focussed beyond the depths of the sky, twitched and squinted, his limbs moved, first fingers and then arms, he turned his head, his jaw even silently shifted, and, inch by painful inch, he began to move his barnacle encrusted, weed draped, soft pale flesh, and grab hold of the thing.

The sensation sent a shock like electricity right through him, Starbuck, who's universe had become amorphous and liquid, finally touched a solid thing, memories came back, dim and confused, of earth beneath his feet, of the creak of ship's timbers, of the dissection of whales, of what it was to pull muscle and move bone against bone, of the dexterous finesse and strength that had been in his fingers. Starbuck gripped the thing, remembering then what it was to grip, and held on as tight as any limpet ever held itself to a rock. It took weeks before he managed to raise his head far enough to see beyond a few yards of shifting water and some semblance of sanity slowly reappeared in his mind.

Over the next few decades Starbuck returned to life as the plastic slick grew around him. The great desert in the centre of the ocean, where it was too deep for most fish to find food, and was on no shipping route, was where everything the sea could not destroy, it dumped. Year after year, more and more plastic found its way into the pacific and was carried by currents round and round the coasts of two continents until it ended up stuck in the middle, slowly photodegrading into smaller and smaller pieces until it became nothing more than a blue-green molecular soup.

Starbuck rested on car tyres, on the frames of television sets, on discarded lawn chairs, he piled thing upon thing, building himself dry floating platforms of junk on which to sit. As he freed himself from the water human desires resurfaced within him, he felt hunger, and thirst. For a long time he ate only what little weed and barnacles clung to the plastic, until he constructed polythene and rubber snares to catch the occasional sea-bird that alighted on his world, and, from the metal hooks of plastic coat hangers, and the steel rims of truck tyres, and the occasional glass fishing float, he created weights heavy enough to sink polypropylene nets into the sea, and caught what few fish and squid strayed below.

As Starbuck stared down into the glittering turquoise depths, watching his nets, sometimes, very rarely, perhaps once a year or perhaps even less, he saw a vast pale shape pass beneath.

What was the white whale? a fish or a devil, Starbuck knew that in its harpoon pierced hide Ahab's last stab remained, with perhaps Ahab's skeleton still dragged behind. He reasoned, the only time he gave it any thought, that he had been kept alive to complete Ahab's mission and kill the whale.

But was Moby Dick really no more than a whale? Starbuck laid out the remains of the fish he caught, cataloguing and recording their features in his mind, trying to arrange an order of species, a pattern of life, a dictionary that would point like an arrow to the existence of the white whale, an encyclopaedia which would define his foe in precise mathematical detail.

Starbuck learned of life beyond the slick through packaging and the occasional glossy magazine which survived long enough to reach him. He followed the ingredients, the instructions for everything, he absorbed fitful disjointed shreds of half-information about the changing civilisation he had left behind. He learned, over time, in parts and hints and scraps, of Charles Darwin's theory, and the once good Quaker did not see the blasphemy but only the possibility of knowledge of his enemy. What strange circumstances evolved the white whale? if a whale was not white then was Moby Dick even a whale? and if not a whale, what? Starbuck re-examined his catalogue of life, everything he remembered of every different kind of whale or fish he had ever hunted, he scratched out on sheets of polythene, determining purpose in every feature, drawing lines of similarity between species till he charted out a great complex map with Moby Dick at its centre.

Time passed. He ate squid and birds and seaweed, and plotted the end of the whale. The plastic slick grew. He found rubber ducks, basketballs, the shells of hand-held electronics, millions of bleach white sneakers. He dressed himself in salvaged nylon and polyester clothes, and clothes improvised from other items. Eventually, when the slick was big enough and populous enough, he managed to fashion himself a raft and a sail.

It was days before he left the plastic, nudging his way out through the detritus bit by bit, occasionally stopping to examine something new, read something unread, or pick up something he thought might be useful, until eventually his raft, buoyed high by sealed bottles and polystyrene, held together by nylon rope and polythene, decorated with doll's heads mounted on PVC tubes, propelled by a blue tarpaulin sail, reached the open sea. Behind him, a pale shape breached the surface of the water, sending waves through the floating garbage, and snorted a foul smelling spout of steam and air. Starbuck did not even look back.

Part 2

The man, unshaven and still wearing the clothes he had slept in, walked along the shoreline carrying a half-empty bottle of beer and humming a tune only he knew. He had enough of last night's fee in his pocket to make it through to tomorrow when he was on again. His guitar and a change of clothes were in the back of his car, all he had to do was remember where he had parked it. He had a party to go to and all, a party on a yacht at that, although he did not think it was going to be his kind of a bash. His name was Townes.

