The Apocalypse Reader Read Online Free PDF Page A

any farther gonna lose my miiiiiinnnnnd ." Luckily, however, Judith was at the party. Wearing black paint-stained jeans and a white thrift-store dress shirt. She also had on a white leather jacket. Her hair was a long hennaed tangle, madwoman-in-the-attic style. She looked like a go-go girl ten years into a devastating nervous illness. I reminded her that Tony had introduced us a month or so earlier and she was obviously happy to see me again. I gallantly volunteered to walk her home (though, in my bathrobe, I was a little underdressed), but she said she wasn't going home. She was catching a train that night to Trenton or Pittsburgh or something.
    -What's with the bathrobe? she asked.
    -I'll take you to the station.
    -I'm taking a cab.
    -I'll join you.
    She smiled.
    -Look, I slurred. I'm not going to hold you down behind a bush and assault you or anything. I just want to have a conversation.
    There must have been some credible or deeply heartfelt catch in my voice, because she suddenly changed her mind and admitted she was going home. I won't try to excuse my behavior. I remember, unfortunately, every garbled sentence of this encounter. I know, for example, that at one point I quoted Revelation to Judith: "And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth" (11:3). I told her that our association, therefore, was circumscribed by Scripture. This line was supposed to be romantic.
    She said:
    -Even if you weren't completely nuts I would still say you are expecting too much, you know? I've talked to you, what, two times?
    Okay, this was probably true. But I must not have cared then, because soon we were in the laundry room of the apartment house on Rodman that Judith shared with three other Tyler students. We were sitting on the cement floor-it was really cold-and I was trying to persuade her, in a language that was awkward and desperate, that she shouldn't go upstairs to her apartment. In fact, I told her she couldn't leave until she agreed to let me hug her. I asked for this hug many times. Seven times.
    -Forget it, Judith said. Look, I don't want to be rude or anything, but if you think this is the way to get through to me, if you think this'll win me over ... you're completely wrong, okay? Do I have to be clearer?
    -Just a hug, I said. A hug, not anything ... more than that. Just a hug.
    -Come on, she said. This is embarrassing. It's stupid.
    Mine was a sad story, but it didn't move her. I remember when she moved up onto the coin-operated dryer-still warm from a recent load, she fell into banging the backs of her heels against the front-loading door.
    -It's cold, she said. How long do we have to sit down here?
    And then she said the worst possible thing, a sentence of death and confusion. These dismal, lacerating words banged around in that reverberant space:
    -And anyway, you know, I'm seeing someone else.
    I brushed it off at first.
    -One hug? I mumbled. One little hug ...
    You want to know why it was so important, that hug? May I answer a question with another? Why does the wilted house plant need its weekly flooding with the Philadelphia Phillies plastic pitcher? Why did St. John look for the resurrection to come? Why was Judith still in the basement with me? She had her reasons. I had mine.
    She slid off the dryer and the tail of her untucked shirt fluttered behind her.
    -What the fuck.
    See how easily the weather changes? She had to reach up a little bit. I was that much taller. My constitution improved immediately. I saw the generations of causation, from the great first cause, lined up behind me. On the other hand, maybe I was just a lonely guy. I wish I had been more awake for it, my cheek flush against hers, her hands around my waist, a strange supernatural pounding inside the ineffectual radiator on the wall. Footsteps in one of the apartments above.
    I said:
    -Lemme come upstairs with you.
    -Forget it.
    -Then promise me you'll