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“Ladies and Gentlemen:” by Joyce Carol Oates
As to the problems some of you have experienced: let me take this
opportunity, as your captain, ladies and gentlemen, to apologize, or at
least to explain. It’s true for instance that certain of your staterooms are
not precisely as the advertising brochure depicted them, the portholes are
not quite so large; in some cases the portholes are not in evidence. This is
not the fault of any of the Ariel staff; indeed, this has been a sore point
with us for some years, a matter of misunderstandings and
embarrassments out of our control, yet I, as your captain, ladies and
gentlemen, offer my apologies and my profoundest sympathies. Though I
am a bit your junior in age, I can well understand the special
disappointment, the
particular hurt, outrage,
and dismay that attend
one’s sense of having
been cheated on what,
for some of you,
probably, is perceived as
being the last time you’ll
be taking so prolonged
and exotic a trip—thus,
my profoundest sympathies! As to the toilets that have been reported as
malfunctioning or out of order entirely, and the loud throbbing or
“tremors” of the engines that have been keeping some of you awake, and
the negligent or even rude service, the overcooked or undercooked food,
the high tariffs2 on mineral water, alcoholic beverages, and cigarettes, the
reported sighting of rodents, cockroaches, and other vermin on board
ship—perhaps I should explain, ladies and gentlemen, that is the final
voyage of the S.S. Ariel and it was the owner’s decision, and a justifiably
pragmatic decision, to cut back on repairs, services, expenses, and the
like. Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry for your inconvenience, but the
Ariel is an old ship, bound for dry dock in Manila3 and the fate of many a
“Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.” ~ Robert A.
Heinlein, American Science Fiction author
L
adies and gentlemen: A belated but heartfelt welcome aboard our
cruise ship S.S. Ariel. It’s a true honor and privilege for me, your
captain, to greet you on this lovely sun-warmed January day—as
balmy, isn’t it, as any June morning back north? I wish I could claim that
we of the Ariel arranged personally for such splendid weather, as a
compensation of sorts for the—shall we say—somewhat rocky weather of
the past several days. But at any rate, it’s a welcome omen indeed and
bodes well for the remainder of the cruise and for this morning’s
excursion, ladies and gentlemen, to the island you see us rapidly
approaching, a small but
remarkably beautiful island the
natives of these waters call the
Island of Tranquility or, as some
translators prefer, the Island of
Repose. For those of you who’ve
become virtual sailors with a keen
eye for navigating, you’ll want to
log our longitude at 155 degrees
East and our latitude at 5 degrees North, approximately twelve hundred
miles north and east of New Guinea1. Yes, that’s right! We’ve come so
far! And as this is a rather crucial morning, and you island adventure an
important event not only on this cruise but in your lives, ladies and
gentlemen, I hope you will quiet just a bit—just a bit!—and give me, your
captain, your fullest attention. Just for a few minutes, I promise! Then
you disembark.
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the world’s second largest island is located in the Southwest Pacific ocean
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a tax on imports or exports
capital city of the Phillippines, an island nation in the Pacific
veteran seagoing vessel that has outlived her time. God bless her! We’ll
not see her likes again!
the result, I would guess, of especially generous early-retirement
programs and the eldest among you are in their mid-nineties. Quite a
range of ages!)
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have some quiet—please, just five minutes
more?—before the stewards help you prepare for your disembarkment?
Thank you.
Yes, it’s true you are all Americans. You have expensive cameras, even
in some cases video equipment, for recording this South Seas adventure;
you have all sorts of tropical-cruise paraphernalia, including some
extremely attractive bleached-straw hats; some of you have quite a supply
of sun-protective lotions; and most of you have a considerable quantity
and variety of pharmacological supplies. And quite a store of paperbacks,
magazines, cards, games, and crossword puzzles. Yet there is one
primary thing you have in common, ladies and gentlemen, which has
determined your presence here this morning, at longitude 155 degrees
east and latitude 5 degrees North: your fate, as it were. Can’t you guess?
Yes, the Ariel is bound for Manila next. But have no fear, you won’t be
aboard.
Ladies and gentlemen, please. This murmuring and muttering begins to
annoy.
(Yet, as your captain, I’d like to note that, amid the usual whiners and
complainers and the just plain bad-tempered, it’s gratifying to see a
number of warm, friendly, hopeful faces and to know that there are men
and women determined to enjoy life, not quibble and harbor suspicions.
Thank you!)
Ladies and gentlemen: your children.
Yes, you have in common the fact that this cruise on the S.S. Ariel was
originally your children’s idea and that they arranged for it, if you’ll
recall. (Though you have probably paid for you own passages, which
weren’t cheap.) Your children—who are “children” only technically, for
of course they are fully grown, fully adult, a good number of them parents
themselves (having made you proud grandparents—yes, haven’t you been
proud!)—these sons and daughters, if I may speak frankly, are very tired
of waiting for inheritances.
