Captain Ahab's golden years

Captain Ahab’s golden years

Dr. William Budd
Chief of Gerontology
Elder Care by the Sea
Portland, Maine

Dear Miss Ahab,

As we approach the first anniversary of your father’s, (the Captain, as he requires us to call him) arrival here at Elder Care by the Sea, I am sorry to report to you his yearly stipend must be increased if you wish him to stay here with us.

I have attached an itemized breakdown of the damages the Captain has caused this facility in recent months. When you first brought him here he seemed to think the voyage was just starting and was quite tractable, aside from attempting to organize his fellow residents to “make this scow seaworthy.”

But as time has gone on, the Captain has become increasingly impatient and belligerent. He maintains we are stuck in the Sargasso, saying to me more than once “by the devil, Billy, we’re becalmed!” This led to a good deal of tension here during mealtimes when he would rage to his fellow residents that they were “worthless gets, every man jack of ye! Laying about the deck all day and then eating up the stores!”

We even had to forego our afternoon tea ritual because the Captain has forbid any of his ‘crew’ their daily “ration of grog”. “There’ll be time enough for grog when we’ve slain the great white devil,” he shouts, knocking the teacups from the hands of the unwary.

I know you had mentioned his possible monomania concerning an imaginary white whale which he calls by the name of Moby Dick. In support of his hallucination he has organized his fellow residents into ‘watch parties’ and they must stand for hours watching the sea for ‘spouts’.

As you know from your visit, we are sited on a cliff overlooking a beautiful sea cove. One of the reasons you hoped your father might be happy here was because we occasionally see migrating pods of whales. Last week we were graced by our first sighting of the whales since your father came here, but instead of it being a calming influence for him the sight seemed to make him go berserk.

The unfortunate thing was that most of the staff were in a meeting at the time and his subsequent actions were unimpeded in large part. He reportedly shouted “launch the dinghy, ye blaggarts” and when people didn’t move fast enough for his tastes he threw one of the long wooden tables over on its back, getting inside it as if it were a boat.

That by itself wouldn’t have been so bad, but he then grabbed old Mr. Porter’s umbrella and tried to harpoon Mrs. Soulsby. I grant you she is rather obese and spends a good portion of her time lying down, but it doesn’t explain why he thought she was this ‘Moby Dick’.

The good news is he didn’t really hurt her and we were able to pull him off before he made good on his claim to “flense the devil out of ye”. The bad news is Mrs. Soulsby no longer feels welcome in the day room.

As I said in the beginning of my letter, Miss Ahab, your father’s care has been rather more expensive than when we first negotiated a price last year. One of the reasons for that is we have needed to increase a security presence in the day room because of your father’s outbursts. At times he needs to be restrained.

As you know he can be quite a handful, and resists with all his might this attempt to be “clapped in irons by mutinous bastards” and vows he will “stretch yer cowardly necks from the mizzenmast.”

So, all in all, I hope you see why I have written you this letter, Miss Ahab. Caring for your father in his twilight years has turned out to be a bigger task than we first anticipated. Perhaps we are not the best institution for him to be housed in after all.

Don’t get me wrong, we are as fond of him as he will allow us to be and we would hate to see him have to leave, since he has done much to liven up the atmosphere here at Elder Care by the Sea. Hopefully you will see our dilemma and take the necessary steps if you wish to keep your father, the Captain, ‘aboard’ our ‘ship’.

Cordially,
Dr. Budd