Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Tuesday, October 23, 2007)

“Ahab And The White Crab”
A One-Act Play by Herman Melville
Starring Ishmael, Captain Ahab and Queequeg

Scene: Captain Ahab is sitting on the deck of the Pequod at night, watching the sea. Ishmael approaches him.

Ahab
Say, moon calf, why lingerest there? Come hither.

Ishmael

Begging your forgiveness. I did not see you at supper, Captain, and I brought you slapjack and sea bread. Prithee tell me, why do you tarry here?

Ahab
I’m watching the sea for a peaceful respite.

Ishmael
Aye, but sadness is stamped in the troubles of thy brow, Captain.

Ahab
‘Tis true. I’ve kept to myself until now. But I’ve been laid low by a most cursed affliction of the spirit.

Ishmael
Is it this endless sallying and fruitless endeavor to find the white whale?

Ahab

Nay, it is the ticklish white crab that inflicts he who rolls in Venus’ arms.

Ishmael
You say not!

Ahab
Aye, the dreaded one itself.

Ahab scratches his crotch.

Ishmael
What have ye done for it?

Ahab
Not much is that I can do. With a clinched oath and dread in my soul, I have been to see the apothecary and rubbed on the prescribed creams and unguents. But these ablutions brought me no closer to the end of the infernal itching devil’s fury.

Ishmael
I’ve never been so afflicted with such a malady meself. Prithee tell me, how go they?

Ahab
Ah, they are as white as the great sperm whale, and almost as big. The whiteness of the crab mocks, as like a sinister evil to cover up its dark doings.

Ishmael
How?

Ahab
They lay their nits in me and feed on my blood until they grow white and fat on the warmth and larder of my body like nymphs when they become wives.

Ishmael
Sad, truly. You saw some fair dollymop in Boston, perhaps, and it was she gave you the white crab?

Ahab
Or it was I laid too long with the cannibal in my bunk, be it what it would. Yet it is worse now, for now it toys with my mood as well as my flesh. For even when the itching abates, I think of how man’s days are like endless yarn spun from an endless loom until the final day he is hoary, gray and fit for the morgue. And in the meantime of his days: all this wretched, fetid itching. We’re all in a tight scratch with life’s quotidian irritations, which are like the substance of madness.

Ishmael
Did ye try alcohol?

Ahab
How so?

Ishmael
To pour it on directly. Maybe to wrench the tiny white beast from thy close company with rum or whisky.

Ahab (wailing)
Arg, of course I did! I’d nail a doubloon to the mainmast for the man who could help me rid myself of the white crabs.

Ishmael
Avast! Here’s Queequeg. And he’s got a shiv and a bottle of rum, if I see by the way he stumbles.

Queequeg the cannibal comes in with a harpoon.

Queequeg
Some body say there bee a white crab?

Ahab
I did, Queequeg. What of it?

Queequeg
Ah! Queequeg no kill-e big whale tonight. Queequeg kill-ee small white nits.

He approaches Ahab with the harpoon aimed at his genitals.

Ishmael
No! Queequeg, not that way!

Queequeg jumps down on Ahab, pulls down his pants, holds him down and shaves him.

Ishmael
Belay that, savage! Stop! What are ye doing? Are you all right, captain?

Ahab
Wait! He truly knows what it is he does.

Queequeg finishes and gets up.

Queequeg
Is better, no?

Ahab
Yea! I am. Thank-ee Queequeg. You truly are a noble savage.

Ishmael looks down at Ahab’s fallen trou.

Ishmael
The devil, Ahab! Now I’d liken thee by thy dearth of hair to a 10-year-old boy.

Ahab looks down too.

Ahab
So I am. But not to worry. I feel as if it gives me newfound powers and fettle, as if I were like a youthful star-gazer again.

He dances around.

Ahab
That’s a sight better. From now on Queequeg, I am so thankful that I’ll let all generations know what ye have done. I shall call it “The Brazilian Wax.”

Ishmael
You look a stone fool, Ahab. Stay away from me.

Ahab wiggles his newly shaved pubes at Ishmael and chases him offstage, leaving Queequeg alone to ponder.

Queequeg
Queequeg not from Brazil.

THE END