Free The Visible Filth by Nathan Ballingrud Page B

person, you’re some kind of walking shell.” She took a breath, and brought her wrist to the corner of her eye to staunch a tear. “I guess you can find a place to crash until you get a new apartment, right?”
    For some reason, this hurt worse than anything else she’d said. “Really? Today?”
    “What did you expect? That we’d cuddle? Besides, I might be in danger , right?”
    “Fine.” He got up. A terrible weight suspended between his lungs, threatening to upend him. He felt the heat of shame and grief gather in his face. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. He made his way to the bedroom and excavated a crumpled duffel bag from the recesses of the closet. He began to shove clothes into it, heedless of what he might actually need. Just random things. When he walked to the bathroom to get his toothbrush and his razor, he heard a stifled sob in the kitchen.
    This was the world he’d built. This was his kingdom.
     
     
    I T DIDN’T APPEAR as though anyone had been to Eric’s door in the two days since Will had last stopped by. A fly-dappled recycling bin, topped off with beer bottles, had been shoved outside but not carried to the curb, suggesting that at least some effort had been expended in cleaning up inside. Will knocked on the door and waited. When no answer came, he tested the door, and it opened readily for him.
    The place stank of sweat and rotting food. Flies buzzed angrily somewhere inside, and a few cockroaches ambled away, incurious and unafraid. Sunlight hacked into the dark interior, and heat spilled out in a thick collapse. The AC that had frozen him the last time he was here had apparently died.
    So much for anybody cleaning up. “Christ,” he whispered. Then: “Eric? Are you in here?”
    He walked down the hallway into the kitchen, which bore evidence of continued neglect. Dishes were strewn around the counter space and piled in the sink, where an odor exuded from a stack of plates like an evil intelligence. Crumbs and stray bits of cereal crunched underfoot. Another handful of roaches perched like lookouts from their pot-handles and their glass rims, their antennae waving in bored appraisal of this new element.
    Eric’s voice traveled from somewhere deeper in his apartment. It sounded like he was speaking around a mouthful of food.
    The living room looked much as it had before, just a little more so: clothes were draped across the back of the stained couch, socks gathered in little colonies in the corners and on the chair. A PlayStation sat in the middle of the floor, long cords extending in black umbilicals to the television, and to the controller resting beside the couch.
    There was a different kind of smell in here, something sweeter and fouler. It emanated from the darkened corner toward the back, which led to the bedroom. Will didn’t want to go any further; he knew what it was.
    But the voice came again, floating out of the bedroom on a current of decay. “Will.”
    Will stepped into the bedroom. Eric had the blinds drawn, but sunlight leaked in through the slats, giving the room an odd, underwater feeling. Like the rest of the apartment, it was a mess. Eric was lying on the bed in his boxer shorts, the sheets kicked to the floor. He was sheened in sweat. He turned his head to watch Will enter, revealing the hideous wound distorting the left side of his face. It had gotten worse. Crusted with black blood, it had swollen and dried, reopened, dried again. Flies droned around his face, strutted boldly across his skin like little conquistadors. The stink of infection stopped Will at the door.
    Eric tried to speak; the wound made it difficult for his mouth to move the way it was meant to. “What do you want?”
    “I need a place to crash.”
    Eric apparently had nothing to say to this. Will couldn’t really blame him.
    “I need to stay on your couch,” he said. “Just for a day or two. Just until Alicia’s ready.”
    Eric shook his head. “No.”
    “I’m up against a wall,