If reading a kooky story isn’t your thing, head down to the Epilogue to get to all of the heartwarming mumbo-jumbo. If you’re still here, buckle up and get ready for your stomach to growl…
pROLOGUE
Five years ago, I went on a weekend trip to sunny Rehoboth, Delaware, with a small group of friends from college. Based on what I’m sure was a unique and altogether exhilarating hook for you, I can now paint the scene in a way you might hope to picture it. Five vivacious individuals proceeding to go on a 48 hour long, bar none, boozy-booze, sexy sexed-up sex romp. Snorkeling, and snorkel-shots, and snorkel…you know…sex…?
And man were the snorkel shots strong and suffocatingly awesome! And man is none of that even remotely true to what we did! Unless your idea of a booze-filled sex romp equates to sitting in the basement of a beach house watching half a season of semi-renowned miniseries Wet Hot American Summer. Oooh, not to mention getting sweaty and bothered over a one thousand piece hot-air balloon puzzle.
Let’s just say to each their own…
pART ONE
The Calm Before The Crab.
After throwing in the towel on yet another behemoth puzzle, we changed into our best vay-cay attire and traipsed over to a local dockside restaurant to kick off our first evening in Delaware. The night was young, our stomachs empty, and there was an air of palpable uncertainty as to where our excursion would end up leading us. I could only assume it would be passed out naked on the beach, having shared a bottle of Captain Morgan that a roughened, but ultimately young at heart sailor named Ernie had copped from his boat for us. Maybe he’d even join us on our sea-side bender until we no doubt realized he was kind of just a fucking creep.
Sea-faring stranger for company or not, the possibilities for the evening were as endless as the ocean that stretched itself out a few miles away.
Well, I guess not really though…
As the story goes, the palpable vibe of uncertainty wasn’t really uncertain at all. I’m pretty certain we had made a prompt dinner reservation, which led us to a very certain, very orchestrated ahead of time table for five.
Around seven o clock, we were led to our seats, which overlooked the water and faced a string of nearly identical-looking yachts. The ritzy line of boats waded gently, being rocked to their privileged slumber by the fresh maritime breeze. Now that I think of it, it was kind of an ironic, almost taunting visual for five aspiring theatre artists who were struggling to find a menu item under twenty-five bucks. We were pretty sure they had to serve us water, and I secretly said a prayer on the drive over that they would supply, at the very least, little baskets of bread and butter for my dining pleasure.
Our admiration of the fine establishment was countered with fiery discussions centered around fantasies of appetizers for the table. The naivety in our minds told us to go for the Potato Skins, but our wallets advocated on behalf of cheap starch and free water. Maybe a single order of fries for the table. (We weren’t total plebeians!) The debate went on for a couple of minutes until mind ended up beating the matter rumbling on in our tummies, and we begrudgingly opted out of the appetizer mentality entirely.
I was taking turns staring wistfully at both the menu, and what I determined to be the grandest of the yachts when a sudden desire begin to bubble up inside me. In a matter of seconds, all sensations of doubt present that night were wiped from my mind. The best way to explain it is like a kind of psychic vision, only I couldn’t see anything.
Maybe clarity came via a smell that lingered in front of my face, or the fact that we were amongst a sea-food loving populous. Maybe it just came to me from scanning the menu, like any other normal person. Maybe it’s Maybelline, who knows, all that mattered was that a maintainable vision for the night had finally revealed itself to me.
This spanking new development came to me on a whim. On the surface, it lacked the adolescent allure of alcohol, the grit of crusty sailors, and the plastic-y feeling of wearing a snorkel while guzzling vodka. But it was gentle and comforting, not to mention classically beautiful sounding. And so simple, too…
I would order crab.
pART TWO
The Crab.
More specifically, I would be noshing on a highly refined plate of crab cakes. Little golden pockets of breadcrumbs and mayonnaise and lumps of fresh crab meat. That was it for me. Crab cakes were now a requirement. If I were a baby, my mouth would’ve been the tunnel and crab-cakes the choo-choo. Plus, by rule of thumb, they had to be good, since we were near the beach and… because I was hungry and that’s how it works, isn’t it?
Ignoring even the slightest remembrance of the price (which will forever remain concealed), I smugly slid my menu out of reach and sat there, basking in a newfound sense of pride. Imagine a young man with the restrained emotion of Vito Corelone, about to make an offer that (hopefully) nobody could refuse. My arms crossed slowly over themselves in blatant sophistication. It was a rare moment where I felt maybe a little bit ”yacht-worthy”. (Realistically, if I had a yacht it would probably be a smaller model, or it would just end up being a pontoon boat. Yeah, maybe a medium-sized pontoon.)
I’m almost ashamed (almost) to admit that I felt a strange, almost manic sense of power come over me while observing the indecisiveness of my friends. They had no idea of the secret arrangement that had been forged in my head. Contrary to their popular beliefs, there would be no barbaric mauling of giant buffalo wings for me. That base-level, stained-finger version of myself was still back in (*muffled gag*) Pennsylvania.