Townes hopped up onto the sea wall and off the other side onto the thin strip of rubbish strewn sand that still counted for a beach. The sea was churning up a grey scummy foam at the edge which glinted a rainbow oily sheen where the sun hit it. Crap washed back and forth with the waves, plastic bottles, tins, pizza boxes, coconut shells, dead fish. The rubbish piled up in places where curiosities of wind and current conspired to trap it, and it was an unusually high pile of rubbish that Townes thought he was passing when he saw Starbuck.

Starbuck breathed atop the remains of his raft. He was dressed in a motley collection of torn rags, on his head he wore a sun hat made from a blue plastic bowl, on his feet he wore one perfect white Reebok and one perfect white Nike. His beard reached his knees and his eyes were wide open and staring madly at the sky.

Townes climbed over the loosely coupled collection of garbage and nudged the man to see if he was alive.

'The white whale,' screamed Starbuck, and then coughed violently at the effort to speak.

Townes offered a swig of his beer, which was taken. 'Are you okay?' he asked.

Starbuck sat upright and pointed at the city, the sea wall and the concrete towers beyond. 'Land,' he whispered hoarsely, and then held his hand up as though to obscure the view from his eyes.

'Yes, land.'

'Where?'

'L.A.'

'Can I ...?'

'Can you what?'

Starbuck pointed at the beach with a trembling finger.

'What, get off here? Sure you can.'

Starbuck moved suddenly, crawling forwards on all fours, he rushed off the remains of his raft and dived onto the sand, sprawling on it, digging his fingers into it, pressing his face into it, hugging it. With a cough, and a retching that shook his whole body, he started to laugh.

'Land,' he shouted.

'You've been at sea?' asked Townes.

Starbuck nodded his head, still sprawled lovingly in the dirt.

'How long?'

Starbuck stilled and turned to face Townes. 'Two hundred years,' he croaked.

There was something in his eyes, not just a seriousness, although there was that, but a stare, a stare which would take two centuries to earn, a stare that had out-stared the sky. Townes did not know why he believed the man, but he did. 'Lets get you something to eat,' he said, and then looking at the bedraggled castaway in front of him, 'and something to wear.'

Starbuck jumped back on to his vessel and retrieved a carefully rolled up sheet of polythene which he laid out on the sand, on it was scored a complex map of sketched creatures and tiny scribbled writing all connected by a spider's web of lines that had, at it's centre, the unmistakable depiction of a whale. Starbuck stabbed at the whale with a bony finger and grinned at Townes.

'Very nice,' said Townes, 'bring that with you.'

Townes found a charity shop in which to dress Starbuck, and a barbershop in which to make him look human again, and then a bar to eat where Starbuck demanded things he had seen the packaging for but never tasted, tomato ketchup, coca-cola, hamburger helper, kraft cheese slices, peanut butter, washing up liquid, orange juice both smooth and with bits, both from concentrate and freshly squeezed, individual sachets of half and half, paracetamol, bleach, blue cheese dressing, kettle chips, hair gel, frankfurters, moisturiser, beef jerky. Townes and the waitress did what they could.

In the bay, unnoticed, a white shape glided beneath the water, waiting.

'So,' said Townes, after Starbuck had finally announced he could eat no more, 'do you want to go to a party?'

The party was thrown by some music industry bigwig who was a fan of Townes but Townes could not even name, all he remembered was how to get there, ask at the Ritz Carlton reception desk.

Sure enough the girl at reception knew exactly where to go and Townes soon found his name ticked off a list and he and his unlikely guest ferried out into the bay on a teak decked slipper launch towards a vast gleaming white floating palace. Townes, who had been all over America and beyond, had a little success and a little failure, some good times and some less good times, met with rich and poor, good and bad, crazy and sane, and treated them all alike, was still awestruck at the size and opulence of the yacht. Starbuck, who had lain on his back watching passing airliners scribe vapour trails in the sky for decades before he understood that powered flight was even a possibility, who had seen the twinkling lights of distant ships long before he heard of the electricity, merely looked regretfully back at the solid rock and mud and concrete of the shoreline.

The weight of the party was poolside, the band were in rhinestone studded purple velour jumpsuits and were playing a medley of Dolly Parton covers, the pool was surrounded by live palms in pots, not one below twelve feet tall and each decked in tinsel, the host was in a white seersucker suit and gold Stetson hat, he was leaning against the deckside half of the tiki-bar, the poolside half of which floated behind in the pool where men in tartan speedos and girls in dayglo bikinis sat in the water and drank Margaritas or Pina-Coladas. The host saw Townes and waved him over.

'This is my friend Starbuck,' shouted Townes over the background noise.

