The Crabs and My Father

When I was a little girl we lived near the beach, and once a year the road in front of our house turned into a moving carpet.

Crab season. If you know, you know. When the spring rains come to Jamaica, the land crabs rise up out of their holes by the thousands and march for the sea to lay their eggs. They do not ask permission. They cross yards, roads, verandahs, whatever is between them and the water, all of them walking that sideways walk like the whole species agreed to be dramatic about it. For most people it was a natural wonder. For my father, it was a harvest.

The man kept a duffel bag in the car for this exact purpose. We would be driving somewhere, minding our business, and suddenly the brakes. Car stopped dead in the middle of the road, night air full of the sound of a thousand little feet, and my father already out the door with the bag. Then the whole family had to jump out and catch crab. This was not optional. This was not discussed. You grabbed them behind the back so the claws could not reach you, and you filled the bag, and you did not come back to the car with excuses. Anybody driving past would see a whole family scattered across the road in their good clothes, bent over like farmers, and they would understand completely. Half of them would stop too. Crab and rice does not catch itself.

Now for the part my family still talks about.

One year, one crab did not make it into the pot. Somewhere between the road and home, this crab staged an escape and disappeared into the trunk of my father's car. We did not know. Weeks went by. And my father started hearing things at night. A scratching. A little dry scraping sound coming from the car, always at night, never when he looked. He checked the engine. He checked under the seats. Nothing. I do not know what my father privately concluded about that sound, because a Jamaican man will investigate a duppy before he will admit he is nervous, but the scratching went on.

Then one day he opened the trunk for something, and a crab the size of a dinner plate climbed out and looked at him.

Weeks. No food, no water, riding around the parish in the dark like a little stowaway, and the thing came out the trunk bigger and more confident than it went in. My father did not say a word. He shook his head and walked away, and the crab went about its business, and that was the end of the matter. Some victories you simply hand over with dignity.

They say crab season taught country children about the moon and rain and the sea's timetable, and that is true. But it taught me something else: respect your dinner. Some of it is smarter than you.