But they would soon come to know of my palate’s development in the classy seafood department. All within a three to four table radius would discover just how mature my mouth was. (I know, phrasing…)
Moments and minutes passed by. Finally, the main event of the night began to take shape. My disposition remained mainly unfazed, even as our waitress briskly pulled out her notepad. I watched coolly as she unfurled her pen with vigorous motivation. Is it possible that she already senses my desires? I asked myself quizzically, as my friends began sloppily spewing their orders out. There was a fraction of me that wondered if maybe a waitress’s intuition meant being able to read people’s auras based on what type of dish they planned to order. As the gang went through their motions, I wanted badly to interrupt and make it known that at least one of us would be giving a clear cut display of passionate food choice.
Friend 1 chirped out for a burger and salad.
Burger and fries were grumbled into existence by Friend 2.
And then some weird flatbread thing (or maybe it was a burger…) for Friend 3.
In a quick turning of events, buddy number 4 asked for an order of the crab-cakes. You might see me getting jealous and territorial over the amount of crustacean based dishes that were going to take up table space, but I was way too hype to care. This meant our ranks were growing. Pretty soon the others would be changing their orders to crab-cakes. Salmon fillets, at least. Seared scallops, for the bare minimum. Sparking a revolution was something I never thought I would cross off my bucket list, but there it was. Taking its roots in little-ole coastal Delaware.
Now that amateur hour was wrapping up, it was almost time to show them how it was really done. As far as I was concerned, placing an order was never going to look as bad-ass as it did at that moment. In the time since arriving at the restaurant, my persona had gradually morphed into that of a vaguely pudgy James Bond. The world now existed as my dirty martini-shaken-not stirred slash crab-cake.
Buying into the role, my eyes took one last look around at my pals, scanning their faces as a true professional 007 wannabe would. Right before snapping a few necks and kissing somebody’s wife.
And then I took another glance at the neighbor table situated behind my seat, where a quaint family of four sat enjoying a bowl of clams.
Followed by one guided ahead of me, out towards the crystalline water, the reliable structuring of the docks, those god-damn lovely yachts…
Then another, this time raising my sight-line to meet the waitress, who wore a slightly confused smile on her face.
What a well-intentioned and dedicated foodservice weirdo, I mused. I was just a boy, sitting in front of a girl, asking her for an order of delicious crab-cakes. If she thought that was strange, it might mean she needed to soul search for a new career path.
Only, in what came to me as a slow washing epiphany, I realized I hadn’t yet come close to verbalizing anything. My void of expression face was the only explanation for the now six pairs of eyes staring expectantly at me. It was a slight hitch in the norm of dinner time plans, but I wasn’t about to let it keep me from my flaky and scrumptious endgame. After all, we were still skirting on the edge of the appropriate diner to waitress order time frame.
First, my mouth would have to open. Which it would need to do anyway, in order to devour my golden little crab delights. Might as well start doing it now for the extra practice. Stretching prevents all types of injuries, and I knew I had to be in peak condition once entrees were brought out. That much was a no-brainer for me.
Then, there would have to be the presence of words. Obviously. Specifically, the implementation of two delicious ones that I had repeated in my mind a hundred times the previous five minutes. Obbbbbviously.
Knowing how necessary these steps were, I carried out…just a…slight variation of both of them:
My mouth sort of opened.
Subsequently, no words came out.
My jaw clenched in synchronization with the curling motion my mouth took. Feeling tension spreading throughout myself, my hand gripped hard onto the edge of our white table cloth, which I now was super glad to have at my disposal. As long as I nearly ripped it in half, the luxury of placing my order could be afforded. It was now my safety blanket. Like the ones most two-year-olds don when they’re being potty-trained. And if I wasn’t careful that would be me. Little baby crab cake boy.
But when I finally went to list my demands, I was met with a whole lot of verbal nothing.
Blankness, through and through.
pART THREE
Even More Crab.
Everybody’s optical spotlight shone down on me and my now ironclad hold on linen. They had no idea that the longer they continued to look at me, the more time it would take to get our meals sent out. That the very livelihood of their appetites was now in jeopardy.
For a moment, I felt like I was back at the beach house, figuring out another puzzle that I wanted nothing to do with. With stress pretty much existing for the sake of keeping things relevant. Ironically, I was currently missing a few key pieces to my own right there in front of me puzzle. For instance, the mundane ability to speak when spoken to. If the order couldn’t be placed down, it meant no crab-cakes. And since it may not be too clear at this point, I seriously, seeeeeeeriously, needed an order of…
“I’LL HAVE THE CRAB.”
Let me run that back and hit you with it one more time.
“I’LL….HAVE….THE….CRAB.”
Four monumentally weighted words haphazardly released towards the face of our waitress. They floated in the space between us for a moment, before landing and registering with my surrounding company. There was nothing in terms of time to reel them back where they came from. My brain, however, still pathetically scrambled to brainstorm a fix on the spot.
