Crab

On the menu are crab bites, crab cakes, crab legs, and crab salad, but I am here for an oyster po-boy.

When I was a young lad, my paternal grandmother would sometimes on a Saturday morning drive us out to a pull off on the south side of the Gandy Bridge. She would hand me a spool of kite string and a long-handled dip net, and she would take up a good size metal wash tub with a paper sack of gnawed-over chicken bones, mostly wings and drumsticks.

We would walk down to the water's edge, slip off our shoes, and wade into the warm bay water. The sun would be up--already hot--and the air cottony thick. My job was simple enough, to toss out just beyond knee-deep a piece of chicken knotted to the line by my grandmother. Slowly, then, I would reel the bait in towards her where she stood stock-still, tub floating behind her, net at the ready. 

"One on" she would say softly. The trick to keep the bait moving, but not too fast or the crab would break away.

Swoosh, splash, a roll of the wrists, and into the tub. One. And back out the bait.

Sometimes the crabs came in one after another as if waiting in parade formation. Sometimes not. 

"Throw it over to the right a bit."

I used an underhand toss. Splash. And the slow retrieve.

Swoosh, splash, two.

I remember the taste of my sweat on my upper lip. Water flat, the palms' fronds behind us motionless.

Swoosh, splash. Swoosh, splash. Swoosh, splash.

When my concentration lapsed, my grandmother would move us a bit in or out depending on the tide.

"Over to the left. Slow. One on."

And so we would work, if not rhythmically at least steadily. The tub filling, crabs scrambling over each other, claws flashing, dozens and dozens of them--a family supper in the offing.

I don't remember how many exactly, but they would feed up to 10 of us--huge bowls of fresh crab salad.

Of course, going out to crab was the better part of the day. The chore, the real work, picking the meat out after cooking was not fun. I'm sure I didn't set any kind of record, but I did enough over the years so that I never wanted to pick crab again.

The folks next to me are at the snow crab legs. No thank you. I prefer not to scrabble for my meat--except for oysters. And here comes my po-boy.