Denis Johnson Emergency

Emergency Analysis
The book by Denis Johnson entitled Jesus’ Son follows a drug addicted narrator through a series of short stories. Over the course of the book, many characters come and go, and few other than the narrator are constantly in it. Some of these secondary characters are also drug users, while others are morally questionable in different ways. One of the more interesting secondary characters appears in the story Emergency, Georgie. Georgie is the hospital orderly who happens to steal the occasional handful of pills to eat while on the clock. Most of us would find this action despicable – getting intoxicated while working on emergency room patients, even if he is just the orderly. In this way, he is not unlike many of the
characters in these stories, most of whom engage in morally questionable behavior. However, despite this general consensus the reader has of most of these characters, it is not fair to dismiss their human decency as a whole. I would contend that Denis Johnson wrote these characters, such as Georgie, to be relatable but with a certain reluctance felt by the reader. The narrator subtly displays this commonality multiple times in the various stories, and I believe he is justified in doing so. Georgie, though a drug thief, is still relatable in a moral, human sense.
Emergency opens up with the narrator talking to Georgie as he mops the floor of the operating room endlessly.
It is apparent that he has already ingested some of the drugs he stole, since he seems to think there is an absurd amount of blood still on the floor that needs to be mopped when in fact the floor is clean. He also makes some nonsensical statements, like when he says, “There’s so much goop inside of us man, and it all wants to get out.” This phrase seems to mean very little, and sounds like something a stereotypical “stoner” or “druggie” would say, right down to the arbitrary inclusion of the word “man.” So the first impression of Georgie is by no means a positive one. He’s a hospital employee and he is stoned on the job, implying a careless attitude about his service. Even though he is not a doctor, as an orderly he still has a responsibility to prep patients and doing this while on drugs can easily be called negligent. As the story continues, a man walks in with a hunting knife lodged in his eye, and the nurses and present doctor are deliberating on what actions to take since the doctor was unqualified for this sort of thing and nervous about it. While this is going on, Georgie is supposed to be prepping him but returns with the knife that was stuck in the man’s eye. In his drug-fueled stupor, he had apparently just yanked the knife out of the man’s eye, causing no damage in the process. When everyone asked him where he got the knife, he didn’t even say
anything. The narrator asks how the man is and he doesn’t even know who he’s talking about. While the narrator provides no insight as to what went on in that room, I think it could be said that Georgie saw the knife in the man’s eye and felt immediate empathy for him. This compassion was so strong and urgent that it led him to rectify the situation as soon as he could in the only way he knew how. Alternatively, the drugs could have just suspended his judgment in thinking he could mess up and hurt the man. The fact that he couldn’t remember what he had just done upon returning to the lobby implies that he was just really high, but this still does not mean his humanity is diminished. While these thoughts are speculative at best, I see few alternatives as to what his motivation was for pulling the knife out.
Georgie’s moral fiber is truly revealed later in the story. When he and the narrator are driving around after their shift, Georgie accidently runs over a bunny. His initial thought is to make rabbit stew, so he hurries back to retrieve the carcass. These plans are quickly changed when he sees he has just killed the mother of a newborn litter of bunnies. Now his immediate goal is to protect the young of the mother he has just killed. He hurries back to the truck with them sprawled out in his shirt, and hands them to the narrator who quips that he won’t eat them. Georgie remarks that he has killed the mother and how he’s saving the babies. He and the narrator both display concern for the newborn bunnies, as the narrator keeps them tucked in his shirt for warmth while Georgie mentions how they need milk multiple times. He suggests that they raise them on their own and eventually they’ll become “as big as gorillas.” However, eventually the narrator squishes the bunnies on accident and kills them. He admits this shamefully to Georgie with tears in his eyes, but he doesn’t respond forgivingly. This portion of the story shows again shows Georgie’s moral fiber in a moment of spontaneity. He originally wanted to eat the rabbit he ran over, but upon seeing that she had just given birth, his new objective was to save the babies. His joyride had a purpose now, and he knew it and accepted the moral responsibility to do what he could for the baby bunnies. His respect for life of even nonhuman animals is exemplified. I think this firmly supports the idea that he still has a moral fiber to his being, despite the fact that the beginning of the story seems to imply the opposite.
A third, and perhaps the strongest example of his moral fiber is when they pick up the narrator’s friend who happens to be hitchhiking.
After he and the narrator catch up, it is revealed that the hitchhiker, Hardee, has recently been drafted. Unwilling to fight, he goes AWOL and tells the pair that he has to get to Canada somehow. Even though Georgie had never met this man prior to this incident, he volunteers to drive him to Canada, declaring that he might know some people up there. Some time after this, Hardee asks Georgie what he does for a living, to which he replies, “I save lives.” I think this is the strongest display of his moral fiber because of the fact that this is a human he has never met before, yet he volunteers for the tough task of getting this AWOL draftee to freedom. I think he also has a sense of accomplishment, after attempting to save those bunnies even though he failed, which is why he declared that he saves lives for a living. Perhaps he also came to remember the knife he pulled out of the man, since he still had it, although the fact he was high at that time could mean the opposite. Either way, the last line is a testament to the self-satisfaction he feels from these displays of
morality.
Georgie is an interesting character. He seems careless at times, and at other times appears to have a heart of gold. I think this conflict is done to show that even people like Georgie, who steal drugs to use recreationally, are still human beings with moral interests. In a way, I think that’s what most of the whole book is about. Many of these characters are morally questionable or outcasts in some way, but all display some basic human nature. The mute football player in Two Men wants nothing more than a ride to his home. In Car Crash While Hitchhiking, the narrator attempts to save the baby from the car he was in after they wrecked. There are a few moral displays by characters most readers would consider a deviant in some way. This is the commonality the narrator attempts to make between the characters and the reader, and I think that attempt has been met with success.