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Dominick rushed to the corner store, twenty dollars in hand and Blaseball on his mind. The Crabs’ next game was coming up, and he had some bets at school to win. To his dismay, his mother had forced him to make a quick shopping trip to pick up some more crabs for dinner. Dominick didn’t like eating crab much, but he loved his mother and was already on thin ice after messing up on a big test. His father had tried to take his side, saying it didn’t really matter because the school year was almost out and nothing really mattered in Elementary school, but his mother had had none of it, taking away his cards and trucks. The trucks hurt the worst, because he’d promised to bring them to school and got called a liar by Lea, who’d wanted to see them.
The air was cold as he ran down the street, biting wind making his cheeks sting. The weather had been bad as of late, and while no one said it, everyone looked towards the Bay with some amount of fear. No one was sure if the Old One was upset or not, but there weren’t many other explanations for the spate of bad weather aside from mundane, boring ones. Dominick wasn’t really sure what the adults were talking about when they mentioned the Old One, but he never assumed it was good.
After some time that wasn’t much time at all but felt like a lot, Dominick made it to the store. Mr. Bakely owned it, an “old man” in Dominick’s estimation who was only about forty-five in real life. Dominick usually liked chatting with him, but with a ballgame coming soon today was an exception. He pushed through the door, and bee-lined straight for the live foods aisle. Looking past the other usual offerings, he struggled to hoist a bucket of crabs off the shelf, awkwardly carrying it to the front counter where Mr. Bakely was dutifully cleaning out crab pots.
“You need any help with that?” Bakely asked, cheerful eyes peering over the counter at Dominick.
“No thanks, Mr. Bakely. I can do this myself.” Dominick replied, wanting to get through the interaction as soon as possible. The clock on the wall told him he had twelve minutes to get home, and that it was, as it always was, time for crab.
“That’s a lot of crabs. Your mom making dinner?”
“Yeah, she is. How much are they?”
“Well, how much you got on you?”
“Uh, she gave me twenty bucks.”
“Then I’ll take ten and you can keep the rest.” Bakely said with a grin, “Though I’d be happy to take you and your sister out into the Bay sometime and let you take them home for free. More of you young people oughta know how to do that stuff.”
“Uh huh.” Dominick replied thoughtlessly, fixated on the clock and the grim deadline it displayed. “Why do we eat crabs, Mr. Bakely?”
“Cause it’s part of the cycle, kid. Why do you ask?”
“I have a friend in school and he’s from Chicago and he says it’s weird we eat crabs and that our team is crabs.” Dominick paused for a moment, weighing curiosity against how fast he could run with a bucket. “What do you mean, the cycle?”
“Geez, what’re they even teaching you kids these days? Math? Instagram? Where do I even begin? Well… shoot, the game’s soon, so I’ll make it quick. Way back when, my grandaddy’s grandaddy’s grandaddy or thereabouts made their way down to Baltimore, even if it wasn’t Baltimore way back then. They tried fishing in the Bay, but kept losing boats and men, till one day one of the men came back. He was real wild-eyed, but he had a message. ‘Stop fishing and the Bay will provide’. Now, no one else knew what that meant, but they knew they couldn’t exactly keep fishing, so they waited. Few days later, crabs just started walking outta the water, scores of ‘em. They scooped them all up and had a real nice meal.” Bakely paused, looking over Dominick’s confused face.
“Nowadays, we got a better understanding with the big girl out in the water, the Old One. We do what we can to honor her, keep things out the water she don’t like, and in return, we get all kinds of crabs, big’n’small. All of ‘em tastier than any taco or chicken wing, too.” Bakely, story finished, handed Dominick back his money.
Dominick wordlessly left the store, rushing back home, hoping against hope he wouldn’t be late for the game.
The crabs in the bucket sloshed, and all was right with the world.