The Great White

Abstract

I was thirty eight. I'd been to sea for a year. What a great year it had been. I'd been swallowed by a great white whale, circled by great white sharks but spent most ofmy time staring at the great white clouds and thinking to myself, "Gee, diat great white cloud looks just like a great white cloud." And, "Gee, that great white cloud looks just like a great white cloud." And, "Gee, that great white cloud looks just like a gteat white cloud. I wish it would rain." In the year I'd been to sea it had not rained. Not a single drop and I was dry. Awfully dry. More than rescued I wanted a crisp, clear glass of cool, refreshing water like Robespierre's Water, the crisp, clear, cool, refreshing water Robespierre Caruso, the tenor terror, endorsed on Robespierre Caruso's Softsoap Comedie Opera Hour. My throat sang just thinking about Robespierre's Water just like Robespierre Caruso sang it would. "Some may sing for their supper, some may sing for a song. But none will sing as loud and as long, as those whose throats taste Robespierre's Water." I couldn't really sing so my singing was make-believe. I could hum and for the better part of my thirty eighth year at sea I'd hum The Ballad Of Giuliani's Island. While I hummed I'd pray for deliverance, as my personal god and hero Giuliani prayed each week on his classic, highly rated, masterpiece of a program Giuliani's Island, for deliverance. Giuliani, lisping through his dialogue, would pray to be delivered, or shipwrecked upon an uncharted desert isle. Once there, using cunning, wile, craft, and every dirty, underhanded, double dealing, backstabbing trick he knew, he'd pray the happy, hapless natives were as happy and hapless as he hoped and would accept his presumptuous offer of twenty nine dollars in glass beads for possession of the island and their souls deliverable to Giuliani's personal god and great white father Disney. There were words to the song I hummed. Words with great meaning and even greater depth.