Zoyd

[Michael Bailey]

 Rob Jackson wrote:
>>> > "Zoyd, to be sure, made a point of never pocketing any of Hector's PI
>>> > money personally, though he was content to go on eating the groceries,
>>> > burning the gas, and smoking the pot others obtained with it." (VL 24)
>>> >
>>> > Zoyd is characterised here as both a hypocrite and a knowing
>>> > accomplice in the snitch racket. The negative tone adopted in the
>>> > narrative towards Zoyd in this instance is quite plain, and it's
>>> > precisely what the "technically" hedge in the earlier scene is
>>> > referring to.
>

eckshually...this is in Zoyd's flashback, right...so, I was gonna say,
I experience this as more of Zoyd's thoughtfulness, he's a pondering,
meditating, considering, mulling kind of guy, and I can see him toking
up in front of an old movie and reflecting, "well, I never did give him anything
myself, but yeah, coulda done more maybe - life is full of obstacles
like surfing
that pier..."

but I'll grant it's the narrator if you'll consider the possibility it's a
narrator-type that greater minds quite likely have already discerned,
but I here dub "affectionate" (the affection is felt also toward BV, HZ, FG etc)
and that the sentence you quote is hardly a condemnation -
more rueful than condemnatory, 's how I read it...

> I agree with you. However, Van Meter most definitely is a snitch, through
> and through, then as now, and Zoyd knows it and knew it and even so has kept
> up that "best mate" relationship with him since the 60s.
>

in the text we have Van Meter's accidental revelation which was no
news to Hector
and his acceptance of the fin.  We have mention of frequent temptations for Zoyd
to turn dealers in - because of bad product, usually - and his situational
reasons for not doing so,
ranging from kinship to affinity to fear for his person...

We don't have specific mention of Van Meter's own bad self ratting out
anybody else, do we?

also, more tenuously, let me voice the notion that neither Zoyd nor the author
is suggesting that all illicit drug use is all good all the time.
which you, if I read you correctly, as one who draws the line a little closer
to abstinence than most on this list (myself, I'm not that into the stuff,
though recent medical evidence about reefer as strong against alzheimers is
certainly interesting, and a lot of fun was had by certain parties
back in the day
which one just can't write off completely...) might actually see as almost
a saving grace in Zoyd and his buds if you wanted to be consistent...

even more quietly let me state that my first acid trip became a freakout
leading to hospitalization and subsequent ratting-out of the dude who sold it
to me, who in turn rolled over on the dude who sold it to him...and
yet we all survived,
maybe a little beating-up for somebody (not undeserved, and definitely
not as much as certain plural parties could've inflicted on that certain party)
but everybody survived, and mirabile dictu, within
6 months I was toking and dropping with the best of them (eckshually, made
some really good friends within that context)...but if there is no salvation
for former snitches then I myself am doomed...doomed I tell you...

-- 
"My God, I am fully in favor of a little leeway or the damnable jig is
up! " - Hapworth Glass