Gravity's Rainbow

by Thomas Pynchon

The zoot suit is in a box tied with a purple ribbon. Keychain’s there too. They both belonged to a kid who used to live in East Los Angeles, named Ricky Gutiérrez. During the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, young Gutiérrez was set upon by a carload of Anglo vigilantes from Whittier, beaten up while the L.A. police watched and called out advice, then arrested for disturbing the peace. The judge was allowing zoot-suiters to choose between jail and the Army. Gutiérrez joined up, was wounded on Saipan, developed gangrene, had to have his arm amputated, is home now, married to a girl who works in the kitchen at a taco place in San Gabriel, can’t find any work himself, drinks a lot during the day. . . . But his old zoot, and those of thousands of others busted that summer, hanging empty on the backs of all the Mexican L.A. doors, got bought up and have found their way over here, into the market, no harm turning a little profit, is there, they’d only have hung there in the fat smoke and the baby smell, in the rooms with shades pulled down against the white sun beating, day after day, on the dried palm trees and muddy culverts, inside these fly-ridden and empty rooms. . . .

This chapter is largely silly and extreme with Slothrop proving himself somewhat heroic, but it ends with this tragic story of a victim of police brutality. Also, Pynchon's black humor is on full display as the silver lining is that at least those good-looking zoot suits are being worn by someone in Europe rather than being left hung alone in the houses of the original owners.