Jesus
Syracuse
1995
There would be one last big snowstorm that spring, on April Fool’s Day. It wouldn’t close the university, of course. This was Central New York, in Lake Effect’s shadow, in the unbuckled Snowbelt. It was also the Burned-Over District where the revivals of The Second Great Awakening began. I hadn’t gone to the party after Denis Johnson’s reading. At the reading, the stories from Jesus’ Son thrummed, even gaining power as they were read and reread now a few years after they were published. My son, Nick, had just been born, so I walked home after the reading, down Euclid, propelled by the words, to tell Theresa about the reading and the way he read, cool, almost shyly. I wasn’t much of a partier then, even less a partier now. The next day, walking up Euclid, I knew what was about to happen. I had gotten a call that morning, waking me. A graduate student would file a grievance. Something had happened at the party. I didn’t know what then. It had nothing to do with Denis, but he had been there. And she would have a story to tell.