Tale #005 — The Crab Community Executive Retreat
As told by Betsy LeAnne Broussard
There are people in this world who can recognize when they’re not wanted.
Elbert Dale Hoss ain’t one of them.
You could lock your front door, pull down the blinds, dig a moat around your house, and nail a sign to the porch that said ELBERT DALE HOSS, STAY THE HELL OUT, and that boy would show up with a shovel wanting to help you finish the moat.
He’d probably ask what you were keeping in it.
And if you said alligators, he’d offer to fetch some.
That’s the kind of man we’re dealing with.
Now, three days after Hoss tried to grow instant gravy in a quarter-acre field, the Crab Community in his Back 40 decided they needed a vacation.
Not a vacation from work.
A vacation from Hoss.
Those crabs had spent an entire night stirring powdered gravy into dirt because they were terrified of disappointing a man they knew as the DUCK DANGLIN WIND COMMANDER.
I don’t know exactly what happened with that duck.
I’ve heard it involved a wind machine, a length of rope, and a bird that briefly achieved a higher altitude than God intended.
But the crabs remembered.
And when Hoss came asking them to hoe his gravy garden, they worked like their lives depended on it.
By Monday morning, the Crab Community had decided something needed to change.
They called an executive retreat.
Which would’ve been a fine idea if they hadn’t made the mistake of putting up a sign.
Hoss found it while checking the drainage ditch behind the equipment shed.
The sign was nailed to a cypress stump.
Somebody had carved the letters into a flat piece of bark.
CRAB COMMUNITY EXECUTIVE RETREAT
CLOSED SESSION
NO OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE
Hoss stood in front of it for a good five minutes.
Then he read it again.
He knew what retreat meant.
Daddy had explained it to him once after Hoss tried to run a bull out of the north pasture with a broom.
Retreat meant you were getting away from something dangerous.
And executive sounded important.
He wasn’t entirely sure what an executive was, but he’d seen the word on the side of a big truck once, and the driver had been wearing sunglasses.
So Hoss concluded the crabs were important people fleeing some kind of emergency.
And because he was Hoss, he decided they needed his help.
He walked straight to my Stop-N-Go.
I was stocking the coffee cups when he came in.
“Morning, Betsy.”
“Morning, Elbert.”
“Y’all got foldin’ chairs?”
“How many?”
“Twelve.”
I stopped stocking cups.
“Why?”
“Crab executives.”
I looked at him.
“Crab what?”
“Executives. Got themselves a retreat.”
“Well, good for them.”
“Reckon they’re scared.”
“Of what?”
“Don’t know yet.”
He wandered over to the cooler and picked up a case of bottled water.
“Sign said no outside interference.”
“Then don’t interfere.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He added three bags of ice.
I watched him carry them to the counter.
“Elbert, what’re you doing?”
“Gettin’ supplies.”
“For the thing you’re not supposed to interfere with?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Elbert.”
He looked at me with those big, honest eyes of his.
“Betsy, I ain’t interferin’. I’m helpin’.”
There are days when I think the difference between those two words is the only thing keeping this parish from burning to the ground.
He bought the water, ice, twelve folding chairs I had stacked in the storeroom for church events, and a package of name tags.
Then he spotted a whistle hanging beside the fishing lures.
He picked it up.
“What’s this cost?”
“Three dollars.”
“Reckon I’ll need it.”
“For what?”
“Emergencies.”
I looked at the whistle.
Then at Hoss.
Then at the chairs.
“Elbert, promise me you’re not gonna start any kind of emergency.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He paid and carried everything outside.
Clyde was waiting in Daddy’s old wooden-sided Turnip Wagon Truck.
He wore his fedora low over his eyes and had his Tommy gun propped against the seat.
Paul the possum was asleep in a cardboard box between them.
Hoss loaded the chairs into the truck bed.
Clyde watched him.
Then Clyde reached into his coat, pulled out a little notebook, and made a mark in it.
I don’t know what he was keeping track of.
I don’t particularly want to know.
Now, the Crab Community had put considerable effort into their retreat.
They’d selected a clearing beneath a fallen cypress tree.
They’d arranged small stones into a circle.
