Denis Johnson - The Resuscitation of a Hanged Man

English saw himself standing up in a movie theater with a grenade, crying, God told me to do this. Simone Weil wasting down into death on orders from her conscience in God, extinguishing, for herself, the whole world. Deranged men climbing onto tall structures to snipe down people they’ve never met, at God’s behest. Headlines: MOM ROASTS BABY TO DRIVE OUT DEMONS.

Right and left of him he heard the drinks swirling in their glasses. The bartender’s rag was dropped just this way on the metal sink with its corner lapping into the water. That was all he knew.

If he gave up all the hearsay, the whispers of the past and the hints from the future, he didn’t know anything beyond the cross-dresser clearing her throat deeply and Nguyen Minh squeaking his hand in the little pool of sweat under his cold drink. But he didn’t know for certain even that it was cold. “I’m going to put my finger in your drink,” he said. Nguyen watched him do it. “It’s cold,” he told Nguyen. “That’s good.”

“It’s good,” Minh said, “but you shouldn’t put your finger.”

Phil belched loudly without any consciousness in his red eyes.

English said to Tanny without shame, “I find myself thinking of you as a woman.”

“I’m more man than you’ll ever be,” Tanny said. “And more woman than you’ll ever have.”

By the time the bar closed it was raining outside and it was cold. Phil and Nguyen Minh and English climbed the hill to forage for breakfast in English’s kitchen. “What’s this?” Phil demanded of English, who set three bowls on the chipped Formica table. “What are you, a vegetarian?”

“It’s cereal. I don’t have enough chairs. Eat standing up,” English said. He poured bran flakes into his bowl. “How about handing me the milk,” he said to Minh, pointing at the refrigerator.

“Hey, we’re not cows, man. We eat meat,” Phil said.

“Maybe Nguyen eats cereal,” English said.

“He’s not a cow. He’s a man.”

“And Nguyen. What does Nguyen say?”

“I like eggs and bacon,” Nguyen said shyly. “It’s good.”

“We fought a war, motherfucker. We eat meat,” Phil repeated.

“It’s very cold inside your house,” Nguyen pointed out.

They had to drive in English’s car to Orleans, twenty-six miles away, to find an all-night restaurant that would serve them warriors’ fare, which English, the draft dodger, also liked better than cold cereal. But by the time the three of them were facing one another around a table, spilling their water, dropping their spoons on the floor, losing their napkins in the process of retrieving their spoons, English felt lousy and wished he’d stayed home and gone to bed. He seemed to be drifting in and out of the universe, meeting with fuzzy dreams and then arriving back at the table to realize he’d already ordered, while Phil was just finishing: “ … and some OJ.”

“What?”

“Uh,” he said, “orange juice?”

The waitress nodded.

English rapped his fork on the table for Phil’s attention. “Aren’t you married? Don’t you have a family? Where’s your home?”

“Everybody’s happier if I don’t show up there all the time,” Phil said.

Evidently they’d all three ordered the breakfast special. Nguyen didn’t say a word the whole time they ate. There were pancakes, sausages, and two eggs each. For a while English didn’t talk either, and didn’t even eat, but Phil held forth incoherently — and still, inside of three minutes, his fork was ringing against the china and then he was shoving his empty plate aside. “Do you want my breakfast?” English asked Phil.

“I just ate. I’m telling you something. Do me the favor of listening. Hey, hey, hey.” He slapped the tabletop, jutting his chin.

“I’m listening,” English said. “Fuck it, we’re in session.”

“Well, man, you were like hanging out with her for weeks, man, right?”

“Right. Okay.”

“And she was trying to get a taste of regular life and you weren’t giving it to her. I mean, I don’t know all the details, she didn’t say too much.”

“Say too much? Who?”

“I mean, she wasn’t putting you down behind your back. Definitely not, okay?”

“Who? Definitely who?”

“I’m trying to explain this to you. Okay?”

“Explain about who?”

“Her. And me. The dyke, your girlfriend, or whatever.”

“Her and you? Do you even know her?”

“Since the first grade. I mean, I don’t know her. This wasn’t a hugely personal thing. It was one night, about an hour. Haven’t spoken to her since.”

“What are you saying?”

“And I really didn’t know you at all, brother. I mean, I knew you a lot less than I’ve gotten to know you the last few hours.”

Somehow this disclaimer put everything into place. English’s hands suddenly felt numb. “What happened?” he said.

Phil looked at Nguyen as if he expected his comrade to take over the telling. Nguyen looked back and forth between his companions. Then he sipped his coffee.

Phil said, “What happened was, I met her coming out of her aerobics class, and she started talking to me, and she just picked me up. We went over to her hot tub, and then … that was that. We did the deed. Then I left.”

English stared at him. He tried a little of his orange juice.

“That dance center is just two blocks from her house. You know, the Martial Arts Center. It was just — a short walk,” Phil said. He shrugged with embarrassment.

English felt as if this orange juice were something he’d just vomited up. There was no chance of drinking this stuff. A short walk? “I know it is,” he said. He shoved his OJ over in front of Phil. “Here, goddamnit.”

“Listen. Don’t get me wrong.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, hey. Yeah.”

“Don’t get you wrong what?”

“What.”

“Don’t get you wrong what ? You didn’t say anything.”

“Well, I mean, I fucked her.”

“We know that. We know that. We know that.”

“That’s been well established, you’re saying.”

“ Yeah. ”

“Okay, so you’re saying — what?”

“I’m saying I’m pissed off. I’m completely pissed off, man.”

Phil winced and made half a gesture with his hand.

“What.”

“Maybe — I don’t know—” Phil said.

“Fuck.”

“Fuck is right. Fuck it.”

“Fucking-A.”

“Okay. Fuck you, then.”

“Fuck you, you mean.”

Phil got up and left the diner. What English felt good about was that he knew Phil would go on in his anger, would hitchhike back to Provincetown in the chilly rain without a jacket, suffering every step of the way in his pride. And English, in his pride, would pass him by on the road and for that would suffer guilt. English paid for everybody’s meal, including Nguyen’s.

He could see that Leanna had been up all night, too, cleaning rooms and taking care of paperwork. She was sitting at her desk in the living room, fiddling with a pencil and drinking from a bottle of beer. He just opened the door without knocking. She didn’t mind.

“Hi, baby,” she said, and turned toward him.

The pain he was feeling was sexy. She really was a beautiful woman.

Now wasn’t yet the time. He needed to touch her first. He wanted her to feel the anger inhabiting his skin.

She kissed him, clutching him around the neck. The bottle in her hand rubbed against his ear. He liked the taste of beer on her tongue.

“Make love to me,” she said.

And so he held her in his arms. She took hold of his shirt at the back, pulling on it, and he let his arms fall from her while she removed his shirt for him and unbuttoned his jeans but did not touch inside his fly. They lay down and floated on her water bed. He kissed her seriously and deeply. He kissed her breasts and then her stomach and thighs all over, and then between her legs: saliva on the crotch of her sleazy little panties. Leanna started breathing rapidly. He removed her panties and kissed her vagina for a long time. She spread her legs wide apart, legs thin and unshaved and somewhat muscular and lovely, as he put his tongue far inside her, and she liked it a lot. But what good was any of this? An ancient discouragement welled up in his chest, the feeling of a loveless moment. She had lots of hair on her legs. He felt his isolation, his inability to connect — it was stronger, essential, cosmic. Right. It was now. “I’ll tell you what I feel like, kissing you,” he said to her. “I feel like somebody’s writing swear words on my balls.”