“I’LL HAVE THE CRAB. “
Sweet Jesus…
If words were only like butterflies, with their ability to linger as they see fit, maybe I would’ve been able to trap them in my water-glass before anybody noticed. Then I could’ve at least safely reverted back to my lowest level of self. The dude who orders freaking buffalo wings. Or just nibbles like a squirrel on a dinner roll for an hour and a half. The bread gnawing caveman squirrel dude!
Suddenly, in the span of seconds, my mindset began to tighten up drastically. Rehearsing my new hyper-awareness, I picked up on the fact that my chair was really harsh on the ass. Internally, rapid-fire, philosophical questions were being asked, such as Were plaid shorts truly the correct choice with this shirt?
Even the yachts, the fucking yachts seemed to have multiplied in size. Are they feeding off of my calamity? And why the fuck am I personifying everything tonight?! Do I even want fucking crab-cakes?! These were just some of the self inquiries I was making at that moment. If you could force yourself to call them that.
“Uh, do you mean the crab-cakes, sir?” our waitress fired back, with the brand of poise I wished I could still identify with.
Having regrouped long enough to fake a smile, I responded with a simple and apt “That sounds wonderful”. And I think you know that I meant it. With that luckily clear enough confirmation, she faded back into the masses of tables behind us, looking more like James Bond than I ever had in my life. Exuding the swagger of somebody who was able to brush off a random case of verbal assault like it was a mild happenstance.
And then there was me, reviewing the first few steps of learning how to breathe again. If there was ever a person better equipped for a book called How To Human, then I would easily know that they were lying. That book (which may or may not exist?) is the sole property of the night I had.
Coming back into my body, I was met with several “what the hell character was that” looks from my friends, who must’ve thought they had just watched me impersonating somebody from a quirky TV show. In their defense, that was a legitimate personality trait of mine. (A topic for another time, but also I do a mean Kevin from The Office.) It wasn’t until we continued to converse while waiting for our food to come out, that I noticed my style of ordering was now the topic of choice. It seemed to be memorable enough to boost everybody’s mood, which I made myself recognize as a positive thing.
Words that left my mouth acting as a catalyst for other people’s happiness? Can’t be a bad thing, right?
But there was another, slightly more personal victory that I was busy acknowledging in my head.
Nobody knew that I couldn’t say crab-cake.
Deep down, I was just extremely relieved that they thought what had transpired was a conscious choice of mine. Now that my infatuation with crab cakes was exposed, I could put more of my energy into playing off the scene that had preceded the meal. To present my best nautical chuckle, in order to match how it was being perceived by them.
You better believe that’s what happened next…
ePILOGUE
A little background on the types of friends I’ve surrounded myself with since entering college.
To keep it nice and sweet, they ain’t been major assholes, baby! Going further into the asshole sentiment, I’ve never had a friend, current or former, who has made me feel any different from them based on the way that I communicate.
As a person who stutters, it’s sometimes easy to feel secluded from the rest of the group. Especially when you’re freshly 19. It’s a time when you have to rely on forging friendships with not only people in your grade, but also 21-year-olds who can buy you…..I mean, I mean who can give….who can give you copious amounts of life advice about scheduling classes and… let’s wrap this up.
Social situations with friends are actually some of the laxest when it comes to speech-related anxiety, as they are often filled to the brim with light-hearted stories, shitty inside jokes, and what today’s youth refers to as ” super dank memes”. I find, despite the blatant dankness (like, the truly dank nature) of said memes, I am still susceptible to feelings of severe embarrassment and inadequacy over my stutter.
Even when surrounded by my close gang of fellow misfits, I still feel pressure to match their levels of fluency. And it is that nagging pressure to “not stutter” that has manifested itself in some truly memorable fashions, inspiring family-friendly classics such as “I’ll Have The Crab”.
It’s a story known widely throughout my friend group, even extending forth to the knowledge of people who weren’t around to witness it. It has almost become, and I do not say this lightly, a really, really dank meme. For years, all anybody deciphered from it was that I wanted to draw out a few giggles with my blunt and jarring crab-based proclamation. Instead of expressing what I really went through that night, it was a great deal easier to start keeping up a full proof charade.
And so I did. Until right now.
What I’ve been trying to demonstrate is a very debilitating issue for people who stutter. Closing friends and family off to speech-related anxieties is a common theme for people who find their speech impeded. It’s an easy to repeat mistake that I’ve had to deal with making throughout my life.
My loved ones are very familiar with my stutter, and they’ve even picked up on my speech patterns, trouble sounds, avoidance tactics, etc. But it is the extent to which my stutter preys upon my thoughts, and in turn, my confidence, that might be a bit of a question mark for them.
Which is why stories like this (no matter the randomness of them) need to start being shared.
There’s a prevalent level of shame that is almost hard-wired into the mentality of a stutter-er. And if we can learn to acknowledge and share these feelings with those closest to us, I feel that our overall social progress as people with disabilities is only going to get stronger.
Nobody can truly read your mind.
Sometimes all they notice is you yelling out for crab.
And yes, okay, yes, yes the Crab Cakes were very, very, VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY good.