They’d dragged a piece of driftwood into the middle to serve as a conference table.
And they’d scratched their agenda into three strips of bark.
The first said:
REVIEW GRAVY INCIDENT.
The second said:
ESTABLISH EMERGENCY PROCEDURES.
The third said:
APPOINT SOMEONE TO TELL HIM NO.
That third item had caused considerable disagreement.
The crabs were intelligent creatures, but intelligence doesn’t necessarily make a fellow brave.
Especially when the fellow you’re supposed to confront is six feet of confused farm boy who once dangled a duck from a wind machine.
One large blue crab proposed that the responsibility be assigned to the smallest crab.
The smallest crab objected.
Another suggested that everybody tell Hoss no at the same time.
Nobody liked that either.
A third crab scratched a motion into the mud suggesting they simply move the entire community farther into the swamp.
That proposal was receiving serious consideration when they heard the truck.
A wooden-sided truck.
Coming down the farm lane.
With twelve folding chairs rattling in the back.
Every crab in the clearing stopped moving.
Then came a familiar voice.
“EVENIN’, FELLERS!”
It was ten in the morning.
Hoss wasn’t particularly troubled by that.
He climbed out of the truck carrying two chairs under each arm.
Clyde stayed behind the wheel.
Paul remained asleep in the cardboard box.
Hoss approached the clearing.
“Seen y’all’s sign!”
The crabs stared.
“Figured I’d come help with the retreat.”
One crab dropped its piece of bark.
Hoss unfolded a chair.
Then another.
Then another.
He arranged them in two rows facing the driftwood table.
The chairs were full-sized.
The crabs were not.
This did not occur to Hoss as a problem.
“Y’all can sit wherever you’re comfortable.”
The big blue crab looked up at a chair seat approximately four feet above his head.
Then he looked at the other crabs.
Nobody moved.
Hoss set a cooler beside the stump.
“Brought water and ice.”
He opened the cooler.
“Anybody thirsty?”
The crabs remained perfectly still.
“All right. Y’all holler if you need somethin’.”
Then he peeled a name tag off the sheet, wrote on it with a marker, and stuck it to his shirt.
KEY NOTE SPEAKER
He stepped behind the driftwood table.
“All right, executives. Reckon we oughta get started.”
The crabs looked at one another.
Their retreat had been underway for twenty-seven minutes.
It was already ruined.
Hoss had prepared a speech.
He’d written it on the backs of three old feed receipts.
The first one said:
HOW TO RETREAT FROM A DUCK.
The second said:
WHY RETREATIN’ IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS.
The third said:
TEAMWORK.
He cleared his throat.
“Fellers, I know y’all are worried.”
The big blue crab slowly raised a claw.
“Now, don’t be ashamed. Everybody gets scared sometimes.”
The crab lowered its claw.
“One time Daddy had a bull get loose, and I had to retreat clear across the north pasture.”
He paused.
“Lost my broom.”
Nobody reacted.
“Point is, retreatin’ ain’t cowardly. It’s tactical.”
Hoss had heard that word from Biggun once.
He liked it.
Made him feel knowledgeable.
“Now, if y’all got a duck problem, first thing you wanna do is identify the duck.”
Several crabs began backing away.
“Second thing is figure out whether the duck knows where you are.”
A smaller crab disappeared beneath a root.
“Third thing is get yourself some cover.”
By the time Hoss reached his fourth point, half the Crab Community was hiding behind the fallen cypress.
He took that as evidence his advice was working.
“See? Y’all are naturals!”
He smiled proudly.
Then he blew the whistle.
TWEEEEEEEEET!
Every crab in the clearing dropped flat into the mud.
Hoss nodded.
“Good reflexes.”
Clyde eventually got bored sitting in the truck.
He climbed down, adjusted his fedora, and wandered over to the retreat.
He looked at the chairs.
Looked at the crabs.
Looked at Hoss standing behind the driftwood.
Then he pulled out his notebook.
Hoss waved.
“Clyde! Come on over! We’re doin’ executive trainin’!”
Clyde looked at the crabs.
One of them looked back.
Clyde smiled in a way I wouldn’t have trusted on a human being.
