Fish Tank Blues

Fish Tank Blues

By Ed Staskus

   It wasn’t breaking news that Prince Edward Island was an island. It was ancient news that it had not always been one. It was news to some folks who lived on the island, however. They weren’t overly concerned about the past. They cared about right now. They cared about heating oil being delivered on time and what time the school bus was scheduled. They cared about the flat tire that stopped them dead in their tracks on the way to the grocery store, and how they were going to put food on the table that day. They knew for sure that nothing from the prehistoric past had made their tire go flat. 

   What the land and the sea were all about wasn’t news to the lobsters who lived offshore. They had been around much longer than the fishermen, farmers, and townsfolk who plied their trade in the Maritimes. The crustaceans had seen it all, although they hadn’t seen amnesic shellfish poisoning before. The new toxin was killing Canadians who ate shellfish that year. No lobster ever went to any of their funerals. “That’s a dose of your own medicine,” Louie the Large said, chortling to himself that the toxin wasn’t bothering his kith and kin.

   Lobsters didn’t have a trade or much else to do, other than eat anything and everything they could all day and night. Everything was grist for the mill. They hated crabs and crabs hated them and it was the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s whenever the shellfish ran into each other. The lobsters were bigger, badder, and more determined. Three of their five pairs of legs were outfitted with claws. They usually carried the day. Might makes right was their motto.

   The number one rock ‘n’ roll band among the island’s lobsters was the B-52’s. They were the house band in their part of the world. Every lobster knew the lyrics to their “Rock Lobster” song. The band had released it ten years earlier and when they did it shot up the shellfish charts, even though every single crab scorned it as the devil’s music.

   “We were at the beach, everybody had matching towels, somebody went under a dock, and there they saw a rock, it wasn’t a rock, it was a rock lobster!” 

   Whenever any crab heard the song, it spit sideways and cursed. They were happy to see the island’s fishing boats go after their country cousins every spring. They showed up at the island’s harbors for the blessing of the fleet on Setting Day and shouted “Godspeed!” when the boats broke the waves. There was no love lost between crabs and lobsters. “We don’t need no skunks at our lawn party,” crabs far and wide said.

   Even though lobsters could be as bad as a Hells Angel on the wrong side of the bed, all they really wanted to do was eat and have fun afterwards. They were always on the move, moving in parties of fifty and a hundred, looking for a party. They ate non-stop so as to have plenty of get up and go at whatever party they found.

   “Havin’ fun, bakin’ potatoes,” they sang. Prince Edward Island was known as Spud Island. It was no small potatoes when it came to the tuber. It was the smallest province but the top potato producing province in the country. Everybody’s favorite way to eat lobster was boiled in the same pot with fresh corn and new potatoes.

   “Boys in bikinis, girls in surfboards, everybody’s rockin’, everybody’s fruggin’.”

   The blue and brown backed crustaceans couldn’t move fast enough to frug, but it didn’t matter. They got into the spirit of the song. They lived in harmony among themselves ten months out of the year, except when one of them happened to eat another one of them. The other two months of the year all bets were off. That’s when the island’s lobster boats went after them. That’s when the angels sang and it was every man for himself. They didn’t like it, but they had to take their lumps like everybody else.

   There were about 1200 boats sailing out of 45 harbors on the island. More than three dozen boats came out of the North Rustico harbor alone. Every one of them was out to get them. Once they got them their fate was sealed. Every lobster knew it in its bones, even though all they had was an exoskeleton. Their inner selves had no bones. They were going to be boiled alive and there was nothing they could do about it.

   Traps have escape vents to let shorts leave while still on the bottom. The under-sized lobsters who overstayed their welcome were thrown back into the ocean. Egg-bearing females were also thrown back. The female carried her eggs inside of her for about a year and then for about another year attached to the swimmerets under her tail. When the eggs hatch, the larvae float near the surface for a month. The few that survive eventually sink to the bottom and develop as full-fledged and grown-up. For every 50,000 eggs generated two lobsters survive to grow up and go rocking.

   Some diners wearing bibs argue that lobsters don’t have a brain and so they can’t and don’t feel pain. They have probably never seen tails twitching like a mosh pit in a hurricane when they got thrown into a pot of boiling water. They aren’t twitching to the beat of the B-52’s. Their brains might not amount to much, but they have a nervous system. They react to pain physically. The cortisol hormone they release when dying is the same one that human beings release when hurt. 

   “How about coming down here with the rest of us,” they wanted to scream from the red hot mosh pit. They would have screamed if they could. As it was, all they could was click and clack.

   The Prince Edward Island seafood industry considered lobster to be their crown jewel. It was a gourmet delicacy known for its juicy meat. But that was like getting the Medal of Honor when you weren’t around anymore. Who needs to bask in that kind of glory? The only consolation lobsters had was that the island’s fishermen took care to manage their resource. They didn’t pull up over many of them in their traps. They kept the surrounding waters clean as could be so there would be fruit of the sea year after year.

   It was a small consolation though. It only meant fishermen were in it for the long haul and weren’t going to change their minds about snatching them up anytime soon. The only consolation a lobster ever got was when somebody reached for it and the lobster was able to get the outstretched hand in its crusher claw.

   “We were at a party, his earlobe fell in the deep, someone reached in and grabbed it, it was a rock lobster!”

   When that happened, there was no quarter given. The lobster was going to sell its life dear. The human hand was going to pay dearly for sticking its nose where it didn’t belong. It should have stayed where it was before it ever came to the island. Why didn’t they stay in the Old World? What lobsters didn’t know was that fishermen came from the same place they themselves came from way back when. They came from way down in the ocean like them. They weren’t ever going back. The sooner lobsters got that through their thick heads the better.

   “Lots of bubble, lots of trouble, rock lobster.”

Excerpted from “Red Road” at http://www.redroadpei.com.

Ed Staskus posts on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com and Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com.