The Resuscitation of a Hanged Man by Denis Johnson Read Free Book Online Page B

because he has a good sense of humor, and he could deliver some compliments. That shows he’s not going to beat her up, like the other guys did. They tell each other things like, how old, what are your hobbies, I work at the hardware store, I’m going to be manager someday …”
    “Are you telling me about a movie? Have I lost my place?”
    “What I mean—this is just another one of those conversations, if you ask me.”
    She looked hurt. “I don’t—”
    “What you are, and what I am, and who’s who at the zoo. What you are is a dyke. And I’m a failed pimp.”
    “I wish you success.” She toasted him with her cup of tea.
     
    “Then what?” she asked him after they’d sat through a minute of uncomfortable silence.
    “What? What then what?”
    “After they reveal all this stuff,” she said, “then what?”
    “Then—nothing, I guess. I guess the first conversation is over.”
    “And so what about the second conversation?”
    “What do you mean? It’s the same.”
    “But how do they get close? How do they decide they want to make love?”
    “That stuff, all that goes on sort of behind the scenes. That goes on in their hearts.”
    “And what are the conversations like after that?”
    “When? After what?” he said.
    “After they make love, after they’re lovers.”
    He saw she wasn’t fooling. She really had no idea.
    “Have you ever been to bed with a man?” he said with great fear.
    For a beat he didn’t think she would answer, but only gaze at him until he simply—ceased. “Not in the way we’re talking about,” she said.
    Now he was speechless. He groped for the thread … Something about what lovers said. “After they’re lovers, the conversations are the same,” he managed to tell her, “but there’s something sort of different about them.”
    She wasn’t talking now. English felt toyed with. “Come on,” he said. “You knew all this.”
    She laughed. “Have you ever been to bed with a man?”
    “What? No! Me?”
    “Then I guess I know as much about it as you.”
    True. But he only said, “Can’t we talk about something else?”
    “We met in church. There’s that whole side of things.”
    “As long as I’m being honest, the stuff that starts happening after that subject gets raised mostly bores me.”
    “Then what were you doing there that day?”
    “Slumming.”
    But she wasn’t having any. “What were you doing there? Are you so scrupulous? You don’t look like a compulsive Catholic.”
    “I’m not.” What was the point in hiding? “It means everything to me.”
    “The Church? Or church attendance?”
    “Not that. Not even the Church. That’s what I mean by boring stuff. I don’t care about infallibility. I’m not really interested in abortion. It confuses me, all that shit. The Pope confuses me. I just—” He thought he might as well. “There’s really only one question.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Did God really kill Himself?”
    Leanna wasn’t smiling now. She was staring at him, but softly. “Who are you?” she asked him.
    Whatever she meant by the question, he didn’t want to answer it. He wiped his face with his napkin, and in reference to the warmth of the place said, “Man.”
    “If you took off your jacket, you’d be cooler.”
    “For some reason, I usually keep it on. I don’t know why.”
    “It’s your armor. You’re a knight, huh?”
    “I’m a knight of faith,” he confessed suddenly. He’d never said anything like this to anybody before.
    She looked at him. A frail light shone out of her, this he would have sworn. “I know you are,” she said. She sipped her tea, but he happened to know her cup was empty.
     
    “When straight people get together,” he said before they parted that day, “the man gets the woman’s phone number.”
    “Hey, what—doesn’t he have a phone book?”
    “At least the guy gets her last name.”
    “Sousa.”
    “Sousa?”
    “It’s Portuguese. I told you about that.”
    “Well,