Now to our business at hand: ladies and gentlemen, do you know what
you have in common?
You can’t guess?
You can guess?
No? Yes?
Yes, and very impatient, some of them, very angry, waiting to come into
control of what they believe is their just due.
No?
Ladies and gentlemen, please! I’m asking for quiet, and I’m asking for
respect. As captain of the Ariel, I am not accustomed to being
interrupted.
Well, yes sir, it’s true that you are all aboard the S.S. Ariel; and yes, sir—
excuse me, ma’am—it’s certainly true that you are all of “retirement” age.
(Though “retirement” has come to be a rather vague term in the past
decade or so, hasn’t it? For the youngest among you are in their fifties—
I believe you did hear me correctly, sir. And you too, sir.
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Yes and you, ma’am. And you. (Most of you aren’t nearly so deaf as
you pretend!)
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s pointless to protest. As captain of the Ariel, I
merely expedite orders.
Let me speak candidly. While your children are in many cases,
genuinely fond of you, they are simply impatient with the prospect of
waiting for your “natural” deaths. Ten years, fifteen? Twenty? With
today’s medical technology, who knows; you might outlive them!
And you must know that it’s pointless to express disbelief or incredulity,
to roll your eyes as if I (of all people) were a bit cracked, to call out
questions or demands, to shout, weep, sob, beg, rant and rave, and
mutter—“If this is a joke, it isn’t a very funny joke!” “As if my
son/daughter would ever do such a thing to us!”—in short, it’s pointless
to express any and all of the reactions you’re expressing, which have been
expressed by other ladies and gentlemen on past Ariel voyages to the
South Sea.
Of course it’s a surprise to you, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a shock. Thus
you, sir, are shaking your head in disbelief, and you, sire, are muttering
just a little too loudly, “Who does that fool think he is, making such bad
jokes?”—and you, ladies, are giggling like teen-aged girls, not knowing
what to think. But remember: your children have been living lives of
their own, in a very difficult, very competitive corporate America; they
are, on the face of it, well-to-do, even affluent; yet they want, in some
cases, desperately need, your estates—not in a dozen years but now.
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es, it’s the best thing, to cooperate. Yes, in an orderly fashion.
It’s wisest not to provoke the stewards (whose nerves are a bit
ragged these days—the crew is only human after all) into using
force. Ladies and gentlemen, these are lovely azure4 waters—exactly as
the brochures promised!—but shark-infested, so take care.
That is to say, as soon as your wills can be probated.
For, however your sons and daughters appear in the eyes of their
neighbors, friends, and business colleagues, even in the eyes of their own
offspring, you can be sure that they have not enough money. You can be
sure that they suffer keenly certain financial jealousies and yearnings—
and who dares calibrate another’s suffering? Who dares peer into
another’s heart? Without betraying anyone’s confidence, I can say that
there are several youngish men, beloved sons of couples in your midst,
ladies and gentlemen, who are nearly bankrupt; men of integrity and
“success” whose worlds are about to come tumbling about their heads—
unless they get money or find themselves in the position of being able to
borrow money against their parents’ estates, fast. Investment bankers,
lawyers, a college professor or two—some of them already in debt. Thus
they decided to take severe measures.
As, yes, those dorsal fins slicing the waves, just beyond the surf: observe
them closely.
No, we’re leaving no picnic baskets with you today. Nor any bottles of
water, Perrier water5, or champagne.
For why delay what’s inevitable? Why cruelly protract anguish?
Ladies and gentlemen, maybe it’s a simple thing, maybe it’s a selfevident thing, but consider: you are the kind of civilized men and women
who brought babies into the world not by crude, primitive, anachronistic6
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bright blue
a naturally carbonated, expensive bottled water from France
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an inconsistency in chronology (something out of order)
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brained, suffering from Alzheimer’s9 disease (about which they’d been
reading suddenly, it seemed, everywhere) you turned against them,
disinherited them, remarried someone younger, healthier, more cunning
than they, rewrote your wills, as elderly fools are always doing?
chance, but by systematic deliberation. You planned your futures; you
planned, as the expression goes, your parenthood. You are all of that
American economic class called “upper middle”7; you are educated, you
are cultured, you are stable; nearly without exception, you showered love
upon your sons and daughters, who knew themselves, practically in the
cradle, as privileged. The very best—the most exclusive—nursery
schools, private schools, colleges, universities. Expensive toys and gifts
of all kinds; closets of clothing, ski equipment, stereo equipment, racing
bicycles; tennis lessons, riding lessons, snorkeling lessons, private
tutoring, trips to the Caribbean, to Mexico, to Tangier, to Tokyo, to
Switzerland; junior years abroad in Paris, in Rome, in London; yes, and
their teeth were perfect, or were made to be; yes, and they had cosmetic
surgery if necessary; or nearly necessary; yes, and you gladly paid for
their abortions or their tuition for law school, medical school, business
school; yes, and you paid for their weddings; yes, and you loaned them
money “to get started,” certainly you helped them with their mortgages,
or their second cars, or their children’s orthodontic bills; nothing was too
good or too expensive for them, for what, ladies and gentlemen, would it
have been?
