Oyster Ben's Blog

The girl didn’t look older than fourteen, which is why I was a little surprised she was sitting at the bar. The four empty trays of oysters in front of her kept me staring, and when they brought her the bill, even my date was eavesdropping.

“Six dozen oysters at two-fifty a piece comes to one-eighty. Plus tax.”

“I wanna do it,” the girl said, looking up at the waiter with a smile that was all charm. He stared at her and we stared at him, and the bar burst out into a round of silence the likes of which I’ve never heard. If she weighed a hundred pounds it would have been a surprise, but she had clearly done her job: the trays were spotless and not a single shell was left full.

“Come on, just pay the bill,” the waiter said, shifting back and forth on his feet like a nine-year-old who needed to pee.

“Nope,” she said, crossing her arms and shaking her head. “I’m doing it.”

“Look, kid, there are thirty people in here tonight. They’ve gone through thousands of oysters.”

“So what?” she asked.

“Let her do it,” the manager said from the front door. She had been staring at the exchange as long as the rest of us, but the look in her eye was fierce. And determined. Just when I thought she might launch herself at the girl, she clapped her hands three times and the restaurant burst back to life.

“Raul!” she cried, as the waiters pulled two tables into the center of the room, quickly stripped them, and then covered them in newspaper. My date and I managed to get a spot at the bar near the front where we promptly ordered another round of drinks. After three years of going to Sally’s, I had never seen anyone take them up on the offer.

All heads turned when Raul walked out of the kitchen. His white apron was perfectly pressed and a leather holster clung to his shoulders carrying two sharp oyster knives. He didn’t even look at the girl as he took his spot in front of the table.

The challenger got up and wobbled towards him, and for a moment I wondered if they had been serving the kid. She didn’t look wasted, but she didn’t look too focused either. Which was probably why she was going for it. Either that or she was broke and was faced with this or a two hundred dollar bill.

“Okay everybody here’s the deal. Like it says on the menu, anyone has a right to challenge our resident shucker for the price of their meal. This kid has eaten just over six dozen oysters, which means that’s the number they shuck. In the unlikely case that she wins, her meal is on us. If she loses, she’s covering all your tabs, so you better cheer for our man here.”

There was a wall in the back with the names of people who attempted the thing, and each one had the total bar tab next to their losing score. Six thousand dollars for Fred, eight for Steven, and a lucky two thousand for Mark who must have intentionally come in on a slow day.

Not one of them had come close.

When the waiter brought out the two bags of oysters the girl shrugged, and Raul placed his knives on the table and smiled. He had been known to shuck a single oyster in less than three seconds, which meant even with seventy-two oysters in front of him it shouldn’t take much longer than four minutes.

My only glimpse into the future was nearly invisible. While a waiter had placed a standard knife next to the girl’s tray, she had yet to touch it. And as the two competitors dug through the bags pulling a few choice oysters out next to their giant trays, I saw a glimmer of metal. The girl had reached up under her long skirt and pulled out a knife which looked like it had seen better days. She clutched in her hand below the table like a lifeline.

The room was quiet as the crowd drew in tighter, and there was so much tension in the air you could eat it with enough mignonette.

“All oysters must be fully severed, no broken shells, and no blood. First to finish all seventy-two is the winner. Any questions?”

Raul turned to face the girl for the first time and there was real pity in his look.

“Sorry kid. I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

“I appreciate it,” she said with a determined grin.

And then the music stopped, the room stood still, and the manager stood next to the table with one hand in the air. I relaxed into my chair, martini in hand as the knife slid through the girl’s fingers into a tight and easy grip.

And then there was a blur of motion as the smell of the sea blasted across the room. The noise returned in the form of deafening yells, and I was mesmerized to the point of stupidity. Raul moved like a well-oiled machine, picking up the shells, prying them open and slicing the abductor muscle in one fluid motion. He had plated six by the time anyone realized what was happening.

Next to him, the girl stood still. Her feet were planted on the ground and even her head remained locked in place as if she didn’t need to watch what she was doing. But her hands were another thing altogether. The oysters appeared to fly from the bag to her hand and then onto the plate with nothing happening in the middle. I could see the flash of steel and I knew what she was doing, but none of that mattered.

By the time Raul had twenty-five perfectly shucked oysters in front of him, the girl had thirty, and she hadn’t even broken a sweat. So focused on what he was doing, it took him awhile to realize what was happening. Maybe it was the sudden silence of the crowd, but when he finally looked at the tray next to him it was with a startled yell.

And then he picked up speed. If he had been going easy on her it didn’t look like it, but now he was a beast, moving dangerously fast as the nearly still girl next to him continued to shuck like she was out for a leisurely stroll along the river.

At the halfway point he had nearly caught up, and then she stopped. Just like that, she put her knife down and the crowd went wild. As Raul’s smile returned he moved faster and faster, and all of us watched in awe as his challenger pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, wiped her brow, and then took a deep breath.

“Don’t worry,” she said, turning to Raul. “I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

He was nearly eight oysters ahead when she finally picked up her knife again. She let him shuck the ninth before she finished him.

Those last few moments will never leave me, because I have never seen anyone do something so perfectly. Her hands were nearly motionless, wasting nothing as she shucked, and the oysters slid onto the tray, their liquor shining in the shells.

It was just after the three-minute mark that she put her knife down. Raul had six more to go, and he shucked beautifully, not realizing the game was up. She stood in silence as he finished and she clapped when he dutifully slammed his knife to the table in a triumphant clang. And then he turned and looked, his smile fading as he stared at the most beautiful display of oysters any of us had ever seen.

The manager ended up buying us all a round, but the rest of the evening is something of a blur. We cheered for the new champ and the regulars demanded her name sit at the top of the board in her rightful place of honor. Someone told them to hire her and another said he would take her if they weren’t interested.

But by the time the noise died down, the girl was nowhere to be seen. Even as we moved in like vultures to the full trays, I couldn’t so much catch a glimpse of her skirt in the crowd.

Someone later told me she was the Irish world champion shucker for the last two years, but someone else said she was from New Orleans. The bartender swore he saw her on the Cape shucking Wellfleets two at a time, and our waitress had heard that the girl grew up in her father’s oyster farm in northern France.

Tommy was positive she slipped through time from a day when children shucked oysters in factories along the harbor for pennies a day. It was the only explanation he told us, a beer in each hand.

Personally, none of it mattered to me. She did what she set out to do and I was grateful to have seen it. And if as time goes by we start to forget, if we prefer to think we imagined it, then I’ll be the first to remind us.

She came. She ate. And she won.

And she was fucking brilliant.

American oysters don’t grow pearls. They get wrapped up in the myth of course, and people still look in vain, but it’s a different animal altogether, and if you want something shiny, you’re going to have to be satisfied with the experience of the thing.

If you want a pearl in your oyster, bring an old friend or open a good bottle of wine. If you want a pearl in your American oyster, then take your time, examine the soft wet flesh of the creature you’re about to eat and give thanks. Hold the shell gently as you breathe in the smell of the bay it was harvested in and bring it to your lips like it’s precious.

Open your mouth and let the cold flesh spill onto your tongue before gently biting into it to release every ounce of sweetness the damn thing has to offer. Chew slowly, your eyes open and your hands relaxed, as you let each part of your tongue connect: salty, sweet, umami. Taste them all before you swallow and then lean back in your chair and look up at the ceiling.

Have a sip of Champagne or a slosh of beer and let it sit in your mouth for just a moment longer. Smile as you look down at the plate and consider which one to eat next.

There’s your pearl.