IVIV Why 'chocolate-covered bananas? p.22

[John Carvill]

Hello Ya Sam!

Well, I can't compete with the great Vineland and GR banana refs
already pointed out, but just for completeness here's a segment from
'Low-Lands', featuring "a gang of banana pickers in Guatemala":

"They had jumped a freighter called the Deirdre O'Toole, sailing under
Panamanian registry—
Bolingbroke apologized for this detail, but he insisted it was true:
back then you could register anything, a rowboat, a
seagoing whorehouse, a battleship, anything that floated, in Panama —
to escape from Porcaccio the first mate, who had
delusions of grandeur. Three days out from Port-au-Prince Porcaccio
had stormed into the captain's cabin with a Very
pistol and threatened to turn the captain into a human flare unless
the ship were turned around and headed for Cuba. It
seems there were several cases of rifles and other light armament down
in the hold, all destined for a gang of banana
pickers in Guatemala who had recently unionized and desired to abolish
the local American sphere of influence. It was
Porcaccio's intention to take over the ship and invade Cuba and claim
the island for Italy, to whom it rightfully belonged,
since Columbus had discovered it. For his mutiny he had assembled two
Chinese wipers and a deck hand subject to
epileptic fits. The captain laughed and invited Porcaccio in for a
drink. Two days later they came staggering out on deck,
drunk, arms flung about each other's shoulders; neither had had any
sleep in the intervening period. The ship had run
into a heavy squall; all hands were running around securing booms and
shifting cargo, and in the confusion the captain
somehow got washed over the side. Porcaccio thus became master of the
Deirdre O'Toole. "