Jesus' Son

“Steady Hands at Seattle General” shows the beginning of F**khead’s recovery arc, as he starts to pull himself out of the turbulence of Substance Use Disorder. In this story, Bill serves as a model, and perhaps even foreshadows, what might happen to F**khead in the future. Bill is older than F**khead and has experienced much of the violence that has shaped F**khead’s life as well; however, from the way that he speaks, it’s clear that Bill has internalized the lessons he learned from his years as a person with substance use disorder, and he believes that the violence enacted on him is his due, highlighting the theme of Violence as Inevitability.

F**khead, who wants to become a writer, positions himself as the receiver of Bill’s tale, but Bill has a desire to be depicted better, worried that F**khead will make him seem “stupid” in his writing. This idea of reinvention also connects with the feelings of other characters who lie or reinvent themselves to experience happiness, however hollow these facades are. The domestic violence that Bill has experienced, and is implied to have enacted himself, also connects with the incidences of domestic violence throughout the narrative, further exploring violence as inevitability. F**khead’s ability to escape this life, then, depends on his ability to see the cycle as capable of breaking rather than inevitable, which the conversation with Bill could allow him access to.