Vineland by Thomas Pynchon Read Free Book Online

consciousness? Maybe I’m Mormon now, how would you know? Maybe Debbi talked me into goín on a retreat one weekend and it changed my life. And maybe you should even be thinkín about your spirit, Zoyd.”
    â€œMy—”
    â€œTakes a little discipline’s all, wouldn’t kill you.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Hector, how are Debbi and the kids?”
    â€œZoyd, if only you hadn’t been such a asshole all your life, just skippín along through the wildflowers, so forth, thinkín you were so special, that you didt’n have to do what everybody else did. . . .”
    â€œMaybe I don’t. You think I do?”
    â€œHey, all right fuckhead, try this—
you are goín to have to die?
Yeah-heh-heh, remember that? Death! after all them yearss of nonconformist shit, you’re gonna end up just like everybody else anyway!
¡Ja, ja!
So what was it for? All ’at livín in the hippie dirt, drivín around some piece of garbage ain’t even in the blue book no more, passín up some
really serious bucks
’t you could’ve spent not just on y’rself and your kid but on all your beloved bro and sister hippie fools who could’ve used it as much as you?”
    A waitress approached with the check. Both men—Hector by reflex and Zoyd then startled into it—sprang toward her and collided, and the girl, alarmed, backed away, dropping the document, which then got batted around by the three parties until at last fluttering into a revolving condiment tray, where it ended up half submerged in a big fluffy mound of mayonnaise gone translucent at the edges.
    â€œCheck’s in the mayo,” Zoyd had time to note, when all at once, out past the street door, came a convergence of sirens, purposeful shouting, then heavy boots, all in step, thumping their direction.
    â€œ
¡Madre de Dios!
” an oddly panicked, high-pitched Hector was up and running for the kitchen—luckily, Zoyd noted, having left a twenty on the table—now with a platoon of folks come crashing in after him, what
was
this, all wearing identical camo jumpsuits and crash helmets with the word NEVER stenciled on. Two stayed by the door, two more went over to check the bowling alley, the rest went running on after Hector into the kitchen, where there was already a lot of screaming and clanging.
    Dude in a white lab coat over Pendleton shirt and jeans now came strolling in between the two doorpeople, heading for Zoyd, who beamed insincerely, “Never saw him before.”
    â€œZoyd Wheeler! Hi, caught you on the news last night, fabulous, didn’t know you and Hector were acquainted, listen, he hasn’t been quite himself, signed in with us for some therapy, and now, frankly. . . .”
    â€œHe broke out.”
    â€œWe’ll catch up eventually. But if you have any further contact, you’ll give us a call, hmmm?”
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œOh. Sorry.” He handed Zoyd a card that read, “Dr. Dennis Deeply, M.S.W., Ph.D. / National Endowment for Video Education and Rehabilitation,” someplace down north of Santa Barbara, a struck circle around a TV set, above the Latin motto
Ex luce ad sanitatem
, with a printed phone number crossed out and another ballpointed in. “That’s our local number, we’re staying at the Vineland Palace till we catch Hector.”
    â€œNice per diem. You guys’re federal?”
    â€œBisectoral, really, private and public, grants, contracts, basically we study and treat Tubal abuse and other video-related disorders.”
    â€œA dryin’-out place for Tubefreeks? You mean . . . Hector. . . .” And Zoyd remembered him humming that Flintstone theme to calm himself down, and all those “li’l buddy”s, which as they both knew was what the Skipper always liked to call Gilligan, raising possibilities Zoyd didn’t want to think about.
    Dr. Deeply