Sal's Job

Overall in these chapters, I felt like Sal's job as a policeman is really one big joke. As a broke, hitch-hiking, (supposedly) unsuccessful writer from New York, he's one of the last people that I would imagine as a gun-toting cop, and I'm guessing he must have been really desperate to take it. All of the other cops are fairly comical as well, as they all seem to big, gruff type of men obsessed with exerting their authority and arresting people (I was amazed/amused to see that this was a requirement for staying on the job). Sal is clearly unfit for this job, being far too passive and in love with people as a whole to be able to arrest him. We see this reflected in his many comical escapades, in which he breaks the laws he is supposed to be upholding by stealing from the barracks or getting drunk.