OutLoud

by Sally Sheklow

CRABBY

Even a crustacean liberator must make a piercing decision

“Oh, I’m so sad,” the little captive signaled from the bottom of the crab bucket. “Please, please, powerful human, set me free!” Beady black eyes glistened with crab melancholy. The underslung jaw quivered.

Determined not to appear wimpy in front of my girlfriend and our pals Vicki and Debby, I turned my back on the helpless (unless you count the skin-piercing claws) creature, and returned to my post in the shallow surf.

I had attained the rank of crab spotter by virtue of first noticing the red-shelled crustaceans waddling around under the foam. “Crabs!” I yelled, and pointed to the spot. I had only meant to call attention to a wildlife phenomenon, but Debby, the one real butch in our gang of four, plunged her arm down into the cold swirling soup and nabbed the harmless (unless you count the skin-piercing claws) animal by its pincer-less backside.

Debby had actually crabbed at sea and knew how to tell which crabs were male and therefore legal to catch. I didn’t feel quite so bad about our predatory mission as long as I imagined that we had stumbled upon a CrabGrrrl festival and were doing them a favor by ridding The Land (the water) of men. “There’s one!” I hollered and pointed into the cloudy churn. Debby stuck her arm in again and hoisted up another fine specimen, which was waving its claws in the universal sign for “Crabs Have Feelings, Too!” I looked away.

My girlfriend was the transporter. She carried a plastic pail down the slope to Debby, received the next victim, and hurried it back up the beach to the crab pokey. Vicki, struggling with her own crab sensitivity, stood guard over the inmates, careful not to make eye contact.

We were spending a lazy weekend at Debby’s family cabin on the Oregon coast, where long beach walks inspired such profound philosophical discussions as how much we love Queen Latifah and what to have for dinner. The freak influx of Dungeness crabs, which we later read about in the local paper under the headline “Crabs!,” solved our dinner quandary.

At least it solved the menu part. Preparation was another matter. The altitude of stacked crabs rose perilously close to the rim of their detention chamber, which we needed to haul across the dunes and back to the cabin. But Debby’s elevated arm was now striped with trails of blood from the numerous misjudgments as to which end of the crab had the skin-piercing claws. She had already jogged off toward the cabin’s first-aid kit. My girlfriend couldn’t carry anything because her bad knee ached from schlepping all those bucketfuls of crabs and seawater back and forth between the ocean and the holding station. That left death-march duty to Vicki and me—the two most emotionally sensitive to the accusations of crab abuse welling up from the big bucket.

Vicki and I stood on the beach, flanking the crab slammer. If so much effort hadn’t gone into the hunt, we might have lugged the little guys back to the ocean. But we didn’t want to be hypocrites. If we could eat them in a restaurant, we should be willing to face the reality of what happens between crab freedom and crab salad.

We did consider an “accidental spill” to give the little beasts one last chance at freedom. When I was a kid, I specialized in marine-life liberation. I spent summers with my grandmother in Balboa, where I would sneak onto the dock that sold “Live Bait!” and, when no one was looking, scoop netfuls of silvery anchovies out of the bait tank and set them free in the bay.

The crabs seemed to pick up on my soft streak and squirmed piteously. I made a silent vow to call my lawyer and have her change my will from the plain pine box plan to throwing my body overboard in crab-infested waters—an idea which, if it became a popular trend, I imagined might one day come to be known as squid pro quo.

Vicki and I needed to get our minds off the crabs’ plight and focus on the bigger picture. We considered the issues of autonomy and self-reliance and how much money we would save by doing the whole job ourselves, not to mention the natural resources we would conserve because no fossil-fuel-burning boats or trucks were involved with getting our food to the table. The crabs clicked and scrabbled around in their paddy wagon, tapping out “SOS” on one another’s backs.

Then Vicki mentioned a dipping sauce of minced garlic and fresh lemon swimming in drawn butter. Pavlov couldn’t have rung a more evocative bell. We hefted the crab bin, looked straight ahead, and tromped across the dunes to the cabin where the water was already boiling.

Sally Sheklow writes, teaches, performs comedy improv and ponders keeping kosher in Eugene, Oregon. Comments can be emailed to sally@wymprov.com.

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