He opened his notebook and wrote:
CRABS — 7 TO 1
Then he closed it.
I have no evidence Clyde was organizing gambling on the retreat.
I also have no evidence he wasn’t.
By lunchtime, Hoss had decided the crabs needed a team-building exercise.
Daddy had always said a good farm crew had to pull together.
Hoss remembered that part.
He didn’t remember Daddy was talking about getting a stuck tractor out of a ditch.
So Hoss fetched a rope.
A long one.
He stretched it across the irrigation ditch and tied one end around a cypress root.
Then he carried the other end back to the clearing.
“All right, fellers! Tug-of-war!”
The crabs stared at the rope.
The big blue crab approached it cautiously.
Hoss held up the end.
“Everybody get a grip!”
Several crabs seized the rope with their claws.
“That’s it!”
More joined.
Soon there were twenty crabs clinging to the line.
Hoss grinned.
“Now pull!”
They pulled.
Hoss pulled back.
The crabs pulled harder.
Hoss was delighted.
“Look at that teamwork!”
What he didn’t know was that the crabs weren’t trying to win.
They were trying to drag the rope toward the ditch so they could escape down the bank while he was distracted.
Unfortunately, twenty crabs are not much of a match for a grown man who spent his childhood hauling feed sacks.
Hoss gave the rope a gentle tug.
The crabs skidded six inches through the mud.
He laughed.
“Y’all gotta put your backs into it!”
The crabs dug in.
Hoss pulled again.
This time the rope tightened against the cypress root on the far side of the ditch.
The knot slipped.
The rope snapped free.
And Hoss, who’d been leaning backward with his full weight, landed flat on his ass.
The crabs scattered.
Clyde made a sound like a rusty hinge.
Hoss sat up.
Mud covered the back of his pants.
He looked at the rope.
Then at the empty clearing.
Then he laughed.
“HELL OF A PULL, FELLERS!”
The crabs emerged slowly from behind the roots.
Hoss stood up.
“Reckon y’all won that one.”
He made a note on his feed receipt.
CRABS — STRONG.
Now, that ought to have been enough team building for one day.
But Hoss had heard about another exercise from somebody at church.
A trust fall.
The idea was simple.
One person falls backward.
Everybody else catches him.
It sounded to Hoss like a perfectly reasonable way to build confidence.
He found a low stump beside the irrigation ditch.
Climbed onto it.
Crossed his arms.
“All right, fellers! Gather ’round!”
The crabs looked up.
“Now, I’m gonna fall backward, and y’all catch me.”
The big blue crab stared at him.
Another crab looked toward the ditch.
A third crab began digging a hole.
Hoss smiled.
“Don’t worry. I trust y’all.”
Then he fell.
Backward.
Off the stump.
Directly into the mud.
WHUMP.
The ground shook.
A spray of brown water hit the nearest cypress tree.
Every crab in the clearing vanished.
Hoss lay on his back, looking up at the branches.
He blinked.
Then he sat up.
“Well, hell.”
He wiped mud from his nose.
“Y’all gotta catch the executive.”
Nobody answered.
He climbed back onto the stump.
“Let’s try it again.”
That was when the crabs realized they had a problem.
If the Duck Danglin Wind Commander continued falling backward onto their meeting grounds, there might not be any meeting grounds left.
So they did what intelligent crabs do.
They improvised.
While Hoss was busy explaining the importance of trust, a group of crabs hurried to the edge of the ditch.
They dug.
They scraped.
They shoved mud aside with their claws.
They shaped a little sloping channel from the stump toward the water.
Other crabs pushed loose leaves into the channel.
Still others packed the sides with wet dirt.
Within minutes, they’d built a crude ramp.
Not a good ramp.
Not a safe ramp.
But a ramp.
And it pointed away from them.
Hoss turned around.
“Everybody ready?”
The crabs lined up beside the channel.
They raised their claws.
Hoss beamed.
“That’s the spirit!”
He crossed his arms.
Closed his eyes.
And fell backward.
His boots hit the loose mud.
His heels slid.
His backside dropped into the channel.
And Elbert Dale Hoss went sailing down the bank like a greased hog on a courthouse slide.
“WHOOOOOOO!”
