Of the 80 submissions for this year’s 2024 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize, the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival (BCLF) shared that Diana McCaulay’s story emerged as the top short story from among three shortlisted writers. The judges included Cleyvis Natera, Richard Georges and Lasana Sekou. This is what they had to say about Diana’s story:
In Picking Crabs in Negril, a young girl witnesses what we come to understand is the dissolution of her parents’ marriage over a short trip to a beachside town. With keen insight and a sensibility that belies her age, our young protagonist aches for her mother’s pain, even as she is unable to understand it. We are left with a lingering feeling about the immensity of a mother’s being, and much like the landscape, this mother is as stunning in what she offers both by way of sustenance as what she chooses to withhold in order to protect those she loves. Our young protagonist often finds herself puzzled by the world around her, astonished by how simple joys are often jarred by gendered obligations. The profound ending boldly flashes forward decades into the future, when the protagonist has grown to an adult and become a mother herself, when the untouched swampland of Negril is mired by tourism and development. The story’s most moving insights come from the careful detail that leads to a blunt summation: “The crabs had taken a long time to catch, a long time to die, a long time to cook, a long time to pick, and men and women had been needed to do their different jobs, and some were family, and some were not, but we ate them all so quickly.” As readers, we understand the heavy hands that take what they want, discarding what is no longer of use, lack the discernment to understand the magnificence of the gift of nature, of labor, of family, of love.
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Picking Crabs in Negril
It was my mother who suggested the trip to the cabin in Negril. I heard them in the bedroom: my mother’s plaintive protests, my father’s raised voice. Not a damn thing is there! he shouted. I was only twelve, but I also heard the words he did not say – you idiot.
The whole beach is up for development, my mother said.
Development? my father yelled. Who’s going to go there? It’s a swamp!
That time my mother prevailed. We drove along the south coast of Jamaica, me and my two older brothers in the back seat, my parents in front, both smoking, my father driving. I put my face through the open window, hoping not to get carsick. My brothers played “I Spy” and fought over the window seat. They had been promised they could switch seats halfway. I was granted the window for the entire drive in case I needed to throw up.
My father was an engineer with a bauxite company and my mother, a housewife. He searched the island for a certain kind of red dirt, while she was in charge of our house and had to do all the things it needed, especially dusting and sweeping. She was born in Jamaica, but my father came from somewhere called the mother country and it was understood we would go back there one day.
We got lost looking for the Negril cabin and my father’s irritation turned to anger, and he chain-smoked. I felt sick and out of breath.
Maybe the car will get stuck in the sand and then what? he demanded. THEN WHAT, Ellen?
I think it’s just round this corner, my mother said, and her voice shook a little.
When I closed my eyes and listened to my parents, I didn’t know why they got married. My father often said his eyes were battleship grey, but I thought he had a battleship voice: cutting and dangerous; able to launch explosives. My mother’s eyes were the brown of a Red Stripe bottle and her voice murmured like a calm sea.
We found the cabin. It was built on stilts on an empty white sand beach, fringed with tall coconut trees curving out over water so clear it was nearly invisible where it met the shore. I could see the entire length of the beach – south to a curved stone bridge over a green river. Farther away, a cluster of small houses with rusty zinc roofs. North, a wooded headland, where the beach was narrow and close to a sandy island just offshore. I was sure I could make it there because I was the best swimmer in my class, and I would lie under the few trees on the island and be alone. That’s Booby Cay, my father said, walking up. He pointed to the island with his cigarette. Named for the birds.
He was calmer now, steadied by the sea. Long Bay, he said, gesturing to the beach we stood on. Over there’s Rutland Point; Bloody Bay’s behind it.
So he knew Negril, even if he hadn’t wanted to come. Maybe it had red dirt somewhere. Why’s it called Bloody Bay? I asked, thinking of crimes of violence I already knew existed.
They used to butcher whales there, he said. Stay near the cabin, where your mother can see you.
It is the crabs I remember. Every stand of bush rustled with them — from tiny soldier crabs to scary black ones, the size of a saucer. Pale ghost crabs dashed sideways across the beach, disappearing into their holes, some as big and round as oranges, others cunningly hidden between the roots of sea grape trees.
My brothers chased them, whooping. On the first morning, I tried to fill up the crab holes with my spade, wondering at each one if the crab was in or out, and if it was in, whether I was making its grave. But the crab holes always came back. I wanted to learn how they made a slanted round hole because when I tried to do it myself, my holes always fell in upon themselves.
On the second night, my father said we were going crabbing. He had found some local men from the area to go with us because they knew the best crabbing spots. I was happy to be allowed to stay up late, to go outside at night, to have an adventure. My mother stayed behind, tending a kerosene pan of boiling water.
