The Visible Filth Read Online Free PDF Page A

all. Come inside.”
    Will followed him into the kitchen, which was cluttered in the typical way of a single guy who partied too much. Take out boxes on the counter, trash overdue for removal, a few plates in the sink. In the living room he could see some clothing piled in a corner. Eric shook some pills out of a bottle on the counter and swallowed them dry. “Buddy of mine can stitch this up.”
    “A buddy of yours? What is this, Afghanistan?”
    “Can’t afford a hospital.”
    He moved slowly into the living room, one hand in front of him as though he were looking for balance, as though he were still drunk. When he made it to the couch, he collapsed onto it and unfurled like a caterpillar. The blinds were drawn on the room’s only window, and the apartment had the cool, dank atmosphere of a cave. “Thank your friend for me,” he said.
    “What friend?”
    “Guy who saved my ass last night. The one banging your girl.”
    Will felt both irritated and irrationally thrilled. “Alicia isn’t my girl.”
    “Okay, man.” His voice was starting to drift.
    “Who was that guy you were fighting with?”
    Eric didn’t answer. His breathing calmed, water finding its level.
    “Okay. Anyway. I was just checking in. I’ll let you sleep.”
    Eric, eyes still closed, put out a hand. For an awkward moment, Will thought he meant for him to hold it. “Don’t leave me,” he said, his voice bleary with painkillers and the proximity of sleep. “Nightmares.”
    Will felt a sudden shame at having witnessed this nakedly weak gesture, this plea in the dark; it was a gross and bewildering intimacy, and he wanted to pretend he hadn’t heard it. Reluctantly, though, he found a place to sit down by moving a laundry basket from a chair to the floor. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll hang out for a little bit.”
    He waited for Eric to drift off to sleep, watching his face twitch, his eyes spin beneath his eyelids. He was growing cold in the frigid blast of the AC, but Eric was still covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Below them, at Rosie’s Bar, someone fed some money into the jukebox and a dull bass throbbed its way up through the floor, ringing the bones in his body. It would drive him mad, that constant, subdermal growl. He watched Eric fade away, and wondered what black dreams slid through his brain.
     
     
    F EELING AIMLESS AND obscurely unsatisfied, Will walked back home, where he planned to crash on the couch and play video games until Carrie came back from class. He didn’t like spending time by himself, for the most part; silence unnerved him, left him feeling unanchored and threatened. The froth of the video games was partially successful in keeping that silence at bay, but after a while it started to chew through his little pixelated boundaries, and he would be forced to find some other manner of distraction.
    So it was with relief that he sensed someone else at home, as though a passage through the air had sent ripples brushing his skin as he entered.
    “Carrie?” She should still be in class, but she might have come home early. No one answered. He passed through the kitchen, through the living room, and stopped in their bedroom. The place was empty. Feeling mildly foolish, he planted himself in front of the TV and booted up his video game console.
    He was an American solider half an hour into a jungle heavily seasoned with hostiles and a good five minutes away from a hotly defended save point when the phone chimed. He paused the game and fished his phone from his pocket.
    Blank. No messages.
    His blood cooled several degrees when he realized which phone it had been. He set his own down and removed the other one from his pocket, the bright yellow one with the hearts. Its face was lit, the little green text box signifying a message received. He tapped it with his finger. It was from someone named Jason.
    Hey bartender.
    He looked at it for several seconds before deciding not to answer. He leaned back and unpaused the game. A