VLVL2 Zoyd's work

[jbor]

on 29/7/03 10:54 AM, Don Corathers wrote:

> From p 319:
> 
> "By that time [not long after his arrival in Vineland] Zoyd... was starting
> to put together a full day's work, piece by piece."

Sure. This is way back in 1970 or '71, just after he secured custody. We're
told how hard he worked to make a go of it and to prove himself to the
in-laws. But it's pretty clear that he doesn't have anywhere near that same
work ethic in 1984, which is when we first meet him in the novel, and part
of this gradual change "year by year" is tied in with the "no least
premonitory sign of governmental interest from over the horizon beyond the
mental disability checks that arrived faithfully as the moon ... " (321.35)
By 1984 he has become lazy and complacent.

On the day we first meet him Prairie has gone to work (at a pizza place, as
a waitress -- do we ever find out about her going to school?) even before
Zoyd has woken up. Even allowing that she works the lunch-time shift, it's
gotta be 10-30 or 11-00 am at the earliest when he finally "groaned out of
bed." (3.13)

>> It's another moment where he's starting to have second thoughts about what
>> he's been doing all this time, and his reservations actually go a bit
> deeper
>> than the "sugar window" issue I think.
> 
> Purely speculative.

Yes. So?

>> I also think this is a pretty clear
>> indication that the disability cheques have been the main source of
>> income.
>>  
> The fact is that if you're operating a household at poverty-level income,
> the loss of any part of it, even as little as ten percent, is a serious
> problem.

They own a video recorder. It's broken, granted, but still not bad for 1984.
I'm assuming that a monthly disability check -- it's a standard *benefit*,
which is how it is termed -- would be an amount equivalent to the dole,
perhaps slightly more. If that's only 10% of his income then he's a freakin'
millionaire.

> As others have pointed out, if Zoyd is a "welfare cheat," it is because an
> agent of the federal government ordered him to be one. For him to stop
> collecting disability payments would be a breach of his deal, with attendant
> consequences.

But isn't it all a little bit hazy? On the one hand he's meant to
"disappear" but on the other he's s'posed to keep collecting benefits just
so's they know where he is. Say what?

> Recall that this part of the thread grew out of the assertion that Zoyd's
> opening scene dream had to do with misgivings about the dishonesty of his
> mental disability claim. I didn't see any evidence for that and suggested
> that the dream was a premonition of the shitstorm that was about to come
> down.
> 
> When Zoyd does encounter Hector--the first tangible manifestation of the
> trouble that's headed his way--the meeting is described this way (p 10):
> 
> "Sure enough, it turned out to be Hector Zuniga, back once again, the
> erratic federal comet who brought, each visit to Zoyd's orbit, new forms of
> bad luck and baleful influence. This time, though, it had been a while, long
> enough that Zoyd had begun to hope that the man might have found other meat
> and be gone for good. Dream on, Zoyd."
> 
> Would you agree, jbor, that a reasonable reading of that narrative
> interjection "Dream on, Zoyd" would be to connect it to the dream Zoyd was
> having seven pages earlier?

I know you'll think I'm an objectionable so-and-so, but, no, I don't think
that that necessarily follows at all. For a start, Zoyd has his dream in the
night or morning *before* Van Meter tells him that Hector's back on the
scene and wants to see him. The dream is a message from Zoyd's subconscious,
one which his conscious mind doesn't actually receive; the reappearance of
Hector is out of the blue, totally unexpected. How would Zoyd's subconscious
have known? And, why would he instinctively go "sweaty" and have one of
those "gotta-shit throbs of fear" (10.11) if the premonition was already
there in his subconscious? Wouldn't it be more of a head-slapping moment --
"D'oh! That's what them crazy pigeons were saying"? But it's not like that.

Beyond that, the phrase "Dream on" is the narrative voice addressing Zoyd,
slightly sarcastically, announcing that his "hope" that Hector was gone "for
good" was never a chance. It's idiomatic, means something like "you're
kidding yourself", and really has nothing to do with sleeping dreams.

Conversely, the opening dream is an actual dream. And, it's explicitly "his
dream" (4.1). We aren't told what the "message" is which the carrier pigeons
bring, but Zoyd connects it with the letter (which connects to Brock rather
than Hector). And the reason he's doing this yearly act -- in 1984, whatever
else the reasons might once have been -- is to "qualify for benefits"
(3.12), no more no less.

best