The roads in Negril were mostly sandy paths and tracks paved with the shells of dead crabs. We children were given flashlights, and we shone the small shafts of light ahead as we walked in an immense darkness.
The weird sticking-up eyes of the crabs glinted when our lights fell on them and stopped their scuttling journeys for a few seconds. We each carried a plastic bucket and were supposed to slam it over the creatures when they paused, their claws extended as if to fight us off. But then what? How would we get them out?
I didn’t ask, afraid I would be sent back for being a girl.
My brothers were off the path in the bushes and I heard their excited voices. I thought they should be quiet; else surely, they would scare away the crabs. Just ahead I saw a smallish crab and I slammed my bucket over it, dropping my flashlight. The crab scrabbled to get out, and I made little screams of triumph.
One of the men came over to me and reached under my bucket with his bare hand. He stuffed the crab
into the crocus bag he carried. He smelled like ashes. I stayed with him after that and we caught crabs together in silence. I think we caught the most. The bag got bigger and bigger and when put on the ground,
it moved. The crabs made the bag into different shapes as they struggled to get out, their shells clacking together. I was on their side, but also I wasn’t.
The men took the writhing bags back to the cabin and my father paid them. What would we do with so many crabs? My father took the bag into the kitchen to my mother.
So many? she said.
What you wanted, innit? said my father. He turned his back and went outside with my brothers.
My mother had to put the crabs into the pan set across two burners on the gas stove and full of boiling water. Would she have to put her hands inside the bags? Was she afraid? She rolled down the top of the first bag and grabbed a crab by the shell, avoiding its waving claws. She dropped it into the water and pushed it down with a long wooden spoon. She was not quite tall enough and had to work fast, or else the crabs could escape. I didn’t think the pan was big enough to hold them all and I saw how easily she could be burned.
Does it hurt them? I said.
Crabs are not like people, my mother said. They don’t have nerves.
My mother often talked about her nerves, but my father didn’t. Maybe only women had nerves but when I was grown up, I would not have nerves. Without nerves you would be like the crabs and fight to the end.
One by one, my mother pushed the crabs down into the boiling water. They did not die right away but tried to hold on to the rim of the pot with their claws and two did get out. Go look for them, my mother said.
Check under the beds. I pretended to look, but I opened the front door quietly, so the two scalded crabs could get out. I think they got away, I said to my mother. She was sweating as she stood over the stove, and I thought I saw tears in her eyes.
Maybe she was sorry for the crabs.
All the bags were empty except one. See the string over there? my mother said, pointing with her mouth.
Tie up the last bag.
I wound the string round and round and the bag crackled and heaved. I hoped we would not have to set a second pan to boiling.
I climbed on a low stool in the tiny kitchen to watch the cooking and I could see escallion and scotch bonnet peppers bobbing in the boiling water. Foam formed on top and the crabs quieted down and turned reddish orange as they died.
Time for bed, my mother said, turning off the stove.
I had never been up so late before.
What will happen to those? I said, pointing at the tied-up bag.
They could not fit, she said. Her shoulders lifted and fell. Leave them until morning.
We could take them outside and let them go, I said. We have enough.
Enough? she whispered and shook her head.
I tried to move the leftover bag, but it was too heavy. We could do it together, I said, and my mother bent down.
When we got the bag outside the house, we undid the string and pushed it off the top step. At first, no crabs emerged, but then one did, and another. I looked to the dark sea and saw my father’s shadow and the arc of his cigarette at the edge of the beach. I hoped the crabs would finish their escape before he came inside.
We just leave them in the pot? I asked when we returned to the kitchen.
When the water is cool, I’ll pour it away.
I thought the big pot would be too heavy for my mother but perhaps my father would help her. I could see them taking it outside together and pouring the foamy liquid into the sand.
In case the escaped crabs were still inside the cabin, I tucked the mosquito net very tightly under the scratchy mattress. I fell asleep to the sound of the waves of Long Bay, the smell of the sea from the crab pot — the briny smell of life and death.
Next day, women from the village came to take the flesh of the cooked crabs out of their shells. I had to help, but my father and brothers did not. Catching crabs was done by men; picking them was women’s work. The women brought a fresh loaf of hard dough bread for us and I wished I did not have to wait to eat it. One woman picked up the kerosene pan from the stove all by herself and took it outside to pour away the peppery water. She was thin and did not look that strong. I followed her. She set it in the waves, tilted it, and slowly let the sea water take the water and seasonings away, leaving the boiled crabs in the bottom.
Near the house, I saw the bag which had held the uncooked crabs and shook it out. A single surviving crab scuttled away, leaving two dead ones on the sand. Should we pick these? I said to the woman.
Nah, Miss, she said. Crab-dem haffi cook live.
