Emergency

In interviews, Johnson often noted that Jesus’ Son relied heavily on events that had happened to him or to people he knew. Writing about the cultural underbelly of drug addiction in the Midwest, Johnson’s stories offer a blunt vision of both the beauty and the violence inherent to life, offering characters full of benevolence and cruelty, hope and misery. In “Emergency,” Johnson utilizes an unreliable, dreamlike sense of time, evoking and mirroring Fuckhead’s intoxication, thus allowing a sense of empathy between the reader and the character. Through Fuckhead, Johnson articulates both the desperation and the humanity of a man addicted to drugs and examines the possibility of natural beauty and sublime experiences as avenues of mental escape.

Early on, Johnson establishes Fuckhead’s inability to grasp time and his desire to escape the confines of his world. Fuckhead is blasé, saying, “I’d been working the emergency room for about three weeks, I guess” (57). His menial job holds no value or meaning for him, and he cannot recall why or how he got the job or how long he has actually been there. His shifts consist of wandering around the hospital, looking for his friend