The Black Heart Man

Are you afraid of the dark like I am? We are going crab hunting tonight, not that I really want to but a special recipe I have in mind is curried crab with a mango chutney. One of my friends is going to show me how to cook it and we are in Negril Point, dead west on the island of Jamaica on holiday. Why pay for an expensive crab dinner with a million crabs on the march? Mangoes are everywhere and are also free. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to get the full island experience instead of staying cooked up in a fancy hotel. In the morning we go to visit Melissa’s family and cook our crabs in the backyard with them. She is my friend from high school. Her parents are Jamaicans.

 Melissa and Danesh have large calico bags with draw strings to keep the crabs in. They work together. I’m the cook who likes to look. Crabs can’t pinch you when they're dead. Watching them hunt and catch crab is a fascinating distraction from the darkness I hate so much even though we aren’t the only ones out here. I’ve learned something about land crabs on the go. They keep going, but when one is confronted, it’ll never turn its back to you. If you try to walk behind it, the crab will turn with you. This way it ensures you are always facing each other, and he does it with pinchers high in the air at all times, just in case you might want to try it. I wish I was as brave as a crab. We don’t scare them at all. Melissa confronts the crab head on while Danesh stays behind it and holds it from behind to pick it up. Then Melissa holds the stick in front of it and pinchers get to work. This is how they lower the crabs in the bag, while they are grabbing on to the stick, then they draw the string to keep them inside. Using the stick to keep the pinchers occupied is a good way to not get pinched but it isn’t easy getting them to let go afterwards.

Every now and again I see lights from flash lights. Apparently lots of people go crab hunting at night.

“When they get into the mud the work gets harder Michelle. You’ll have to push your hand in it to get to the crab. Don’t just stand there and look at it. Help me catch one,”

That’s Danesh. Why is he asking me to catch crabs? This was his idea, I‘m just the cook.

“I would have been tucked away under my blanket dreaming of something nice if you didn’t drag me out here. You and Melissa are doing just fine. I’ll continue holding the light,” as if I’m about to get pinched by my own dinner.

I think I pissed Danesh off.

“Ok, you stand there and hold the light. Melissa and I will use our own light and go catch the crabs before they are gone,” he says, and breaks out his own flashlight.

Danesh and Melissa leave me here all by myself. Whatever, with a flashlight it won’t be completely dark here anyway.

Unfortunately, round lights in the dark can be anything you want them to be or…or they can be exactly what you think they are. They can be the glow from fireflies. A flashing light could be a beacon somewhere in the distance. A bright, steady one moving in a particular direction could be from something as familiar as this flashlight. Hey, and if you want to accept that the fireflies are fairies too let your imagination lead the way. I’m right there with you.

Shine a light at someone’s face and one hundred per cent of the time you won’t be able to see a subtle red glow in the eyes. It is only natural for them to squint or close their eyes altogether. We are not creatures of darkness. There is this one time when you encroach on the realm of nightmares. You encounter something so convincingly unnatural and frightfully unsettling you wonder if your worst fear has become reality.

Melissa used to tell Jamaican ghost stories. The one I remember the most is the one about the black heart man who roams the night in search of children of the purest heart so he can cut out their hearts and eat them. Now there comes a time when you know that what stands in front of you is not an animal. It doesn’t growl, hiss, screech or croak. It doesn’t say hello. It is silent, and all you can see are two uninterrupted red-glowing eyes.

You must keep the light steady. You don’t know what it is, but one thing is sure, it is looking right back at you. Two round red lights in the dark at eye level is all you see, cloaked in leaves and branches. So you stand there holding the light, trying to keep it steady, but your hand starts shaking. Still, there is no sound, nothing that could give you a clue as to what it is. It doesn’t blink. It doesn’t look away. It doesn’t run away. It is not afraid of you. It wants you to make the first move. You want to run but you can’t turn your back to it.

You can hear other animals. Bull frogs are croaking. An owl is hooting. Fruit bats are chirping in the mango trees above your head, and then you blink once. Now there is nothing there!

“What was that?” I hope Melissa and Danesh are close enough to hear me and they are.

They come running.

“Michelle, what happened?” Danesh asks.

“I know there are other people out here but, are they people we can trust? You’ve done this many times before, right?”

Melissa is laughing at me, she senses cat-like fear, “Lots of times, are you afraid of these crab hunters? The crabs are more dangerous,” she says.

