At a hilltop sketching class, my pad is too wide. So I decide to build an aquaduct from plastic blocks. I go down into the flats to get a permit from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Despite the best intentions of my escort, we arrive after closing hours and the policeman there invites us to come back later. On the way back up the hill, I take a shortcut through the aquaduct that I have built. When I arrive at the top the preparations are underway for a showdown. I prepare the watermelon. As I cut slivers of melon on the rind, then slice some off for tasting, I reinvent the fruit salad: watermelon, then blackberries, then pineapple, then little chunks of an enormous jumbo shrimp the size of a baseball bat. When I arrive at the end of the shrimp I find that most of the inside is rotten.