Outside the Lines by Amy Hatvany

smelled it before I saw it. A hard wall of body odor assaulted my senses. I buried my nose down into the collar of my jacket as I approached a line of men, some of whom were speaking loudly, either to the men standing next to them or the building; I couldn’t know for sure. Others stood quietly, heads down, swaying back and forth a bit on their feet. Some had shopping carts filled with their belongings, and others carried a hiker’s backpack stuffed full. I couldn’t imagine my father was one of them. I scanned the faces I could see as I moved toward the entrance. He wasn’t there.
    “Hey, lady! This ain’t no YWCA!” one man jeered as I walked past him. My stomach flip-flopped, but I kept moving.
    The man continued. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you! Don’t pretend like you don’t hear me!” I felt his hand on my arm and I jerked away, turning to him with what I hoped was a friendly smile, despite the shakiness I felt.
    “I’m not here to sleep,” I said. “I’m looking for my dad.”
    Another man sidled up to me; his imposing stature made my shoulders curl a little in fear. “Who’s your daddy?” he asked in a deep-timbred, suggestive tone.
    The men around him cracked up and I smiled again, trying to appear more relaxed. They were blocking the door. “Excuse me,” I tried again. “I need to get inside. The program manager is expecting me.”
    “It’ll cost you,” the man with the deep voice said.
    “What?” I asked, afraid to hear what he might demand.
    Just then, the front door swung open and a small woman with spiked, white-blond hair stepped outside. She was the approximate size and shape of a twelve-year-old prepubescent girl. I might have mistaken her for exactly that if not for the eyebrow piercings and tribal sleeves tattooed on her exposed forearms. She gave the larger man a small push. “Sam, leave the poor woman alone.” She blessed me with a smile that took up most of her tiny, heart-shaped face. “Eden?”
    I nodded gratefully, smiling at her snug green T-shirt, which read, national sarcasm society: like we need your support . She gestured for me to follow her. The men stepped aside for me to pass and I murmured the appropriate “excuse mes” as I did. “Thank you,” I said to the woman as she led me down a brightly lit hallway. I could hear the low sounds of men laughing and talking through the walls, and the smell of boiled potatoes hung in the air. “You’re Rita?”
    “Yep. Don’t worry about the boys. Most of them are completely harmless. They just like to talk a bunch of smack. It’s all part of the survival game.”
    “I can imagine,” I said. “Thank you for inviting me down.” We reached the end of the hallway and she opened an office door, sweeping her arm in front of her body, inviting me inside. It was a small space with no windows, piled high with papers, with barely enough room for her desk, a file cabinet, and two chairs. Technically, it could have been a closet.
    “Sure,” she said, shutting the door behind her. “Though I don’t know what help I can really be. Our computer system is anything but reliable when it comes to recording our clients’ names. Many of them won’t even tell us.”
    “It’s not a requirement?”
    “The only requirement we have is their need for a place to sleep and a willingness to be searched for sharp objects that could be used as weapons. We don’t allow those on the premises. A lot of them are paranoid about the system, you know, so they don’t want to give their names. Lots of schizophrenics.” She pushed a family contact form across her desk and asked me to fill it out. “What condition did your father suffer from?”
    “Well, he was originally diagnosed as manic-depressive back in the eighties,” I explained as I picked up a pen and began writing in my phone number and address. “But then he started to get a little violent and paranoid, which isn’t really consistent with that disorder. One doctor said he might