Chapter 4: Knights & Squires
The chief mate of the Peapod was Starbuck. Everyone on board agreed that his was by far the coolest name on the ship. (Way cooler than Ichabod, anyway. Thanks, Mom and Dad.) He hoped someday to use it as the name for his own coffee chain, once he got around to starting a business. Starbuck was tall and muscular, in his early thirties; Queerqueg, upon learning that the chief mate was strait, shook his head and said, "Such a waste!"
Self-assured and cool-headed, Starbuck was a man with a strict personal code of morals that he tried to stick to always. These included always standing up for the little guy, and never letting the establishment brainwash him into following the crowd. Rarely without his black barrette and never without that big mug of coffee in his hands, Starbuck kept a cool, relaxed attitude towards the voyage, life, and anything it could throw at him. Anytime he saw some injustice aboard the boat—sailors arguing over their share of rum, or hazing the little cabin boy Chip—Starbuck would stare down the bullies behind those dark purple shades he wore, tell them ta chill and back off, then suggest everyone go below deck for a game of "Apples to Apples."
The second mate was Stud. Named for the multiple piercings sprinkled around his ears and face like stars in the Milky Way, he and Starbuck had much in common. Like the fist mate, Stud was laid back and carefree—even more so, in fact. Stud didn't just accept oddballs like Queerqueg and myself; he didn't even seem to notice anything was off about us to begin with. He didn't seem to notice much, period. He sported dark colors and shades like his friend, but while Starbuck's drug of choice was black coffee, Stud's was his pipe. All day, he would have the thing hanging out of his mouth, and leave behind a sweet earthy odor that reminded me of Aqua-Buda Man. Before Stud even stuck his legs into his black-dyed jeans in the morning, he would first stick that pipe in his mouth. And it served him well. When it finally came time to face that great white rooster mano-a-mano, Stud wielded his hunting harpoon freely and casually as a pop-artist lashing out with a paintbrush, sending his art flying into the air in a frenzy of bloody paint and feathers.
The third mate was Flask. Just as Starbuck loved his coffee and Stud his pipe, Flask was never to be seen without his flask of eggnog dangling from his hip. Flask shared none of my curiosity or admiration for the wild animals we were hunting. A Wisconsin "Uppie" by origin, Flask was a skilled hunter and fisherman. He considered Moby Cock and all his feathery relatives to be no more than pests, and took great pleasure in using them for target practice with his rifle. Still, he had his virtues. After spending half the day on deck having mellow conversations with the black-clad Starbuck and Stud, it was always a relief to have Flask run up on deck in his plaid shirt and neon orange vest, full of energy and eager to share some new off-color jokes with us.
Just as with the knights of old, each senior officer aboard the duck was granted his own personal squire, an assistant who would be paired up with him and carry the equipment when we split up into small hunting parties.
Starbuck was truly the White Knight of the Peapod. He accepted everyone, no matter how bizarre they looked or what they did. It was no surprise then that this funky knight's squire was Queerqueg.
Next was Toledo. A Native American from Ohio, Toledo was an experienced hunter of fowl, and we relied heavily on his advice. He knew, for example, that farm turkeys were stupid enough to stare at a rainy sky with their mouths opened until they drowned, but that wild turkeys were sly sons-of-bitches who might ambush you from the trees. He could hit a speeding hummingbird twenty feet in the air with a bullet or an arrow (granted, there wasn't much point in doing so, as there would be nothing left to bring home but a few feathers once this was done). High cheekbones and large dark eyes, with long shinning black hair, even I myself had to agree when Queerqueg said that this strait guy, too, was, like such a waste, before I smacked myself and hissed, "Boobs, I like boobs!" Toledo was Stud's squire.
Next came Dingo. He was an enormous, muscular, black dude, who had grown up on a farm wrestling animals as large as pigs and goats into their pens. Dingo could decapitate a chicken with his bare hands. He wore his hair in a thick frizzy Mohawk, in tribute to his wrestling idol, Mr. T. His way with the animals impressed Flask, whose opinion about God's creatures I have already explained to you. Thus, Dingo was Flask's squire.
