5
" Zemurray lived near the docks. No one could tell me the exact address. Some building in the French Quarter, perhaps a wreck with cracks in the walls and a sloped ceiling, and the heat goes out and the fog comes in. When his business grew, he moved uptown, following the wealth of the city, which had been fleeing the French Quarter for decades. At twenty-nine, he was rich, a well-known figure in a steamy paradise, tall with deep black eyes and a hawkish profile. A devotee of fads, a nut about his weight, he experimented with diets, now swearing off meat, now swearing off everything but meat, now eating only bananas, now eating everything but bananas. He spent fifteen minutes after each meal standing on his head, which he read was good for digestion. His friends were associates, his mentors and enemies the same. He was a bachelor and alone but not lonely. He was on a mission, after all, in quest of the American dream, and was circumspect and deliberate as a result. He never sent letters or took notes, preferring to speak in person or by phone. He was described as shy, but I think his actions are more accurately characterized as careful—he did not want to leave a record or draw attention. "
― Rich Cohen , The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King
6
" If you want to drive the isthmus lengthwise, down the gullet, Mexico to Colombia, where the land broadens and South America begins, your best bet is the Pan-American Highway, which starts in Alaska and continues thirty thousand miles to the bottom of the world. It’s a network of roads each charted by a conquistador or strongman. It’s disappointing in many places, rutted and small, climbing and descending, battling the jungle and mountains, then ending abruptly in the rain forest of Panama. It’s as if the road itself, defeated by nature, walked away muttering. It starts again sixty-five miles hence, on the other side of a chasm. This is called the Darién Gap. It symbolizes the incomplete nature of Central America, the IN PROGRESS sign that seems to hang over everything. Russia is the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Germany is the Autobahn. The United States is Route 66. Central America is the Darién Gap. "
― Rich Cohen , The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King
7
" He was surrounded, supine in his dirty uniform, the faces staring down, the sky, the peaks—a legendary scene in the life of Lee Christmas. “Goddamned you all to Hell!” he shouted. “Shoot me now if you’ve got the guts. Shoot me you miserable heathens. Shoot me and be done with me but don’t bury me. Leave me on the ground to rot.” “Don’t bury you? But why Señor General?” Then came the words that Christmas either wrote in advance, made up afterward, or actually spoke—words that attached themselves to his story like a tagline, in the nature of “Do you feel lucky, punk?” “Because I want the buzzards to eat me, and fly over you afterward, and scatter white shit all over your God-damned black faces. "
― Rich Cohen , The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King
