The Resuscitation of a Hanged Man (33 page)

Read The Resuscitation of a Hanged Man Online

Authors: Denis Johnson

BOOK: The Resuscitation of a Hanged Man
13.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Anyway, they’re considered yours.”
“Oh.”
“On the day you get out, they’ll give them back to you.”
“That’ll be awhile,” he estimated.
“Will we ever meet again?”
“We’ll meet again in seven million years,” he said. “I’ll be standing in a cemetery parking lot and I’ll look up and you’ll be driving a school bus past or something. And that’ll be it.”
“We’ll fall in love again.”
“I’ll see you go by. You won’t see me.”
“Poor Lenny. They’re going to put you away for a long time.”
“Not so long. Less than seven million years.”
 
 
Leanna’s visit made English late for lunch. He didn’t like that. He didn’t feel he was getting enough to eat in the first place.
“So, did she ask you to marry her?” Jimmy said.
“Is she gonna break us out?” Fred said.
“God, I would love to do that!” Jimmy said. “I would love to break out. That’d rattle their little gonads, huh?”
It was overly warm in the cafeteria. Huge pipes wrapped in insulation ran through the room just under the ceiling. English kept imagining they’d burst, magnificently destroying everybody’s troubles.
“I wouldn’t break out,” English said. “I like it here.”
 
English felt hungry every minute. Baloney sandwiches on Wonder Bread with Campbell’s soup for lunch. Cereal and reconstituted milk for breakfast, one piece of white toast. Potatoes and ground-beef gravy for supper, Wonder Bread on the side. “This is the stuff,” English said, shaking his piece of bread at the man across from him. It flopped back and forth like a pancake. “I really like this stuff,” he said. And he did. He liked being hungry and in prison.

 

Cindy Lee Johnson

 

D
ENIS
J
OHNSON
is the author of seven novels, three collections of poetry, and one book of reportage. His novel
Tree of Smoke
was the 2007 winner of the National Book Award.

ALSO BY DENIS JOHNSON
 

FICTION

 

Train Dreams

Nobody Move

Tree of Smoke

The Name of the World

Already Dead: A California Gothic

Jesus’ Son

The Stars at Noon

Fiskadoro

Angels

NONFICTION

 

Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond

POETRY

 

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General

Assembly: Poems, Collected and New

The Veil

The Incognito Lounge

PLAYS

 

Shoppers: Two Plays

Copyright © 1991 by Denis Johnson
All rights reserved
 
 
Published simultaneously in Canada by HarperCollins
CanadaLtd
It is a pleasure to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
and the Mrs. Giles R. Whiting Foundation for support
that made this writing possible.
 
 
eISBN 9781466807051
First eBook Edition : December 2011
 
 
First edition, 1991
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Denis.
Resuscitation of a hanged man : a novel / Denis Johnson.—1st ed.
I. Title.
PS3560.03745R47 1990 813’.54—dc20 90-46283

Other books

Empress Bianca by Lady Colin Campbell
Warned Off by Joe McNally, Richard Pitman
A Vengeful Longing by R. N. Morris
Together for Christmas by Lisa Plumley
Hot Secret by Woods, Sherryl
Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin, John Heilemann
The Last Refuge by Knopf, Chris
02 Madoc by Paige Tyler