 Danesh can sense it too, and he loves it, “Does this mean you’ll help us catch some crab now?” he asks.

I know he expected to hear yes but I am not getting pinched by a crab tonight. I’ll hold the light and the bag, or something. At least I won’t be too far behind.

Round Lights in the Dark

All it takes to set off a chain reaction is a small spark to your imagination. Even with Danesh and Melissa right in front of me my eyes are restless. I still hear the owl.

 “Whooo, whooo…whooo,”

This sounds like a question whispered from the underworld.

“Melissa, how many crabs do you need?”

“More than what we have right now. We would have a lot more with more help, don’t you think?”

The night drags on and the crab hunters get fewer in number; they are going home. They are going home with the best of the crab.

“The pickings won’t be good from here on, thanks to Michelle,”

Danesh thinks I can’t hear him, but that’s ok, he’s right. Only he decides to stay a while longer to catch as many as he can and Melissa concurs. They bring a full bag and head back out with an empty one. How big is Melissa’s family? So again here I am all alone with a bag full of crabs and a flashlight.

Suddenly I hear a fallen branch crack underfoot and that foot isn’t mine! I hear it again. It’s coming from behind. I do what the crabs do and turn to face him or it. This time I don’t see anything except the bushes. No red glowing lights reflecting back.

Something is there! I feel its presence. It is the kind of feeling where you know someone or something is watching you. I keep the light steady. I feel blood rushing through my veins. Still nothing or no one emerges. The crabs out here face their demons, fearless in the eyes of death, as am I. If this is an encounter with the black heart man I will face him like a crab.

I won’t let him sense fear in my heart, “My ancestors slayed fire-breathing dragons and ate their tails for glory. You think I’m afraid of you?”

He chuckles.

“Show yourself,”

A very unassuming man steps out of the bushes with a large plastic bag in tow and smiles, “I’ve never seen you here before,” he says.

What a relief!

“Who are you, and why are you stalking me behind the bushes? I’m a very good screamer,”

Now he laughs, “You crabbers are trespassing on my land. The more of you I scare away the less garbage I have to pick up after you,”

Now I wonder if this is how Melissa’s story came to being in the first place. He is walking around with his bag and I face him in every direction. He seems amused by it too.

“So this is your land, why don’t you help us catch some crab and we can share them amongst ourselves?”

“I don’t eat crab,” he says and smiles again.

Now I’m scared. My heart is pounding. If it’s him this is exactly what he wants. Fear will make my heart even more delicious.

“What’s in the bag?” I ask.

“You already know the answer. Are you going to give me something to put in it as well?” he says with a smile growing ever more diabolical.

I am not afraid. I look him dead in the eyes and shine the light directly in them but he behaves differently. He is reacting to the bright light by holding his free hand in front of him.

“Stop that,”

“Why should I, are you afraid of a little light?”

“I’m not here to hurt you. I told you. I’m cleaning up your mess. Your light is not the source of my headache. It’s all the garbage you leave behind. Catch all the crab you want, but take your garbage with you,” he says.

There is frustration in his voice, he’s harmless. So I put down my bag and help him to fill his. He has a stick he uses to pick up pieces of garbage so he doesn’t have to bend. I just carry the bag for him. I am surprised at how quickly we fill the bag and understand his frustration. Not saying anything is making me uncomfortable and more fearful of him because he is also quiet.

“Do you get paid to do this? It is a noble thing to do,”

“I don’t. This is my land. I am responsible for how it is kept,” he says.

He apparently has little desire for conversation. Perhaps he is more interested in catching every piece of litter on the swamp floor. I keep talking to him because I want Melissa and Danesh to know exactly where I am so they can find me. He is listening, but then he interrupts me.

“So what’s your name and where are you from?” he asks.

“I’m Michelle from New York. What’s your name?”

“My name is Jackson. Everyone calls me Jack. I’ve been living here for forty years. You know, by now I really would be rich if I was getting paid to do this every year,”

Jackson appears to have seen a lot in his forty years in the swamp. I can tell he is just going through the motions. I’m being tolerated. Now he is walking me back to my crab bag, just in time for me to hear Melissa and Danesh approaching. They are surprised to see Jackson standing with me.

“Hi Jack, we have enough crab now. We’re leaving. Thank you so much,”

“You’re welcome Melissa,” he says.

I’m not surprised they know each other.