He hit the irrigation ditch with a splash big enough to soak three cypress knees and half the crabs standing nearby.
Water surged up the bank.
The mud ramp collapsed.
The crabs scrambled for cover.
Hoss came up sputtering.
Then he laughed.
“THAT’S TEAMWORK!”
He slapped the water.
“Y’ALL CAUGHT ME WITH THE DITCH!”
The crabs stared at him.
They had just successfully redirected a falling human being into a body of water.
He considered it a triumph of corporate leadership.
I arrived about twenty minutes later.
I’d come looking for Hoss because he’d promised to stop by the Burger Barn for lunch, and when he didn’t show up, I had a feeling the crabs were involved.
I drove the farm lane until I saw the Turnip Wagon Truck.
Clyde was sitting on the tailgate, eating crackers.
Paul was asleep in the passenger seat.
I parked.
Got out.
And heard Hoss yelling from somewhere beyond the trees.
“ALL RIGHT, EXECUTIVES! ONE MORE TIME!”
I started walking faster.
When I reached the clearing, I found twelve folding chairs arranged in two rows, a cooler full of melted ice, a piece of driftwood covered in scratches, and approximately forty crabs standing in a semicircle around a muddy stump.
Hoss was soaking wet.
His name tag had peeled halfway off.
It still said KEY NOTE SPEAKER.
He was climbing onto the stump again.
“ELBERT!”
He turned.
“Hey, Betsy!”
“What in God’s name are you doing?”
“Helpin’ the crab executives retreat.”
“From what?”
“Still workin’ on that.”
I looked at the sign.
Then at the crabs.
Then at Hoss.
And it hit me.
“Oh, sweet Jesus.”
“What?”
“Elbert, I believe they’re retreating from you.”
He frowned.
“Well, why’d they invite me?”
“They didn’t.”
He pointed at the sign.
“Says executive.”
“That ain’t your name.”
“No, ma’am. But I’m good at executin’ stuff.”
I closed my eyes.
There are moments in a woman’s life when she must decide whether to argue with an idiot or preserve what’s left of her blood pressure.
I was considering my options when Hoss climbed down from the stump and spread his arms.
“Betsy, you oughta see these fellers. Real leadership potential.”
The crabs backed away.
“Been workin’ on teamwork all mornin’.”
“Elbert, those crabs look terrified.”
“That’s just executive nerves.”
“Executive nerves?”
“Big responsibilities.”
I stared at him.
He grinned.
“I LOVE MOTIVATIN’ EXECUTIVE CRABS!“
The crabs scattered.
I sat down in one of the folding chairs.
Didn’t care that it was muddy.
Didn’t care that my good jeans were gonna need washing.
I just sat.
Because I had finally found a situation that required me to be lower to the ground than my problems.
I might’ve gotten Hoss out of there peacefully.
Might’ve.
But Clyde decided to get involved.
He’d wandered over from the truck carrying his notebook.
He stopped beside the driftwood table.
Looked at the crabs.
Looked at the irrigation ditch.
Then he opened his notebook and began making marks.
One of the crabs approached him.
Clyde crouched.
The crab raised a claw.
Clyde raised one finger.
The crab raised both claws.
Clyde nodded.
I watched the exchange.
“Clyde.”
He ignored me.
“Clyde, what are you doing?”
He snapped the notebook shut.
I pointed at him.
“Don’t you start gambling on these crabs.”
He looked offended.
Which, from Clyde, is usually confirmation.
Then he reached into his coat.
I stood up.
“Clyde, if you pull that Tommy gun out at a corporate retreat, I swear to God—”
He pulled out a cigar.
I stopped.
He lit it.
Smiled.
And sat down on a stump.
I hated that raccoon.
Not all the time.
Just enough to keep my blood circulating.
While Clyde enjoyed his cigar, the Crab Community decided to take matters into its own claws.
The big blue crab climbed onto the driftwood table.
He scratched something into a fresh piece of bark.
Several other crabs gathered around.
They examined it.
One crab made a correction.
Another scratched a line beneath the final sentence.
Then they pushed the bark toward me.
I picked it up.