Finally, there was the cabin boy, Chip. A short black boy from Minnesota, Chip was ten years old, but read tenth grade math books for fun. He had somehow convinced Captain Ahole to allow him to join us, so he could gain experience and conduct interviews for a school research project on the changing climate of the American grasslands. Chip was simultaneously the most adorable and the most irritating thing any of us would encounter during the entire voyage. Although in Ahole's opinion, only the "irritating" part was true.
And there we were, like the Knights of the Round Table, with the Peapod protecting us like the walls of Camelot—but with far less singing, and if instead of King Arthur, the leader was a grumpy old man with a wooden leg—
"Woa woa, hold the phone," Toledo held up a hand, stopping me in midsentence.
"Huh?" I looked up.
The entire crew, minus Ahole, was sitting in beanbags, in the lower deck of the Peapod. It was dusk, and our first hunt of the day was over. The Peapod was parked for the night, miles away from civilization. The small prairie hens we had caught were roasting in the oven.
"So, let me get this straight," Toledo scratched his neck. "I'm Stud's squire?"
"Correct," I nodded.
Toledo pointed around the room. "Queerqueg is Starbuck's squire, Dingo is Flask's, and Chip is…?"
"Captain Ahole's." I said. "And I don't need a squire, because I'm the Dungeon Master."
"Is the captain even playing?" Chip asked.
"Playin' what?" the captain grumbled, from behind the closed door of his office.
"Knights and Squires!" I said. "Only the hottest role-playing game on the shelves!"
"It's like D&D—Dungeons and Dragons," Flask added, between swigs of eggnog. "Only in a King Arthur-type setting, instead of Middle Earth."
"D&D is not set in Middle Earth!" Chip said angrily. "The worlds are completely different! For starters, their elves are shorter than humans, instead of taller; Middle Earth doesn't have any Druids…"
With the exception of Chip's rambling, there was a long stretch of total silence. Finally, the captain barked from behind his door, "Nerds!"
"Come on now, Captain," Starbuck called from where he was sprawled out on a tie-dyed beanbag. "You spend all your time cooked up in that little office. Why not join us on a quest?"
"Quest?" the captain's voice sounded through the door. "Quest?"
We heard the sound of several bolts being unlocked, and then Ahole swung the door open. His glare swept across the room. "So it's a quest you boys want?"
"Um, yeah." Chip said timidly.
"We can search for the Holy Grail, or Excalibur." I said. "Your pick!"
A grin spread across the captain's face. "I got something better for you."
We all sat up, silent.
"You wanna be like knights?" Ahole strode around our beanbag circle, his wooden leg clopping with every step. "How about a quest to slay the greatest monster this world has ever known?"
"Dragon slaying," I snapped my fingers. "Why didn't I think of that?"
Ahole shook his head. "This beast is worse than any dragon."
We watched him curiously, for he looked not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up. A huge, howling, monstrous storm, that'll clean away your house and sweep you off to Oz—and not the happy, colorful Oz with the singing munchkins, but the dark, creepy, twisted Oz with that witch who collects people's heads.
"What do ye do when ye see a chicken, men?" Ahole asked.
"Sing out for him!" the crew replied in unison.
Stud laughed and mimed playing his pipe like a guitar, singing "I don't wanna be a chicken, I don't wanna be a duck, so I'll shake my…
Ahole silenced Stub with a kick from his wooden leg. "Cut that out ye beatnik!"
"Oy!" Stud jumped back in his beanbag chair.
The captain looked back to the rest of the crew. "Good! And what do ye next, men?"
"Lower away, and after him!" we cried—except Stud.
"He kicked me!" Stud pointed his pipe accusingly at the captain.
"An' I'll do it again till ye shut yer trap, you stoner idiot!" Ahole swung his wooden leg back and forth, occasionally hitting the Stud when the sailor wasn't fast enough to dodge it.
