VLVL2 (3) A Finesi Romance #1

[Terrance]

> >
> >
> > "That fatal five-spot was not the Last-Purchase-Of-Information
> > disbursement in the neighborhood.
> 
> If it was the twenty-fourth PI transaction or the hundred and third, it would have been just like all the others. For the payment to be "decisively important; fateful" (Random House Unabridged, sense 4), it had to be the first, setting the occupants of the beach house off on a course of action from which no return to their former state of innocence was possible. So I believe "fatal" in this usage does mean first.

It is Zoyd's first encounter with Hector. We know this to be the case. 


Zoyd doesn't take any money from Hector.  We know this is true too. 

In Zoyd's mind he remains technically a virgin. 

That's schlemiel rationalization. 

Van Meter takes the money and Zoyd is standing right there talking with
Hector. 

So Zoyd knows that his buddy Van Meter is taking Hector's snitch money. 

The Fatal-Five is equal to 1/2 lid of Mexican weed. 

Hector hammers in the exchange rate--information equals money equals
drugs and whatever else the boys need or want to buy. 


Zoyd smokes the dope and eats the food and enjoys the other things that
Hector's money buys for those living in the house. 

Technically a virgin? 

Yeah, right! 

It's a fatal five-spot not because it's the first or the last but
because it is a deadly, causing ruin or destruction, disastrous, of
decisive importance; fateful. 

It's really not  all that important that this fatal-five is the first or
second or thirteenth, but that it is fatal. 




> 
> Moreover the usage is identical to the one in "The Fatal Glass of Beer," which is explicitly (and satirically) about how the *first* drink of alcohol condemns the drinker to a life of trouble and an early death. You can argue that there's no connection if you want to, but considering how steeped in pop culture references this novel is, how closely the sense of the Vineland text matches the sense of the film title, and how similar the scene is in tone to the film, I'm persuaded that there is.


Well, how about trying to persuade me cause I don't see it. I would like
to try and see it but you haven't provided any support. WC Fields is not
unknown to TRP and since this novel is saturated with tv and film I see
no reason why WC Fields couldn't be alluded to here except for the fact
that it's not in the text.