Outside of a brief setup at the beginning, “Steady Hands at Seattle General” is a story composed entirely of dialogue from a single conversation. While at the hospital, the narrator becomes intoxicated and offers to shave the other patients. He shaves his roommate, Bill, who tells him a story of the time his wife shot him in the face. It turns out that Bill has been shot, on two separate occasions, by each of his ex-wives. The narrator tells Bill that one day, he’ll read about himself in a story or a poem, but Bill doesn’t like hearing that, because the way the narrator phrased it “makes [him] look kind of stupid” (108).

Bill tells the narrator that after he was shot in the mouth, he had a dream that he can’t remember. They chat more, mentioning car accidents and movies they’ve seen. When the narrator says that he likes living at the hospital, Bill says, “You can take a couple more rides on this wheel and still get out with all your arms and legs stuck on right” (110).