Finally turning back to the crew, Ahole held up something that glistened in the lamp light.
"Look ye!" Ahole held up a shimmering gold coin, the size of a Spanish doubloon. "Ye see this, gents?"
The company leaned close, to get a better look.
Chip adjusted his thick glasses. "That looks like tinfoil."
"Exactly!" Ahole pinched the edge of the coin. "And what do ye think's under the tinfoil, gentlemen?"
He peeled away a chunk of tinfoil, and the crew marveled at the chocolate beneath; it was Hershey's Dark. Ahole replaced the foil wrapping, and rubbed the coin against his jacket, to shine it.
"Whosoever raises me a white rooster that's eight feet tall, with a crooked beak and a wrinkled waddle, whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed menace with three holes punctured in his plumage—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white cock, he shall have a whole chest of these chocolate doubloons!"
The entire crew's eyes lit up with cocoa-lust, and as a man we all cried, "Huzza! Huzzah!"
More and more, the crew became enthused by the captain's speech. Some began to gaze curiously at one another, as if wondering how they themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions. Certain crewmembers examined the coffee or eggnog they were drinking, wondering if maybe that had something to do with it.
"Skin you eyes for him men," Ahole pocketed the coin. "If ye see but a feather, sing out!"
All the while, Toledo, Dingo and Queerqueg seemed to become more and more interested and surprised than the rest, as if the mention of the giant rooster rang a bell for each of them.
"Captain Ahole," Toledo said in an offhand way, "That white rooster wouldn't by any chance be the infamous Moby Cock, would it?"
"Moby Cock? Ye heard of him?" Ahole demanded.
"Does he fan his tail up a bit, as he dives down under the grass?" Toledo asked.
"And his middle talon sticks up, like a velociraptor?" Dingo added.
Frowning, Starbuck asked Stud, "How many eight-foot-tall roosters are roaming this prairie?"
Stud shrugged.
"Captain," Starbuck spoke up. "I've heard of this Moby Cock. But surely that's not the chicken that took your leg off?"
"Who told ye that?" Ahole spun to face Starbuck.
The entire crew glanced around at each other.
Ahole sighed. "Those 'Quakers,' right?" he shook his head. "Idiots. I hang out with them once while we're all drunk at Oktoberfest, and now they tell everyone I'm their best mate. But anywho, yes. Moby Cock, that be him. T'was that accursed bird that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. I'll chase him round Kansas, to L.A., to Timbuktu before I give up! This is what ye have shipped for, men. To chase that white monster on the grass and on the river, over all sides of the Earth,"
Chip protested softly, "But the Earth doesn't have sides—"
"…and all the way to Saturn if we must," Ahab said, as Chip dodged a kick the captain's wooden leg, "till we're sprinkling breaking over his roasted drumsticks!"
"Aye aye!" the crew cheered—all except one person.
"You dragged us out here to have revenge on a chicken?"
The crew grew silent, and all heads turned to the back of the room. Starbuck sat there in his beanbag chair, holding his smoldering cup of coffee with a stiff hand, staring Ahole down behind his purple shades.
"That's right." Ahole spat back. "Revenge, aye. It's my only purpose on this earth—to kill that monster. Just as you live to see that coffee chain of yours come true, I live ta bring this white feathery beast down. From this one poor hunt, surely Starbuck won't hang back,"
Stud rubbed his temples and muttered, "He's talking in third person again…"
Ahole either didn't hear Stud or chose to ignore him. At some point during his rant, he passed out pint-sized mugs to everyone, and convinced Flask to share his eggnog with the crew. "Drink, ye harpooners! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt this Moby Cock to his death!"
The little room was filled with cries against the white rooster, while Starbuck sipped his coffee nervously. Ahole then retired to his cabin, and the rest of the crew, having lost interesting in Knights and Squires, stayed up until midnight playing drinking games.