HERMAN MELVILLE AT THE CHELSEA, OR CLOSE ANYWAY

     Around the corner from the Chelsea on Seventh Avenue, a homeless man, apparently drunk, was mediating a dispute between two of his similarly situated buddies: “Nah, you know the story of Moby Dick, don’t you?  They didn’t call him that because he bit his dick off!  He bit his leg off!  That’s why he walked with a peg leg.”
     Well, that clears things up.  No need to use a peg leg just because you got your dick bit off.  I noticed, however, that the man seemed possibly to be confusing Ahab with the white whale.  More importantly, if the name “Moby Dick”—as applied to either man or whale--doesn’t refer to a bit-off dick, then to what on earth does it refer?  I guess I should have stopped and told the men that I too was interested in literary criticism.  Perhaps together we could have solved this riddle. (Copyright Ed Hamilton 2006)