Emergency

Critically acknowledged for deftly weaving together humor and despair in his stories, Johnson’s execution of this combination in “Emergency” creates layers of complexity, humanizing his characters and drawing the reader into the setting and situation. Johnson establishes his dark humor from the outset, painting Georgie as a ridiculous figure who weeps as he mops up fake blood and then “drop[s] his mop and ben[ds] over in the posture of a child soiling its diapers” (58). Through this narration, Fuckhead is remembering and portraying a harsh world, but his creation of such humorous similes mitigates the bleakness.

When Terrence Weber enters the hospital with a knife in his eye, his phlegmatic attitude illuminates the characters around him and emphasizes the complacency of the unnamed community. When the nurse tells Terrence he should lie down, he replies, “Okay, I’m certainly ready for something like that” (59), and when she asks if he’d like to call the police, he tells her, “Not unless I die” (60). The other characters seem mildly bemused by the extreme situation, and here Johnson uses humor to craft their reactions, highlighting their inadequacies and disdain for each other. The doctor reacts with pompous ego, demanding “A good eye man. A great eye man. The best eye man” (61), before acknowledging that he knows his limits, and Georgie, seemingly oblivious, hums a Neil Young song while he “preps” the patient.

Georgie provides comic relief throughout the story, even as he forces Fuckhead to confront his own inadequacies. Georgie jumps headfirst into everything, carving up the dead mother rabbit in an effort to save her fetuses, yelling egomaniacally, “I should have been a doctor” (64), and telling Hardee that he “save[s] lives” (72). An undercurrent of earnestness runs through Georgie. The intermingling of the absurdity of his behavior with elements of truth shakes Fuckhead somewhat out of his complacency and forces him to consider how he and Georgie differ from each other.