2.

2.

We were born on a Greek cargo ship bound for the East Coast. Like many an immigrant before us, our childhood was messy and short. The sailors pushed the lever that dumped the bilge tanks, and we found ourselves floating off the scenic coast of New Jersey, where the current soon directed us to an inlet, and from there to a pipe, and soon enough we sloshed through the speedy water-park of the local waste-treatment plant, where we slipped through a corroded filter on our way to Bill’s kitchen tap, and from there to Bill’s glass, and from there to Bill’s stomach, which offered everything an enthusiastic young parasite could ever desire: water, proteins, microbes on which to snack, and drugs—beautiful, weird drugs.

Fortunately for us, Bill can’t even endure the twenty-minute drive from strip club to office without snorting a small pile of crushed-up pills. Got to balance out those five pints of cheap beer somehow. Forehead red and sweaty, heart hammering, pupils squeezed to pinpricks, Bill can barely see the road; so how, might you ask, can we see through his eyes? Like the vine that wraps the tree, we have tendrils everywhere, from his balls to his brain, where we’ve tapped into the sparking neurons that convey visuals and sound.

Bill makes it back to the office after two near-accidents, pausing outside the parking garage to smoke another cigarette and check his appearance in a window, nodding in approval at his bloodshot eyes and trembling fingers and tragic hair. Maybe he doesn’t let himself see the fractures; maybe he thinks they’re normal; or maybe (and this is the worst option) Bill has chosen to embrace his sorry-ass state. It’s hard for us to tell because, despite our bits woven deep into his core, we can’t yet read his thoughts, although we have big hopes for the pink thread we’ve extended to the base of his skull, poised to wrap around his brainstem like a lasso.

Bill’s office is a windowless hive of gray cubicles stretching to infinity, lit only by fluorescents that make everyone look like a corpse. He enters the office like a returning conqueror, arms thrown wide, emitting a wordless scream of mock bloodlust, only for his little routine to run smack into what we like to call the Unbreakable Wall of Despair, a.k.a. his coworkers. They glance from their spreadsheets and email long enough to confirm Bill’s utter lack of threat, then return to their screens without a word.

A new and as-yet-unlit cigarette pasted in the corner of his lips, Bill helps himself to a mug of primordial brew from the coffee pot and saunters over to Janine, his flame in Accounts Receivable. Janine is a rare specimen in these parts, still holding some hope that one day she’ll escape this place with health and sanity intact. She’s still so young, at least two or three Bills away from overcoming this desire to save broken men with her love. The Fear is starting to settle in her, though—we don’t need a tendril in her brain to know she worries that she’s too heavy, too dumb, too unlucky to fulfill her puniest hopes. We want to tell her it’s okay, that anyone can climb the ladder of the American Dream. If a parasite from a freighter bilge can hitch a ride aboard a government worker with a decent ticker and a major substance-abuse problem, a homo sapien with her skills can score a split-level with okay water pressure outside of Trenton.

But we can’t speak through Bill, who looks around to see if anybody’s watching before reaching down to cup her soft ass. She slaps his arm, playfully, and flicks her eyes toward the nearby stairwell, which leads to a little-used storage room where three times a week we spend no more than four minutes staring at the moist, pale expanse of her back as she braces against Bill’s mushy hip-thrusts (minutes we dearly wish to erase from memory, we hasten to add). Oh, Janine, you can do so much better.

Janine and Bill, they’re bonded like ticks and dogs. When Bill’s older brother died a couple months ago, Janine outdid herself at the funeral, unleashing a glass-shattering wail just as Bill dropped the first shovel of dirt on the coffin. Her grief warmed Bill’s heart, articulated all the things he refused to let himself feel. Bill’s brother may have raised him, but by the end Bill didn’t have the cojones to come to the hospital and say goodbye. Sometimes we think it’s not quite enough to save Bill’s body: we have to save his soul, as well.

In the dimness of the storage room Bill pumps frantically away at Janine, sweating, heart thundering so hard it makes us more than a little concerned about a coronary in the near future. The alcohol from lunch must have dulled the nerves in his Midnight Meat Train, because it takes a full five minutes longer than usual for him to finish up . . . and when he does, we bask in that endorphin bliss, marveling at how it makes his shambles of a nervous system light up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Such glories are invisible to Bill, who fumbles his substandard package back into his pants and, with a wheeze and a muttered term of endearment, shuffles back downstairs.