Jesus' Son

As with other stories in the collection, “Two Men” is layered in its structure. At the beginning of the story, the primary tension revolves around F**khead’s fear of being assaulted for dancing with another man’s girlfriend. However, when they leave the dance, the story shifts focus again to the man they find passed out in their car. The structure makes a third turn, when, near the end, they abandon the strange man, and F**khead goes to confront someone who owes him money. Each of these threads has little to do with the others on a purely plot level, but thematically, they are deeply interconnected, with each exploring different facets of The Slipperiness of Time. F**khead’s intoxication is mirrored by the structure of the story itself—the narrative presents itself as purposefully difficult to follow, just as F**khead has trouble comprehending the story of his own life due, in part, to Substance Use Disorder. The structure of the narrative mirrors the mindset of someone under the influence: It is fractured, blurry, and filled with twists and turns.

However, despite the shaggy-dog plot, “Two Men” also feels cohesive, as each of its segments builds on the thematic underpinnings of the previous one. The driving engine for the story is the slow build of anger and tension—first, the friends become angry at the dance, then angry at the man in their car, and these two sources of anger explode when F**khead threatens the woman with the gun after seeing the man who sold him bad heroin. Additionally, these threads are weaved with a sense of fear that first appears when F**khead tries to escape the boyfriend of the woman he kisses, as he fears an assault. By the end of the story, he takes on the role of angry, violent man, even wielding a gun, capturing the theme of Violence as Inevitability. This rapid shift in both scene and emotion again demonstrates the mentality of someone deep under the influence. Unlike most fiction, which is built on action and consequence, “Two Men” is built on increasing emotions. Even though the events of the story are causally disconnected—each does not lead inevitably to the next—they are still a part of a single thread due to how each builds on the other emotionally.