Ladies and gentlemen, your children declare that they want only what’s
theirs.
They say laughingly, they aren’t going to live forever.
(Well, yes: I’ll confide in you, off the cuff, in several instances it was an
in-law who looked into the possibility of a cruise on the S.S. Ariel; your
own son/daughter merely cooperated, after the fact as it were. Of course,
that isn’t the same things!)
Ladies and gentlemen, as your captain, about to bid you farewell, let me
say I am sympathetic with your plight. Your stunned expressions, your
staggering-swaying gait, your damp eyes, working mouths—“This is a
bad joke!” “This is intolerable!” “This is a nightmare!” “No child of
mine could be so cruel—inhuman—monstrous!” et cetera—all is
touching, wrenching to the heart, altogether natural. One might almost
say traditional. Countless others, whose bones you may discover should
you have the energy and spirit to explore the Island of Tranquility (or
Repose), reacted in more or less the same way.
Ladies and gentlemen, you rarely stopped to consider your children as
other than your children, as men and women growing into maturity
distinct from you. Rarely did you pause to see how
patiently they were waiting to inherit their due—and
then, by degrees, how impatiently. What anxieties
besieged them, what nightmare speculations—for
what if you squandered you money on medical bills?
Nursing home bills? The melancholic impedimenta8
of age in America? What if—worse yet!—addle-
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Thus do not despair, ladies and gentlemen, for your emotions, however
painful, are time-honored; but do not squander the few precious
remaining hours of your life, for such emotions are futile.
a household that earns $100,000 annually
sad obstacles that one must deal with as they get older
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degenerative, terminal form of dementia, which causes memory loss
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adies and gentlemen: the Island of Tranquility upon which you
now stand shivering in the steamy morning heat is approximately
six kilometers in circumference, ovoid of shape, with a curious
archipelago10 of giant metamorphic11 rocks trailing off to the north, a
pounding hallucinatory surf, and horizon, vague, dreamy, and distant, on
all sides. Its soil is admixture of volcanic ash, sand, rock, and peat; its
jungle interior pocked with treacherous bogs of quicksand.
By night (and the hardiest among you should survive numerous nights, if
past history prevails), you’ll contemplate the tropical moon, hanging
heavy and luminous in the sky like an overripe fruit; you’ll be moved to
smile at the sport the fiery-phosphorescent fish frolicking in the waves;
you’ll be lulled to sleep by the din of the insects, the cries of the nocturnal
birds, your own prayers perhaps.
Some of you will cling together, like terrified herd animals; some of you
will wander off alone, dazed, refusing to be touched, even comforted by a
spouse of fifty years.
It is a truly exotic island, but fairly quickly most of you will become
habituated to the ceaseless winds that ease across the island from several
directions simultaneously, air intimate and warmly stale as exhaled
breathes, caressing, narcotic. You’ll become habituated to the ubiquitous
sand flies, numerous species of snakes (the small
quicksilver orange-speckled baya snake is the
most venomous, you’ll want to know); the redbeaked carnivorous macaw and its ear-piercing
shriek; bullfrogs the size of North American
jackrabbits; two-hundred pound tortoises with
pouched, intelligent eyes; spider monkeys playful as children; tapirs;
tarantulas; and, the most colorful of all, the comical cassowary birds with
their bony heads, gaily-hued wattles, and stunted wings—these ungainly
birds whom millions of years of evolution, on this island lacking mammal
predators, have rendered flightless.
Ladies and gentlemen, I, your captain, speak for the crew of the S.S.
Ariel, bidding you farewell.
Ladies and gentlemen, your children have asked me to assure you that
they do love you—but circumstances have intervened.
Ladies and gentlemen, your children have asked me to recall to you those
years when they were in fact children—wholly innocent as you imagined,
adoring you as gods.
Ladies and gentlemen, I now
bid farewell to you as children
do, waving goodbye not once
but numerous times, solemn,
reverential. Goodbye,
goodbye, goodbye.
And orchids: some of you have already noticed the lovely, bountiful
orchids growing everywhere, dozens of species, every imaginable color,
some the size of grapes and others the size of a man’s head, unfortunately
inedible.
And the island’s smells, are they fragrances or odors? Is it rampant,
fresh-budding life or jungle-rancid decay? Is there a difference?
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a cluster of islands
a type of hard rock that makes up most of the earth’s crust (marble, slate, etc.)
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