SINKING CHINESE GOLIATH OR "HOW I GOT HIGH IN PALESTINE"

"If loving you is evil, then I'm as guilty as Jack The Ripper." Geoff slid a small, slender zucchini -- the single fruit of the day's island hunt -- into a sneaker and lobbed it toward the turbulent blue-black waters. "Look at that old undertow.... Swallow it up...just as a famished Andalusian mare would."

 He pursed his lips and turned his head from the gale. After one minute, he exhaled sharply and said, "I want to get really fucked up. Secret Waarz is over."

 Sally, his bride-to-be, held tight to the ship's rail and leaned over to spit her gum into the choppy waves. Her eyes had swollen to the size of puckered clams from two days of crying in the "Penthouse Cabin" (actually below deck).

 "Do you hear me?! I broke up Secret Waarz for you!"

 This was not true. Having been re-elected Mayor of Old Navy Town for a second consecutive month, Geoff's ego was spinning out of control. He issued his resignation from the band he founded with Pittsburgh's top tennis twins -- Coney and D.H. Gloucester -- upon confirmation of his rank as top sales member. Geoff is perfectly aware that a third term at Hawaii's largest Old Navy outlet is under way.

 The sneaker belonged to the ship's lowliest and loneliest deckhand -- Pete "Reckless Peter" Schneider -- and the lobbing of the zucchini was Geoff's vindication. Earlier that day, he clandestinely observed Pete console Sally as she dolefully nibbled at the zucchini's stem. Old Navy's youngest debutante was not to be plundered by a seaman whose societal rank was clearly rungs below that of a man who has sold literal tons of board shorts and polar fleece jackets.

 "Where's that steak or whatever?!" Geoff patiently rubbed a turnip with a small piece of leather three times before sending a deckhand to check with the boat's kitchen.

 In the cargo hold of the Queen Jess Tandy, Dr. Tickle Zitronengelber rose from his cot with a brow ripened red and moist with fever.

 "The behemoth has set our path awry! Oh... what... the chinker... hath wrought!"