It said:
THE CRAB COMMUNITY RESPECTFULLY REQUESTS NO FURTHER MANDATORY TEAM-BUILDING ACTIVITIES.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at the crabs.
They looked back.
I nodded.
“That’s a very reasonable request.”
Hoss came over.
“What’d they say?”
I held up the bark.
“Elbert, the Crab Community respectfully requests no further mandatory team-building activities.”
He considered that.
Then he nodded.
“Fair enough.”
The crabs went still.
“Y’all need some time off.”
A few of them lowered their claws.
Hoss smiled.
“Reckon next week we’ll do a leadership summit.”
Every crab in the clearing disappeared into the mud.
Every single one.
Not a claw.
Not a shell.
Not so much as a bubble.
Hoss stared at the empty clearing.
Then he turned to me.
“Well, look at that.”
“What?”
“Retreatin’ already.”
I looked at the empty mud.
Then at Hoss.
Then at the little bark resolution in my hand.
And I realized those crabs might be the only creatures in Washitall Parish who’d ever accurately assessed the danger of Elbert Dale Hoss.
We loaded the folding chairs back into the Turnip Wagon Truck.
Hoss was still pleased with himself.
He talked all the way up the farm lane about leadership, teamwork, and how the crabs had demonstrated excellent ditch-catching skills.
Clyde drove.
Paul slept.
I followed in my truck, trying not to think about the fact that an entire intelligent community had just spent a day fleeing a motivational seminar.
When we got back to the Stop-N-Go, Hoss helped me unload the chairs.
He stacked them neatly beside the storeroom.
That boy could stack a chair.
He could fix a fence.
He could plant corn straight enough to make a surveyor cry.
He just couldn’t tell when forty crabs wanted him to go home.
“Appreciate you lettin’ me use these, Betsy.”
“You’re welcome, Elbert.”
“Think the retreat went real good.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, ma’am. Everybody learned somethin’.”
I leaned against the doorframe.
“What’d you learn?”
He thought for a moment.
“Crabs are strong.”
I nodded.
“Anything else?”
“Good at diggin’.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And they can catch a feller with a ditch.”
I closed my eyes.
“That’s wonderful, Elbert.”
He smiled.
“Reckon they’ll be ready for the leadership summit next week.”
I opened my eyes.
“No.”
He blinked.
“No, what?”
“No summit.”
“But—”
“No leadership. No teamwork. No retreat. No whistle. No folding chairs. Leave those poor crabs alone.”
He looked disappointed.
“Well, all right.”
I watched him walk toward the truck.
He climbed in beside Clyde.
Paul was asleep between them.
Hoss waved.
I waved back.
Then the Turnip Wagon Truck rattled down the road toward the farm.
I stood there a while, watching the dust settle.
And I thought about that little bark sign.
NO OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE.
Such a simple request.
Such a reasonable request.
And such a spectacular waste of bark when Elbert Dale Hoss is involved.
That evening, Hoss went into Daddy’s equipment shed and opened the old farm ledger.
He turned to a clean page.
Wrote the date.
Then carefully recorded his findings.
CRAB EXECUTIVE RETREAT — SUCCESSFUL.
CHAIRS — 12.
WATER — PLENTY.
TEAMWORK — EXCELLENT.
TRUST FALL — WET.
LEADERSHIP — IMPROVIN’.
He sat back and studied the page.
Then he added one more line.
NEXT EVENT — PENDING.
Paul was curled up in a feed sack beside the wall.
Hoss looked over at him.
“Paul, reckon them crabs are gonna be fine executives someday.”
Paul didn’t move.
“Just gotta build their confidence.”
Paul opened one eye.
Hoss nodded to himself.
“Maybe start ’em out with somethin’ simple next time.”
He thought for a moment.
Then he smiled.
“Public speakin’.”
Paul closed his eye.
And deep in the Back 40, beneath a fallen cypress tree, the Crab Community held another emergency meeting.
This one had no sign.
No chairs.
No whistle.
And absolutely no intention of inviting the Duck Danglin Wind Commander.
Their first order of business was to establish a lookout.
Their second was to hide every piece of bark they owned.
Their third was to pray that Hoss never learned what a conference call was.
THE END
