Behind the broken façade of the once-blossoming buildings in the West Bottoms district stands a street lined with old houses; Victorian-style homes let go with time, overgrown bushes and piles of soggy leaves from old autumns lining the chipped wooden porches. At the end corner of the street, one house lays deceptively untouched by the decades. It has a hand-painted sign in the middle of the yard and beside it a stone statue of Saint Augustine holding a book.
    Up the wooden steps and into the door, there is a hallway, paneled walls adorned with photographs and images of all who have past through. Down the hall, past the odor of the community bathroom, there is a waiting room that doubles as a common area and a meeting room. It is an all white expanse, save the frames on the wall; wood-carved bible verses, rural landscape paintings above words of wisdom, eagerly-printed poems matted to vibrant pasteboard. The booking attendant and peacekeeper sits at a desk inside the door answering the phone calls and filing away paperwork; there is a couch pushed to one side, a fading green table-tennis set pressed to the other. Stairs between the desk and the ping-pong table lead up to a hallway lined with the rooms of the house, twenty-four in all, each marked with the appropriate gilded number, some tilting sideways or altogether upside down.
    James had tried all morning to make calls to his mother from his room but the phone line was perpetual in its busyness. There were only two lines for all the rooms to use and the employees of the house reasoned that it was lucky they had phones in their rooms at all. Jamesâ bunkmate was out for the day, maybe for good. He had come back last night with the smell on him. He kept James up late into the night mumbling about a woman and groaning, wrenching up and down in his bed underneath the covers and breathing heavily until passing out.
    The sun's glare shot through the yellow blinds and James went to the vending machine to get a soda and then journeyed outside to smoke. His hands were shaky and cold and the wind kicked up off the manicured lawn into his mouth. It tasted like fresh grass and he sucked it in. He walked over and spit on the other side of the porch. He settled in a chair on the far end, just behind the sign in the lawn, and looked out onto the street smoking his cigarette. It smelled like a storm was coming, he looked up at the snowy clouds hidden back behind the taller buildings to the north. He sat down long enough to watch the clouds roll in and the sun disappeared and the day all of a sudden looked like dusk. He wasnât sure what day it was. He smoked another and went back inside; snow beginning to fall; his head pounding full.
    Inside the door he wiped his feet. On the wall in front of him stood a plaque that read, âDo not deny the things that led you here, define the things that will lead you out.â James went back up to try his mother again. The line rang, but she didnât answer. He wondered like a love-sick schoolboy if she was dodging him or if she missed his call. She wouldnât be able to reach him if she called him back, he knew that. He paced back and forth then finally relaxed onto his bed, climbed under his sheets and attempted a call again. He tried calling his son and it rang, but again, no answer. His loneliness crept into him again like a mouse and he attempted to catch it before it ate away all things in his cupboard. It nibbled through and he pulled the covers over his head and wept without sound, only letting his face crunch itself together, a lump gathered in his throat.
    It was night when he awoke and he awoke with his fears and loneliness and this made him angry. He worked the rage out of himself with short deep breaths and focused on his sonâs face. The image he held reminded him of his brother, darker hair than his own, slimmer face. As he was about to get up and turn the light off, his roommate stumbled in again and he again smelled of cheap bourbon.
    âWhores, man. Iâm gonna, Iâm gonna get that bitch.â
     He threw his shoes from his feet and one landed in Jamesâ bed. Jamesâ anger rushed slowly back and the distaste he had for the man and himself was expanding. He sat up, looked at the shoe, picked it up. The manâs name, Juan, was written on the heel of the shoe in white permanent marker, Old English lettering. Even the shoe was rank of his vice.
    âYou keep coming back smelling like you do and youâre going to get caught, boss.â
    The man turned, squinted at James. He hadnât noticed he was awake.
    âMind ya business. I get by by myself, boss.â
    âWell your business stinks.â
    âYour business, it stinks.â
    The man eyed James for minutes.
    âI ought a fuck you up. Shut up and go to sleep.â
    James kept his lip tight. He knew where this led and he wanted to stop it. His insides were churning and his mouth was dry and he came up for air twice to breathe against the rushing current in his blood. The man took off his shirt above his head, stared again at James.
    âThatâs what I thought, you bit ââ
    James jumped up, threw Juanâs shoe at him, and punched him across the face. He felt the manâs nose break under his knuckles. The man threw back but missed. They both muttered, screamed at each other, grabbed one another, swung wildly. Blood rushed from both men. James stuck him again in the cheek, more blood. Then the man Juan pulled up and landed a strike into the Jamesâ gut. He felt a burn inside of him and looked down to see blood soaking his sweatshirt, streaming from his abdomen. The man swung the black knife again but James managed to trip him before three larger men rushed into the room. The guards pushed them back against opposite walls, the drywall cracking behind them.
                                                         *
    At the hospital James was stitched up inside and out and heavily bandaged. He slept through most of it, a dozen doses of Entereg pumped into him, and three days later when he was cleared to leave he was given a prescription for Percocet and Valium. No one came to see him because he could not call anyone and when he was released and used the payphone he still could not reach them. He popped the Valium in the hospital lobby and waited for his tired isolation to subside before walking out of the hospital to look for a place to stay.
