The Painted Crab

I’ve always hated the beach.

Every year, my parents used to drag me to our beach house on the Outer Banks for a few months, the kind with those tall stilts to protect it from flooding. It was awful. I hated the salty sea breeze and the sand everywhere and the peeling blue walls of my room. I hated swimming every day in the choppy water and being knocked over by gigantic waves simply because there was nothing better to do. Above all, I hated the boredom, the heavy, painful boredom that seeped into my brain and crept under my skin and made the entire world seem dull and gray.

So years later, when I was being sent away to my grandmother’s house on the Jersey Shore, I really couldn’t help but think that there was some malicious intent behind it. Sure, my parents could repeat the mantra that it “wasn’t a punishment” and that it was “for my own good,” but they knew how much I despised the beach.

***

There was only one day that entire goddamn summer when I was home alone. My grandmother had gone to this high school reunion in Pennsylvania, and she was merciful enough to not make me sit and listen to a bunch of old people reminisce about events that happened five decades before I was born. She left me with some money for lunch and a warning to not cause any trouble. After she left, I decided to go to the boardwalk, where they had a ferris wheel and some sweets for sale. Sure, it was infested with fake-looking tourist families, but it was the closest thing to fun in this lame beach town.

For whatever bizarre reason, once I arrived at the boardwalk I really wanted to buy one of those hermit crabs they sold there. Maybe the boredom was affecting my judgement, but the bright cheerfulness of their painted shells, with their silly patterns and pretty colors, drew me in. The crabs were kept in these netted cages that were so crowded the crabs were basically stacked on top of one another. It was a rainbow of crawling, climbing, and writhing creatures. I bought a blue one decorated with pink and white flowers.

I took the crab home and put it in the first thing I found that could qualify as an enclosure- the toybox at the end of my bed. It was beach themed, like everything else in that place, designed to look like a treasure chest with the words Peyton’s Treasure painted in cursive across the front. I hated that stupid thing, but it would have to do. I tossed out most of the toys and gently placed my new friend inside.

Looking at my new hermit crab in his empty home, I felt incredibly guilty. He didn’t really have a face or anything, but to me he looked completely miserable. I realized I didn’t know how to keep him entertained, or even what he liked to eat. If he needed a new shell, I would have no way to help him. I had really doomed the little guy to a short, unhappy life.

I thought about how nobody really cares about hermit crabs. I mean, even people who claim to be all about animal rights like my mom and dad just use them as an example, trying to make people feel bad about their apathy towards innocent animals. It’s not like my parents actually did anything to help the crabs; they’ve never done more than give dirty looks to those sellers on the boardwalk.

If some dumb, reckless teenager bought a crab and took off its shell and pierced its soft body with sharp rocks, would anyone actually care? If he hit the crab with a hammer until it was nothing but a bloody stain, would anyone stand up for him? Hermit crabs aren’t the same species as us, they’re not even in the same phylum. I guess the further removed something is from us, the more we can justify hurting it.

That wasn’t the end to the endless suffering of these crabs. I realized they also had to switch shells all the time. Every other crab is born with a shell that grows with them, but for some reason the universe had it out for this specific species to the point that it forced them to find a new one every year. Normal crabs and starfish and lobsters can just swim around in the sea, not having to worry about changing their shell, not haunted by the knowledge that maybe soon the body that was once comforting would become suffocating and wrong. They don’t have to worry that maybe they’ll never find another shell that’s quite right for them and fits them as well as the shells those other crabs were born with. They don’t lie in bed at night, holding their knees to their chest wishing they could make everything they hate about themselves disappear, wishing that someone would realize the pain they’re feeling and offer a bit of help, or at least stop trying to keep them trapped in this body they didn’t ask for.

We’re talking about crabs. Right.

At that point, the sun was starting to set, and I had used up my whole day thinking about the goddamn hermit crab and all his terrible hardships. I knew my grandmother would return any minute. She would probably be furious to see my room such a mess, and even more so when she found out I bought a pet without her permission.

I realized that maybe I didn't want to use the hermit crab to prove a point anymore. The idea of my grandmother screaming at me over him made me feel more guilty than the other things I was supposed to be sorry about.

I guess because, if you think about it, what my family wanted me to feel bad about was growing out of an old identity and trying to find a new one. Nobody would try to shove a hermit crab back into a shell that was too small for it.

I decided I couldn’t keep the crab anymore, but I couldn’t bear to return him to the vendor, the betrayal of possibly sending him off to live with some cruel child that might torture him to death was too painful. My only other option was to release him into the sea, but he was an invasive species and wouldn’t survive out there. He was doomed no matter what, to a life of suffering and pain.

Then it hit me- there was a third option after all. What was the point of taking my chances with the hermit crab’s horrible future if I could just end it right then and there? I took the crab into the basement and carefully placed it on the floor. I searched the concrete room for a tool. Bingo! A hammer was lying on the ground nearby.

I didn’t know how to comfort a hermit crab, or if a hermit crab even had feelings. I didn’t know how to push down the overwhelming guilt I felt about this whole endeavor. I didn’t know why my hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the hammer. Eventually, I sighed, stepped back, and readied myself for the final blow.

I took the hammer and hit the crab hard, but it didn’t die. Its legs were still wriggling slightly, so I hit it again and again and again and again, until it finally stopped moving. Then I cleaned it all up, hid all evidence that the crab had ever existed. I was able to sweep away all the events of that day; my grandmother still thinks I spent it in bed listening to Chappell Roan.

I spent the last moments before my grandmother came home scrubbing my hands until they were sore, trying not to look at the clear, blood-like substance I was washing off of them. In the harsh judgement of the bathroom mirror, I hardly recognized my own face.

***

I still think about that summer all the time, even though it's been months and months and it's already close to the next one. Things haven’t gotten better, exactly, but I think they will soon. I’ll be graduating and heading off to college, where I can make my own decisions.

I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for what I did. I like to imagine a universe where I kept the crab hidden, like I hid parts of my identity, until I left my parents’ house. Maybe then I could have made him a big enclosure with all sorts of fun hermit crab things for him to enjoy, and he would have lived a long and happy life.

But knowing my track record with pets, maybe he would have escaped and been hit by a car or something. I guess I’ll never know.