| Each day this week, we’re featuring short essays from our latest issue on the possibilities and perils of people coming together.  Illustration by Leonie Bos One day in 2010, I dropped in to the Morrison Center, in Union Square. The office was high-ceilinged and light-filled, and its I.V. room contained potted ferns and many recliners. That day, I scored a corner chair. I’d come for a heavy-metal detox to assist my recovery from Lyme disease. I usually had brain fog, but, after an EDTA drip, paragraphs flowed through my head. I worked as a teacher, lived with roommates, and couldn’t afford the treatment, so I put it on credit cards and hoped that healing my brain would pay off. The center’s patients varied—Lyme, chronic fatigue, lupus, Alzheimer’s, M.S., A.L.S., cancer—but we all followed Dr. M.’s dictates: avoid sugar, grains, gluten, dairy, alcohol, fruit, and overexcitement. Getting infusions stank. Still, we harbored hopes: having your favorite nurse stick you, or scoring Dr. M.’s special genmaicha tea. Denise brought my I.V. stand. A man I’ll call Hector, a middle-aged screenwriter, said, Denise, is Roberta coming today? Denise shrugged. She said she’d jam with me, Hector explained. I brought my guitar. Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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