Papaw phoned a man called game warden to tell him he was taking his grandson crabbing on the seawall across from Pleasure Island. I asked my dad who Mr. Warden was and he told me, in an irritated voice, that crabbing was illegal this time of year. The man in charge of wild animals was going to break the law and Papaw would fix a speeding ticket for one of the warden’s relatives. I never asked my dad for explanations.
Papaw and I drove to the low concrete seawall that protected the town of Port Arthur. He brought three round metal hoops with closed nets. We tied a chicken neck to each net and dropped them into the water. It was so easy. Pull up a net, put the hungry crab into the giant cardboard box, drop the net back in, and move to the next. My hands were too tiny to handle the crabs. It was nice to be with someone that did not call me a sissy for not grabbing animals with claws and attitude. In less than an hour the box was full of crabs pulling each other’s legs off. The clicking noise was eerie.
We took the giant-box-o’crabs to a tiny Chinese cafe on the aging town square. I had never heard of China or Chinese food. My dad rarely took us to eateries so this was all quite mysterious, exotic, and……nasty. It had bare walls, ragged furniture, unrecognizable odors, and a sticky floor. The kitchen was about as appetizing as a janitor’s closet. Papaw spoke with the diminutive owner/chef/chief bottle washer while his enormous wife moved around the kitchen. He was giving him the crabs in exchange for his aid in getting the non-English speaking Chinese to vote for him in the next election. There it was again, that mysterious recurring theme in Papaw’s world. We were putting the bulging, squirming box onto the only table in the room when one of the prisoners escaped to the floor. The wife screamed and leapt onto the table which promptly collapsed flat as a pancake. Crabs ran sideways in every direction. The clickity-click of hundreds of exoskeletal feet and claws was unworldly. The wife was rolling over the crabs, waving her limbs trying to get up, and screaming in that undiscovered tongue. Most of the crabs managed to run under and behind the ancient appliances. We had to move the ice boxes, gas burners, etc. and drag the angry crustaceans out, one by one. If we didn’t, they would die and stink although I doubt anyone could tell. We counted them for the first time as we put them back into the box. There were seventy blue crabs and this was when blue crabs were still a decent size. After a lot of bowing, again something new to me, we left the kitchen and passed through the dining space. The owner came running after us, holding up a crab which was frantically waving it’s legs, and exclaimed with excitement….seventy-one!!!
An optimist is a fellow who believes a housefly is looking for a way to get out. - George Jean Nathan
