VLVL 3 Zoyd & Hector: Who was saved?

[jbor]

on 8/8/03 10:35 PM, Otto at ottosell at yahoo.de wrote:

> It cannot be a reliable assessment because every drug cop in this novel is a
> psychopath. Hector's mental problems are bigger than Zoyd's. You cannot stay
> mentally sane if you're putting harmless innocent people like dope-smoking
> hippies into jail.

    " ... impossible to tell with you, Zoyd. Never could figure
    out how innocent you thought you were. Sometimes you looked
    just like a hippie bum musician, for months at a shot, as if
    you never turned a buck any other way. Rill puzzlín."
      "Hector! Bite yer tongue! You tellin' me I -- I *wasn't*
    innocent, me behavin' like a saint through it all?"
      "You behaved about like everybody else, pardner, sorry."
      "That bad."
      "I won't aks you to grow up, but just sometime, please,
    aks yourself, OK, 'Who was saved?' That's all, rill easy,
    'Who was saved?'"
      "Beg pardon?"
      "One OD'd on the line at Tommy's (?) waitín for a burger, one
    got into some words in a parkín lot with the wrong gentleman,
    one took a tumble in a faraway land, so on, more 'n half of 'em
    currently on the run, and you so far round the bend you don't
    even see it, that's what became of your happy household, you'd've
    done better up against the SWAT team. Just in the privacy of
    your thotz, Zoyd. As a exercise, li'l kinda Zen meditation.
    'Who was saved?'" (28-29)

best