Rick White

Just call me Uncle Crab Bucket. I knew this was a good idea. I’ve taken my five-year-old nephew Troy crab fishing. He’s still not talking that much, and my Dad took me crab fishing when I was younger so I thought it might bring him out of himself, as people are fond of saying. As if out of yourself is somehow the place to be.

It’s a beautiful day, and we arrive early — keen as clams (if that’s a thing)? The sun looks like a sherbet lemon in a cellophane wrapper and it warms our necks as a chilly sea breeze stings our faces, reminding us to be thankful for good weather and good fishing. Overhead, gulls call to one another expectantly, as if providing a pre-match commentary, ‘And it’s the relatively unknown pairing of Troy and Uncle Crab Bucket stepping up to the plate, what kind of performance can they produce today? The crabs look up for it, old scores are there to be settled, and it’s live!’

There are gift shops dotted around the harbour selling crab fishing lines, bait bags and buckets and we choose one at random, the bell above the door heralding the arrival of the two intrepid fishermen. Troy is drawn to a selection of seashells on sale in a big wicker basket; sea urchins, conches, scallops, molluscs and mussels — 4 for £5 or 8 for £10. Seems like a good deal. Troy picks them up one by one and asks:

‘What’s this one?’

‘Scabby Urchin.’

‘What’s this one?’

‘Squid Nose.’

‘What’s this one?’

‘Kraken Sphincter.’

‘What’s this one?’

‘Phil Jones.’

We do this a lot. This cataloguing of items seems to have become our primary means of communication.

‘What’s a crab?’ Troy asks.

Hmm. It’s kind of like an underwater spider with armour plating and claws if you can imagine such a thing? Doesn’t sound great. Luckily there’s a cartoon picture of a friendly looking crab on a sign in the harbour that reads, ‘Absolutely NO CRUELTY to crabs whatsoever.’ I point it out, ‘That’s a crab right there buddy. We’re going to see how many we can catch in this bucket.’ He looks fairly indifferent to this proposal.

No Cruelty I think. Besides tricking them with bait and dragging them out of their underwater home into the terrifying alien world above.  

I’m trying to give the kid some experiences he’ll remember fondly. I remember crab fishing with my dad so I’m trying to pass that on to Troy. ‘Making memories’ they call it — as if you can somehow pre-emptively manufacture nostalgia. As if you even have any control over what you’ll remember and what you won’t.

Before Troy was born, his dad, my brother-in-law Derek, took my sister Sophie on a trip to Florence. He wanted to visit one of the jewellery shops on the Ponte Vecchio (that’s a famous bridge to you, me and Troy) and buy a pocket watch. The idea was he’d give the watch to Troy on his wedding day. I thought it was quite a bougie and pointless thing to do, just an excuse to go on yet another holiday. What if Troy never gets married? It’s not the most important thing in the world. And the watch would only really mean anything to the people who bought it, to Troy it would mean less than a bucket of crabs.

At the foot of some stone steps set in the harbour wall, we find ourselves a small pontoon which juts out into the bottle green sea. The little boats and yachts bob up and down on the tide and it’s not long before we can’t tell if they’re moving or we are.

We attach a bait bag full of sardines to our crab-line, unspooled from its orange bindle. We drop it in and let it sink right to the bottom because — and this is important — crabs don’t swim. Then we stare at the tiny ring of water tension around the line — like snipers on a rooftop, looking down a telescopic sight, eyes trained.

After a few minutes we pull up the line and sure enough, there’s three creepy crabs attached to the bag. I carefully manoeuvre them over to our bucket, filled with a little sea water for comfort, and drop them in. Troy shouts with delight when he sees them, jumps up and down excitedly in his little converse trainers.

After about half an hour we’ve got a bucket full of crabs. All floating around each other in an underwater forest of spindly black legs and pincers. To me it looks kind of dark and threatening, I can’t help but imagine sticking my hand in. I hope Troy doesn’t feel the same and I think to myself you just never know if what you’re doing from one second to the next is fucking them up in some unpredictable way. I never signed on for this, which makes it so much harder.

We bring the bag up again and there’s a big daddy attached. I mean this guy’s a whopper; three times the size of the other crabs we’ve caught. I try to delicately guide him towards the bucket but he drops off onto the floor and starts scuttling back to the sea, trying to escape the bucket.

‘No!’ Troy shouts and reaches out to grab him. The big daddy stops and turns towards Troy, claws raised like a little soldier — ready to defend himself. I throw an arm across Troy to stop him going any closer, getting his finger clipped off. ‘No!’ he shouts again and I realise I need to rescue this moment.

I reach round behind the crab and pin its body to the floor with two fingers. Then I scoop my thumb underneath and pick him up, so his claws are facing away from me and he can’t nip me. I hold him up for Troy to see. The big daddy looks as though he’s waving and Troy laughs hysterically. Absolutely NO CRUELTY whatsoever I think as I toss the big guy into the bucket.

I want Troy to remember this as a happy day. I want all his memories to be happy. I want him to live in a world where gulls sing in an azure sky while a sherbet lemon sun warms us. Where crabs bid you good morning as they jump politely into your bucket. Where sons grow up and get married and get pocket watches from their moms and dads and where nothing can hurt them.

I’ve got that pocket watch now. I keep it in a shoe box in my closet along with a few other small things that were worth holding on to after the accident. I will give it to him one day, because by some cruel alchemy of fate, it now holds real significance.

Maybe this day will be significant for Troy. Maybe not. But at least we’re here together and that’s something.

We admire the contents of our bucket. ‘Whaddya think bud?’

Troy smiles, just a crooked tilt of one corner of his mouth, but I’ve learned to recognise it as an indicator that he is happy, at least in the moment. His moon-pool eyes look up into mine and an unspoken affirmation passes between us — good catch.

We empty the bucket out and the crabs all start the mad dash back to the sea.

‘What’s that one called?’

‘Bob.’

‘What’s that one called?’

‘Bob Two.’

‘What’s that one called?’

‘Robert Bobbington.’

 ‘What’s that one called?’

‘Bob Robertson.’

The crabs all drop off the edge of our little jetty and splash back into the sea, floating back down to the cool depths, relieved to get back below the surface and forget about the world above.

It’s nearly time for us to go. The tide is still coming in, the water is rising steadily and in a few minutes our little platform will have disappeared. If we stay for much longer the water will fill our boots, if we wait around for high tide we’ll be completely submerged.

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About Rick White

Rick White is a fiction writer from Manchester, UK whose work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions, Best of the Net, Best British and Irish Flash Fiction and the Pushcart Prize. Rick’s debut short story collection, ‘Talking to Ghosts at Parties’ was released in 2022, however, due to the unending cruelty of the universe/economic climate, the book is now in need of a new publisher. Rick is currently working on a new collection and novel, both of which he hopes to finish before he expires. 

To read more of Rick’s work head to www.ricketywhite.com or follow @ricketywhite on Instagram and X.