"Emergency" and "Home"

These are my thoughts on “Emergency” by Denis Johnson.

The story starts out in the emergency room of a hospital. The main character, the narrator, works alongside an orderly named Georgie. Georgie is addicted to drugs which he steals from the hospital. And I found out later the narrator also is addicted to these drugs.

When a man named Terrence Weber walks himself to the emergency room with a huge hunting knife in his eye everything get chaotic. The doctor present at that time doesn’t feel that he is able to perform the necessary duties to fix this mans problem. So he calls in several experts. But before anyone can arrive the drugged up orderly somehow manages to remove the knife and there are no complications with Weber. I found this very strange that the doctor felt incompetent in performing the operation while a high orderly did it with no fear and did it well.
After this ordeal the Georgie and the narrator, both high on acid or something, start driving about in a pick up truck. They hit a rabbit that Georgie then proceeds to clean and prepare for food. On page 279 we see just how crazy he is ‘”We’ll camp in the wilderness,” he said. “In the morning we’ll breakfast on its haunches.” He was waving Terrence Weber’s hunting knife around in what I was sure was a dangerous way.’ This scene was crazy because why did he still have the hunting knife? Also he must have no problem with blood because he seems to run into it everywhere he goes. I was sure at this point that something terrible was going to happen because they were driving high and with out headlights in the dark skinning rabbits. But then the story got worse. Georgie finds eight baby rabbits inside his “dinner”.

Both of them decided to take a break from driving and park a little ways from the interstate. On page 282 the narrator shares “We listened to the big rigs going from San Francisco to Pennsylvania along the interstate, like shudders down a long hacksaw blade, while the snow buried us.” Again they are referring to a blade. Probably while they were high these normal sound may have been enhanced and given them a sense of the world passing them by while they were caring for a bunch of baby rabbits. They then discover that the rabbits have been squashed and killed between the seat.

They then proceed to head back and pick up a hitchhiker that they knew. This person shares that he was drafted by now is running away. He wants to get to Canada. Georgie promises that he will take him to Canada. Which I don’t understand this because Georgie seems to have no control over anything can’t even keep some rabbits alive.

Here are my thoughts on “Home” by Jayne Anne Philips.

A twenty-three year old daughter has come home because she ran out of money and had no prospect of marriage. She lives with her older mother who basically does nothing but knit when she is home. The daughter shares how boring life is at home with only her mother and even reads the Reader’s Digest. She reads crazy stories of bear attacks and other things.

She receives a call from an ex-boyfriend, Daniel, he has been living with a new girlfriend out west. But he has returned east and his girlfriend with come east in a few weeks. She begins to recollect their relationship and remembers how Daniel was so scared physically and mentally from an incident in the military.

Daniel comes to stay with her. She wants him. As he sleeps she goes into his bedroom and seduces him into having sex with her. Her mother hears them. And the next morning her mother is very upset with her and ashamed.