Two nights ago I had dinner in a swinging Cuban restaurant located in Prague's (former) Jewish Ghetto. I was first attracted to the restaurant earlier in the day when, passing by, and spotting a lively al fresco business, I plopped myself down at a table for a glass of wine, which turned into three. Even if the music was Cuban and I didn't understand a word of it (some music is better left unintelligible anyway, like most opera), I was happy hearing something other than the typical Anglo-pop I'd been suffering through since I arrived in Europe. So I lingered over the Latin sounds. Of course, in its own way, the wine helped, too.
Somewhere between glasses one and three I learned that the restaurant offered live music each night and that, coupled with the Cuban menu item made of fried pork belly and rice I spotted on the menu, sealed it for me.
When I returned refreshed around 8:30 the place was not yet at capacity but getting close. As it was a Cuban restaurant and flaunted its Cuban roots and cliche of fine cigars, coronas and figurados were smoldering all around, left and right. I don't mind cigars (mostly it's the people who pose with them that irritate me), but I didn't want to eat in a fog, so when asked I opted for the non-smoking section, which, after following the host for about twenty minutes, I discovered to be way back in the restaurant's hinterlands, far removed from the music I'd come to hear. What the hell, I thought; I'll eat and then go catch the show.
I was seated at a table opposite a fish tank, of what size I don't know -- 30, 45, 60 gallons -- whatever, it was plenty big enough to make a roomy home for the 6 lobsters whose final days, perhaps minutes, would be spent there. It was a very simple home, filled only with water and a large conch shell, dead center. The lobsters had a lot of room in which find their own quiet space, to be alone and contemplate their lives.
Soon after I sat down the live music began and was piped into the way back room. It was an up-tempo Latin piece, obviously, and quite audible. Audible enough apparently for the lobsters to hear, because with the onset of the music one of the lobsters began to raise and lower its eight spindly legs in a sort of tango or rumba or whatever the proper Cuban dance stepped the tune called for. Maybe the lobster was Cuban, a langosta, or maybe it simply liked salsa.
Either way, I was greatly impressed and amused by this dancing lobster, and watched it happily as I continued to go unnoticed by the wait staff. The lobsters 1-2-3,1-2-3 reminded me of the dancing cat in the old Purina Cat Chow, cha-cha-cha commercials, only better, because this wasn't staged as some kind of advertising gimmick, but was simply a lobster stepping to the beat, having a good time.
It's possible that the lobster was trying to entice one of the other lobsters, or perhaps several, to join in a full-on fish tank conga, but none took the bait, so to speak, and the lobster was left dancing with itself, just like Billy Idol. After a while it stopped, maybe saying to itself "Oh what's the use."
Whatever the term is for people who study crustaceans, I am not one, and so I can observe lobster behavior only without actually knowing the behavior that I observe. That is, I can try to guess what a lobster might be doing in terms parallel to human behavior, though I am sure that kind of anthropomorphism will endow lobster behavior with meaning the lobster may never have intended, assuming lobsters intend their behaviors at all. In other words, maybe it's a fool's errand to try to penetrate the mind of a lobster.
Anyway, having no distractions or obstructions to get in the way, such as a service person offering me a menu or looking to take a drink or dinner order, here is more of what I observed:
For a long while the lobsters seemed to be brooding despite the Ricky Ricardo music, when, out of the blue, and seemingly without provocation, another lobster suddenly gt all animated, not to rumba but to rumble, as in, it began acting very aggressively toward the no-longer-dancing lobster, and actually charged holding its big claws menacingly overhead, to which the dancing lobster reacted with an equally aggressive charge with equally menacing drawn claws. I don't know if perhaps the no-longer-dancing lobster had been harassing the other lobster, taunting it for not having gotten up to dance earlier, but in any event, they were now going at it.
However, because their claws were rubber-banded, and therefore useless as weapons (the claws can crack, but they don't make for good bludgeons -- too much water resistance) -- the best they could do was slam into each other and try to out-muscle each other. Like sumo-lobsters, they pushed and pushed, giving ground, gaining ground, back and forth. From an outsider's perspective, the whole thing looked pretty futile, but I suppose the lobsters felt there was something to be gained by it, lobster honor, maybe. And so they kept at it, fiercely.
Again, not being a lobsterologist, the sudden antagonism perplexed me, and I had to assume it had to do not with dancing but with sex. I assumed that these two libidinous lobsters -- males? females? -- were fighting for sexual sovereignty over the four other lobsters who, unlike the lobster warriors, were kind of curled up in their own corner of the tank paying no mind to to the roughnecks, dreaming sweet lobster dreams of yummy starfish and tender clams (or perhaps having nightmares of boiling water and drawn butter).
If any of the four had paid the slightest attention to the sparring lobsters they surely would have thought, "What idiots. What are they trying to prove?" Instead they slept, conserving energy and enjoying their remaining time on earth (at least in their current form).
Watching the two disclawed lobsters in their futile attempts to hurt each other, I came upon a discovery. Well, maybe not a discover, but an insight of sorts; at the very least, a thought. It had to do with the rubber bands.
Now, I don't know what the crushing power is of a lobster's big gnarly claw, but it looks sizable. And, I suspect that the lobster that is able to get that claw clamped on to some part of an adversary can do some serious damage, break off and arm or a leg, snap antennae, pluck eyes.
Such dismemberment, obviously, would not be welcomed by the sudden amputee, but also, in a larger sense, it would not be welcomed for the lobster fisherman who caught the lobster, nor for the Cuban restaurant, both of whom want to keep their lobsters whole for their customers. No one wants to order pre-cracked lobsters or lobsters with missing parts.
In the lobster world, the simple device of a rubber-band exerts extraordinary economic power, maintaining peace -- or at least preventing horrific violence -- between rumbling lobsters, thereby getting them to the market and platter as nature designed. The alternative would be costly, unchecked lobster carnage.
Granted, it does the lobsters no real good having their claws bound by rubber bands -- their fates were sealed once they got hauled up in the trap -- and so what difference does it make to them whether they tear or are torn to pieces? Might as well go out snapping. For everyone else, though, the simple disarmament is a marvel.
Here then is the discovery/insight/thought: What we humans need then is to figure out some way to make rubber bands for our species that have the same restraining effect as rubber bands have on lobsters. To keep us from hurting ourselves, tearing each other to shreds. Somebody needs to play the part of the lobsterman, or the Cuban restaurant, and bind up our means of destruction so that if we humans cannot ever escape or evolve out of our urge to fight, at least we won't hurt each other.
I'm talking about rubber bands over missile silos, and rocket launchers, and armored tanks, etc. Imagine a war where tanks, with rubber bands restraining their cannons and their shell cracking powers neutralized, met in battle like banded lobsters and simply charged at each other and ran into each other to see who could push who, where. A several thousand ton shoving match. No doubt, some headaches and whiplash would result, but eventually the tank's tanks would hit empty and their crews left wondering, "Now what do we do?" "I dunno. I guess maybe we just leave it here and walk home."
If not rubber banded, lobster combat would be very costly, to the lobsterman, the restauranteur, and ultimately the customer. And if lobster combat would be costly, you can imagine how costly human combat is. We humans need someone to play the part of lobsterman and band our claws, and then someone to play the part of the restauranteur who will maintain those bands, for our own short-lived good, until, our time being up, that celestial hand reaches into the tank and plucks us out, with luck to serve us up to some higher purpose, but more likely to drop us into a fiery cauldron.
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