“So you’ve met my scared little cat Michelle. I hope you didn’t scare her too much,”

Danesh can be a real jerk sometimes. I should tie him up and leave him out here for the crabs to get some revenge. My heart is at ease now and I’m tired. We will be dragging these bags to the car. It is a good distance away. Jackson is walking with us. I’m anxious to listen to some of his stories about the swamp before we leave. He might share something familiar.

“I’m sure you’ve seen some weird things happen out here in your forty years,”

Again he chuckles, “I sure have. If I tell you some of them you may never come back, but I like you so I won’t,” he says.

“Come on Jackson don’t bore me to death on the way back. Share something, anything,”

He reluctantly obliges tugging the bag of garbage hanging over his shoulder.

“There is a legend here of a man who roams the darkness, like me, but he doesn’t collect garbage like I do. He collects children,”

“The black heart man,”

“So you’ve heard of him. Don’t worry Michelle you are not a child anymore, you don’t have to be afraid,”

“Was he some kind of serial killer?”

“Nobody knows where he comes from. He is a shadow. They say that when you see him, all you can see are his hungry, blood curdling eyes staring back at you. His aim is a heart full of fear, and he has a taste for innocence. When you see him you must not scream, or run or be afraid. If you are not afraid he will go away as a figment of your imagination, but it won’t stop him from trying again. So it is best not to test the limits of bravery,”

I wonder if Jackson had seen him as a boy, because I know what I saw tonight. Those eyes were hungry for fear. It wasn’t Jackson. Perhaps he saw the heart of a child. I am ready to get the hell out of here. Finally we get to the car. Danesh and Melissa load up and say goodbye to Jackson.

“It was nice meeting you Jackson. I will ask my friends not to bother you again for crabs. They should pay you something like all the other crabbers out here so here, take this,”

He refuses to accept the fifty dollars and pushes my hand back towards me, “Michelle, I said I liked you. This is not necessary. I hope to see you again. Enjoy the crab,” he says, turns and walks away.

I watch him chug along with the bag of garbage over his shoulder. He is slightly bent forward. Fifty dollars isn’t enough to compensate him for what he is doing. We should be the ones doing it, but he isn’t walking with a light. Come to think of it, he never was. So how was he seeing in the dark? I almost can’t see him now. He is blending in with the night like a shadow.

Danesh toots the horn, “What is taking so long Michelle?” he asks.

I glance around one last time to see if Jackson is gone, but again all I see are two small red glowing lights side by side in the dark. The only difference is that now I know for sure who I’ve met, but now he also knows that I am not afraid of him.

I ask Melissa, she should know, “Is Jackson always out here during the crab march?”

“Not really, I run into him sometimes, why?” she asks.

“Where is his house?”

“I don’t know, really, but he says this is his swamp, his land so we just go with the flow,”

Now Melissa is the one creeping me out. Forty years is a long time for someone to claim ownership of land and someone half that number doesn’t know where to find his house, don’t you think that’s a bit odd?

“So how long has he been living here?”

I only started seeing him around five years ago.

I get it now. Danesh is the one who is clueless.

“Melissa, did Jackson tell you the story the same way he told me?”

I am waiting. I’m waiting patiently. There it is; that red glow at just the right angle. It’s good that she is in the front seat and I am in the back watching her eyes in the mirror. All those years ago she nurtured fear in my heart for a reason. I escaped.

When evil tells you exactly who he is, he wants you to be afraid.

 The black heart man was a symbol of evil and terror in days gone by for children who would walk home from school. Most children did, and they’d be in a hurry to get home and stay out of trouble before nightfall. He wants you to be afraid believing there’s no escaping black and wicked power. Red glow in his eyes will test. He is constantly trying to purge the world of hearts of innocence, goodness and love. The truth is sometimes he becomes whoever you want him to be. He is counting on your silence. He is counting on inaction and paralysis. He is counting on the good to stand in fear so wickedness, hatred and injustice can claim the world, but he is easily disarmed and defeated. Disarm him by being brave. Land crabs are feisty. One will never turn its back on you because all its predators know damn well they must attack from behind. Turn around and face the black heart man. When you do, bravery will shine through to become breast plate armor and safeguard your heart. This is what the world needs right now. You are already late. He will keep trying but don’t be afraid. Shine light into the world instead of being afraid of the dark. You are already holding light in your hand. Help make the world a much better place and you’ll find that the black heart man simply turns around and walks away a dejected failure.                          

THE END