My mother covered the small dining table with newspaper and put out nutcrackers and pliers, and hairpins she had brought with her. I was allowed to do only the claws, because the backs had certain intricacies, like avoiding the guts which could contaminate an entire bowl of crabmeat. My mother picked the backs faster than the Negril women and I wondered how she had acquired this skill. Look out for the orange eggs and put them to one side, she said.
Do not touch your face or eyes, she said to me. The pepper we put in the water will burn you.
I would learn that the best way to clean my hands after picking crabs was to sink them in the heavy sand at the edge of the beach where the waves curled over and over.
The dead crabs were in a container in the middle of the table and the women reached in and took them out, one at a time, broke off the claws, cracked them with the pliers or nutcracker, and made a pile of claws and backs. Then we teased out the flesh with hairpins into a bowl and every now and then, my mother forked up the growing mound to mix it well. The women wondered aloud if more seasoning was needed.
My mother set aside a smaller bowl for me and my brothers. We would use less pepper in those.
We picked the crabs until it started to rain, and I knew then that the day outside had been lost to me. The tropical light became dim and green and the windows had to be shut. The rain drummed and roared on the zinc roof. My father was alone on the verandah, smoking, looking out to sea, watching my brothers swim in the shallows. They were allowed until the lightning started, although I was the better swimmer.
The women washed and dried the empty crab backs and then they seasoned the crab meat with more escallion and pepper and dried thyme. They tasted and conferred. My mother had brought a cookie sheet from home and she laid the full crab backs on the sheet and added clumps of orange eggs to some, but not all. The less peppery ones were lined up on one side. Then she grated breadcrumbs over all of them, the stale heel of bread came from home too. Making crabs took forward planning. The rows of crab backs went into the oven for browning and the village women who had helped were paid, and they left us in the rain.
It rained all afternoon. I tried to read but I couldn’t concentrate. My brothers played draughts and whined about having to stay inside. My father napped, and we had to be quiet, even though thunder boomed right over us. As night fell, we saw sheet lightning on the horizon.
My mother lit the kerosene lamps, fixed a drink for my father and took it to where he sat looking out at the flashing lightning. There was a glider on the verandah, big enough to hold them both, but my mother did not sit with him. I wondered which one of them was lonelier.
We ate the crabs with soft hard dough bread that night. My father nodded at my mother when he took his first bite, and the tears in her eyes which had been there since we arrived in Negril spilled onto her cheeks.
Maybe a bit too much pepper, she said, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. The crabs had taken a long time to catch, a long time to die, a long time to cook, a long time to pick, and men and women
had been needed to do their different jobs, and some were family, and some were not, but we ate them all so quickly. And not all of us ate. And the best crab backs were the ones with the clumps of orange eggs, the baby crabs which would never be, and those were saved for my father.
Afterwards, we were left with the empty backs and we children spread them on the sandy roads and crushed them with our shoes and with stones so what was left of the crabs stayed in Negril and red ants cleaned any speck of flesh clinging to the shells.
We didn’t stay the entire week as my mother had planned. When my father started to pace the small verandah, three paces in one direction, three back, and my mother didn’t come out of their bedroom, the time in Negril was over. In the dappled shade of the sea grape trees, I said sorry to the crabs we had caught, killed and eaten. I wanted to say good-bye to the people who helped us, the men and women from the village, especially the man who had helped me, but I never saw them again. The mother country was somewhere beyond the sheet lightning and my father would soon go there with a straight-haired blue-eyed woman who, I was sure when I met her, could never have taken the crabs from the seething crocus bag and pushed them down into the boiling water. And when I went back to Negril as a grown woman, a mother in my turn, after my mother had died from unspecified liver ailments, and my father’s faded airletters had stopped, Long Bay was lined with hotels, the village near the river had disappeared, and the crabs were gone from the silent bush.
About The Author
Diana McCaulay is an award winning Jamaican writer and a lifelong resident of its capital city Kingston. She has written four novels, Dog-Heart (March 2010), Huracan (July 2012), both published by Peepal Tree Press in the United Kingdom, Gone to Drift (February 2016), published by Papillote Press from Dominica and the UK, the US rights published by HarperCollins (April 2018) and the self-published, White Liver Gal (May 2017).
Dog-Heart won a Gold Medal in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s National Creative Writing Awards (2008), was shortlisted for the Guyana Prize (2011), the IMPAC Dublin Award (2012) and the Saroyan Prize for International Writing (2012). Huracan was also shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize for International Writing in 2014. Gone to Drift placed second in CODE’s Burt Prize for Caribbean Literature in 2015, won the Vic Reid Prize for Young Adult fiction in Jamaica’s Lignum Vitae Awards (2016) and is shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award (2018). .
Diana’s novels entice readers with the unique spirit and complexity of contemporary Jamaica.
