Fuckhead, the narrator of “Emergency,” is an aimless young man who uses illicit substances in a 1970s, unnamed Midwestern town. He spends his days working a meaningless night job at a hospital and getting high with his orderly friend, Georgie. Fuckhead has an acute sense of his world, and his story has a surreal quality punctuated by gritty details. He observes the absurdity of his situation and relays it with deadpan humor.

Fuckhead seeks meaning and joy in his life, although it is unclear whether he believes he deserves those things. When Georgie asks him if “everything [Fuckhead] touch[es] turn[s] to shit” (69), all he can reply is, “No wonder they call me Fuckhead” (69). Despite this tone of resignation, Fuckhead notices and yearns for beauty and any experience that can shake him out of the despair of his existence. He finds something like it at the end of the story when he and Georgie wake up in the truck after a bender, and Fuckhead experiences “the beauty of the morning” (69).