5

It's a long hike along unshoveled sidewalks to Aldrich Street. The lack of streetlights makes it hard to find your way. But after a few false starts, and a car blasting you with freezing slush, you reach your destination. The Aldrich Street Shelter is a big Italianate house pushed back from the street and gone to seed, an irregular black heap against the purple sky. You open the main door and step into a stinking, brightly lit room full of restless bodies.

"Close the fucking door!" a ruddy-faced man yells before you finish opening it.

You close the door and spot a thin, middle-aged white guy in an oatmeal sweater talking to an old and agitated Black woman. The facility director points to a tablet in his hands, and the woman storms past you, furious, and stands in the doorway, glaring as if daring someone to make eye contact.

"We're full up," the director tells you, not looking up from his tablet. "Try Center Street."

"I was just at Center Street and I was told to come here." I am gliding slowly past the limits of my patience.

"This place is barely half full." Maybe I can find some angle that will let me score a cot.

"Are you really full?" I'm willing to walk back, since—looking around—I can make it, and a lot of people here can't.

"I guess I can go…" I might be able to make it back to the other place.

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