VLVL 3 Zoyd and Hector

[Don Corathers]

>
> > Hector wants Zoyd to be a tripwire to help him find Frenesi. He's
> > asking--not explicitly right now, true, but it's the point of his
visit--for
> > another betrayal.
>
> Nothing in the text to support this speculation, of course. In fact,
Hector
> states pretty explicitly that Zoyd doesn't have to do *anything*
(30.9-12).

It's a conclusion that can be reasonably drawn from what we later learn
about Hector's filmmaking plans.

>
> And what, by the way, does this terrible "betrayal" turn out to be?

Never materializes. That doesn't change the devious quality of Hector's
attempt to manipulate Zoyd in chapter 3 (promising, incidentally, to pay him
with federal PI dollars for what is almost certainly a private HZ
enterprise).


>
> > Hector doesn't credit Zoyd with integrity because the concept is
completely
> > foreign to his experience.
>
> Please. It's Hector's integrity that Zoyd respects, his "most persuasive
> selling point" (25-6).

Actually it was Hector's "long defiance," which is not really the same thing
as integrity, that was his most persuasive selling point for Zoyd.


>
> > He's probably right about the stubbornness, drug
> > abuse, mental problems, timiidity, and lack of imagination, but he's
blind
> > to the possibility that somebody might decline to participate in one of
his
> > schemes because of basic human decency.
>
>       Man could crush him with just a short tap dance over the
>     computer keys -- why was Hector being so unnaturally amiable?


It's an excellent question. Zoyd doesn't trust Hector--nor should he, given
their history. The fact that Hector is described as "unnaturally" amiable on
this particular day also suggests that while they have a bantering rapport
at their bowling alley lunch, their encounters are not always so friendly.


>                                                         (27.14)
>
> Despite what Zoyd tells himself about his relationship with Hector
(Hector's
> in fact his "old buddy", as Van Meter noted back at 10.10), it's actually
> Hector doing Zoyd a favour here, providing an early warning about what's
> happening with Frenesi, and about the new government policy.

I believe Van Meter is employing irony here.


>
> >> Not sure who you're arguing against here.
> >
> > With your campaign to portray Zoyd as a character with a deep moral
flaw,
> > which began with the pigeons on page 3. I can't find it in the book.
>
> No "campaign", no "deep moral flaw". Zoyd's self-deceit and conflicted
> conscience *are* made pretty obvious in the text, however.
>
> > It is Hector, not Zoyd, who keeps coming back.
>
> Zoyd is under no obligation to meet with him:
>
>     Did Zoyd have to show up next day at the bowling alley? Technically,
>     no. (12.25)
>
>     Why did Zoyd keep going, time after time, for these oily Hectorial
>     setups? The best it had ever turned out for him was uncomfortable.
>                                                             (11.18)
>
> > Zoyd is Tweety, the "chasee,"
> > and it's clear he'd be pleased if he never had to deal with Hector
again.
>
> He'd feel more comfortable if he wasn't reminded about his own past and
> compromises, sure. In those cartoons Tweety's twee arrogance and
> self-satisfaction are grating -- are *meant* to be grating. Likewise the
> accumulated pathos of Sylvester's constant and inevitable failures.
>
> > (Is "one of those gotta-shit throbs of fear" (10) a common response to
> > meeting an old friend?) At the end of Chapter 1 we see that Zoyd is
being
> > worn down--"Zoyd knew that one day, just to have some peace, he'd say
forget
> > it, and go over" (12)--but he never does.
>
> Of course, he already has, and this is Hector's trump card.


Hector's trump card is his badge and gun, and his amply demonstrated
willingness to bend the Bill of Rights into a pretzel.

>
> > His relationship with Hector is
> > complicated and conflicted. I think Zoyd's state of technical virginity
has
> > to do with the accommodation he's made to keep Hector relatively calm
and
> > off his case.
>
> Zoyd has convinced himself that he's still a virgin, "technically",
because
> he's never taken money directly from Hector's hand, that's all. He did,
> however, enjoy all the profits and benefits of the snitch culture without
> any compunction whatsoever (24.21-3). And he did so consciously (24.5-12).
>
> > The only time we see Zoyd actually give Hector any
> > information, after being framed with a multi-ton monolith of reefer,
it's
> > useless (302-303) and Zoyd knows it is, although Hector pretends it's
not.
>
>     Cf. "No, no my man but that is exactly the sort of corroborating
>     detail that we value so highly." (24.5)

In context, it's obvious that Hector is overreaching in the pp 302-303
exchange, trying to persuade Zoyd that he has crossed the line and
cooperated, to the point that Zoyd wonders if Hector's "running some
exercise in narc humor for his own entertainment," and asks: "Why this thing
about popping my cherry, Hector..." I mention this again because clearly
we're not going to agree on the question of whether Zoyd ever crossed the
snitch line, and it's a thematically important question. This scene, which
happens in about 1971 at the end of Zoyd's Gordita Beach days, is as close
as he ever came.

Faced with a terrible choice, Zoyd *does* make a profoundly compromising
decision in this novel, but it doesn't have anything to do with eating Van
Meter's snitch-money peanut butter.


>
> > That would be Hector's take on Zoyd's friends. The fundamental
difference is
> > that the people who lived on Gordita Beach were victims either of their
own
> > bad habits or somebody else's malice, while the Mafia, like Hector and
> > Brock, is in the business of making trouble for other people.
>
> They cheat and snitch on one another, get other dealers and dopers locked
> up, even killed. That's the "business" they're in, too. And if that sort
of
> thing's not "making trouble for other people" I don't know what is.

Maybe I missed it, but I don't find any evidence that Zoyd and his
housemates were doing any serious dealing at the beach house. They are
consumers, and if they're dealing at all it's selling two or three ounces
out of a quarter to defray the cost of their own stashes, a pretty common
practice in those days. At that level, they are essentially useless as
informants, and it's ludicrous to compare them to organized crime.

Don




>
> best
>
>