VLVL 3 Zoyd and Hector

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 5:33 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL 3 Zoyd and Hector


> on 9/8/03 12:27 PM, Don Corathers at gumbo at fuse.net wrote:
>
> >> but Hector is sincere in looking out for Zoyd's best
> >> interests too.
> >
> > Please. Hector is a Tube-addled psychopath trying to run a con.
>
> And that would make him different from Zoyd how, precisely?
>

1. Hector's got a gun. This is a major difference (and I'm wondering that
you can't see it, Rob, but maybe you've never been into it. I don't even
know how old you are) because generally he's ready, willing and able to kill
somebody as part of his job. That's his "career" as a cop. Being a cop means
that you're either a pig or a naive idealist. I know both types. In the
course of the novel Hectors changes from pig to idealist:

"Zoyd, the idealist, liked to believe that Hector remembered everybody he'd
ever shot at, hit, missed, booked, questioned, rousted, double-crossed --
that each face was filed in his conscience, and the only way he could live
with such a history was to take these chances with his own bad ass, upping
the ante as he moved into his late midcareer. This theory at least had kept
Zoyd from lying around hatching plots to assassinate Hector, as others had
been known to waste hours of potentially productive lives doing."
(29.30-30.1)

So there's no doubt that Hector had shot at people. Zoyd, contrary to this
(as we are told) never became a snitch, but was part of the idealistic
(maybe naive) youth movement that believed that the USA as the wealthiest
nation on Earth has an obligation to make the world a better place.

2. Hector's helping to put innocent dopers into jail where they get in
contact to "real" criminals. This is the way the government helped building
up the heroin market, helped spreading cocaine and later the crack epidemic.

"Ev'ry cop's a criminal and all the sinners saints."

Otto