Apocalypse by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online

of us. We went different places—out to my house to watch TV, or for a drive in my Chevy when I got it, or to the library. The library, for cripes sake! Joanie made me drive her to every library for miles, and she got a card at each one.
    Little libraries ain’t no use, but I got to admit, big libraries are nice private places, especially back in the shelves.
    Sex was something you got to do when you’re in high school. My brothers was all after me about what base was I at with Joanie. I didn’t say nothing and I didn’t really care, but after a while I figured I better give it a try. Joanie didn’t really attract me that way and I didn’t want to mess with her because of all that Whore of Babylon business, I didn’t think she’d like it, but then sometimes she’d step close to me to talk and I didn’t think she’d mind after all. Like I say, sex was kind of a duty, so one night back among them library shelves I tried kissing her. Right away I knowed she wasn’t no better at this than I was. We both bashed our mouths together, and I wondered why that was supposed to feel good. I got excited anyway, it was the idea of the thing, and I rubbed against her and got hold of her jug in my hand, and all of a sudden she pushed me away.
    â€œBar, you are gross!” she says, and then she was mad and wouldn’t talk to me. But next time I seed her, damned if she didn’t start standing close to me again.
    We went on like that for a while, fumbling around and bruising each other’s lips and me getting slapped off. Joanie couldn’t seem to make up her mind whether she liked sex or not, and after a while I give up, like I figured my mom and dad done a long time ago. It just didn’t seem worth the bother. We never got no clothes off or nothing. I didn’t hold it against Joanie, that she didn’t have no more enthusiasm, because the girl was suppose to try and stop you. After Joanie got her own place I guess maybe we could’ve tried again, but that was later and I was comfortable the way we was by then.
    Joanie dropped out of school soon as she turned sixteen. It didn’t surprise me none, because I done the same. Course she was better at school than I was. But she couldn’t wait to get a job and her own apartment and get away from her mom. She couldn’t get no good job—even the normals couldn’t get no good jobs in Hoadley—but she got a job selling by phone and done okay at that. She always had this really classy voice. So she had her phone and her room over the Tropical Beauty, and she didn’t hardly ever go out of it, except she still wanted me to drive her to libraries. She was always reading, long as I’d knowed her, poetry and storybooks and like that. Once she got her job, she made just enough money to live on and the rest of the time she’d read, and when I looked over her shoulder I could see she was reading some real strange stuff, with pictures of stars and snakes and eagles and horses and strange letters and naked people in it. But the naked people wasn’t having sex, usually.
    Like I said, maybe good old Joanie and me could’ve had sex better after she got her own place. But I’d been to some real whores by then and I knowed what they did and I liked Joanie and I didn’t want to bother her with them things. I figured she was a nice girl and wouldn’t be interested, and she never done nothing to show me different. Maybe I was wrong, though.
    I was doing construction work for my uncle then, and just about every night after work I’d stop by Joanie’s place. Just like when we was in school, her nose was always in a book. I’d ask her what she was reading, trying to get some sense out of her, but she said I wouldn’t understand. Said it was mostly all about magic and witchcraft and spells. Pretend stuff. She didn’t hardly seem to take no interest in real stuff at