'Awesome,' shouted the host, 'get yourself a drink, have fun.'

Starbuck looked confused, he clutched his rolled up polythene chart close to his chest and pushed through the crowd a step behind Townes and refused anything to drink. Just behind him two girls in matching baby blue sailor suits snorted white powder off a glass topped table watched over by a man in skin tight pink latex shorts and a cropped heavy metal t-shirt. Starbuck caught fragments of conversations from all directions:

'This party is amazing!'

'We doubled sales just by bundling a free Cowboy Jesus sticker with each record but still lost out on the nets.'

'Just because I'm a vegetarian doesn't mean I can't eat meat if I want to.'

'You are amazing, this is so amazing!'

'I hate cinnamon, I despise cinnamon, seriously, if Kim Basinger was covered in cinnamon right here, I wouldn't lick it off.'

'Who are this band? I love this band so much.'

'She can do nought to sixty and back again in seven point two seconds, seriously, you should see her baby, it'd be the ride of your life.'

'Did you see that? In the water?'

'Man, if cock tasted like peperami I'd go gay.'

'That is amazing! You are so amazing! This party is amazing! I can't feel my face!'

'Come on,' said Townes, a half litre Martini glass in his hand with a cocktail umbrella the size of a small normal umbrella in it, 'let's find somewhere a bit quieter.'

They wandered forward on the deck, out past the streamlined gloss black windows of the bridge and onto a clear acre of gently sloping gleaming white fibreglass. There was a girl there wearing a Sisters Of Mercy t-shirt over a black velvet skirt. She was looking out over the side of the yacht and sipping a Jack Daniels and coke through a curly straw.

'Hey,' she said as they approached, 'you're Townes Van Zandt, I saw you play last night.'

'You did?' said Townes, 'cool.'

'Who's your friend?'

'His name's Starbuck, he doesn't talk much.'

Starbuck was not paying attention, he was looking back at the lights of the city.

'This party is weird,' said the girl.

'Not really my kind of people,' said Townes.

'You could sink this boat right now,' she said, 'and the rest of the world would go right on without even noticing.'

Townes laughed.

'What's your friend looking at?'

'I don't know,' said Townes.

'Hey buddy,' said the girl, 'can you see the whale? I saw a whale earlier.'

Starbuck looked at the girl for the first time and hurriedly unfurled his polythene sheet on the deck and stabbed with his finger at the whale drawing at the centre. 'The white whale?' he said.

'Yeah,' said the girl, 'it did look white, although it was hard to tell in the light. Hey, what is that anyway?'

'A catalogue,' said Starbuck hoarsely, 'a taxonomy of species that proves the existence of the white whale.'

'There's no such thing,' said the girl, crouching down to examine the myriad sketches and notes on Starbuck's work.

'What?'

'There's no such thing as a species, it's a man made fallacy, in real life there are no gaps between species except those that come about by extinction. These vectors you've drawn, the lines between species, there was once an animal at every point of those lines.'

Starbuck looked at her, confused.

'Listen,' she said, 'the black back gulls and herring gulls are separate species here, but follow the populations of herring gulls westward around the globe and they become more and more like black back gulls until you get all the way around and they are black back gulls. The whole notion of species is specious. This is beautiful though, it must have taken you years.'

'There is no such thing as species?'

'We are all the same and are all different, I share some genes with you, a few less genes with an ape, a few less again with a whale, but go back far enough and we all have a common ancestor. The whale is a man and man is a whale.'

'The whale is a man?'

'Well kinda,' said the girl, 'it depends on how you look at it. Every living creature is only infinitesimally removed from it's parents but those tiny changes add up over generations, over millions of years sometimes, into what we call different species. I'm majoring in biology.'

Starbuck shot upright and stared off the starboard flank of the yacht, in the distance something splashed. 'Get off this ship,' he said, 'both of you, get to shore as fast as you can.'

'Suits me,' said the girl, 'what are you going to do?'

'Find a harpoon,' said Starbuck. In the distance the lights just picked out a rising plume of steam and a pale shape slipping silently back under the water, moving in the direction of the yacht.

Part 3

The audience laughed because they only really understood how to laugh, they expected him to tell jokes and he told the story in roughly the shape of a joke, letting his intonation change at the end as if at a punchline so that even though there was no joke, the audience laughed.

'And that's how I got off the yacht last night just before it was stove by a whale,' said Townes, sitting alone on the stage, fingers working the guitar, starting up the next song. He looked at the girl in the black skirt hanging around the back of the room and she smiled back at him. 'We don't know what happened to Starbuck, perhaps he even found a harpoon. Anyway this next one's called You Are Not Needed Now.'