Below, the floor tiles don’t quite reach the walls. Above, old pipes run along the ceiling, weaving in and out of rooms like snakes. It smells like my worst pair of Nikes, and the gray walls are sloppily painted. Those walls seem the worst thing of all. Whoever painted the walls didn’t care about the job—they steamrolled gray paint over signs and thermostats, anything that got in the way. Little gray splatters of paint cover the fading black and white tiles of the floor. Nobody should live in a place where the painters didn’t care. There are police officers and guards everywhere, but still I don’t feel safe. The iron bars are covered with the same gray paint, slopped on by the same miserable workers. A gate opens in front of us, and the guard closes it behind. Then another. I imagine I’m going through an air lock on a spaceship. The prison barge. I try to make believe it’s all pretend. We are led to a room, take a number, and then we wait and wait and wait. Finally we are led to another gray room, divided in the middle by a long scratched-up counter and a thick glass wall that goes to the ceiling.
