 Um, this is pretty much dead, it's a book that came out in June, it is short stories about homelessness in San Francisco, about social service providers, people who work with the homeless, the rent-controlled people, and the rest of us who are trying to hang on to the edge of the world right now. Um, so this is called Strong. Room 101. The hotel is not so big, it's not the biggest in the city, but it's not the smallest either. It's not the one that the serial killer lived in before getting caught, and it's not the one that the woman who shot the famous artist lived in. It's a different one. Room 102. The carpet does not match, each room is different, and it's different as it staggers along the hall. Here, blocks, they're a floral pattern, they're industrial gray, all are faded to a muted gray brown. The walls are muted brown, tinged with gray. If you were to stretch out your arms, you could easily touch both walls in the hallway at once. You might not even have to extend your arms all the way out. The hallways close in on themselves. The hallways end in windows that don't open or windows that are broken or just a wall. The hallways dead end after spiraling back and around and in on themselves, and there's no way out. Room 103. The minotaur, imagined by the Greeks, had the body of a human and the head of a bull. Ashamed of his progeny, King Minos imprisoned his child in a labyrinth. The child ate humans. The child was angry. Although many tried to slay the minotaur, they were foiled by the labyrinth, the maize, the death. Theseus did not get lost. Theseus killed the minotaur by bringing a ball of bright red yarn with him. As he descended into the labyrinth, he left a trail of red yarn behind him. The ball of yarn was called a clue, C-L-E-W, clue, a clue. Room 104. Hospitals have long hallways. If you stretch out your arms, you can't touch each side. The walls are light green or yellow and smell like bleach and overcooked, like green beans. Room 105. I don't know if the hospital's the maize or the hotel's the maize or something else entirely. What it is, I know there's no way out. There's a girl unlocked ward and there is me writing this and there's more, a letter for a minotaur, a phone call that comes from the cops on a Sunday afternoon. There's a girl in a hotel who needs help. Room 106. Can a place itself be bad? Is the ground under Auschwitz? The land itself, the brown earth that smells just like dirt? Is the land itself evil? Is the land under Ted Bundy's house cursed? Was there blood spilled under the labyrinth that made it hungry for more? Is there a reason people get swallowed up or snuffed out or trapped in labyrinth? Room 107. The girl needs help. She's a buttercup picked and left on the pavement for two days. She's been staying in a hotel room that belonged to her boyfriend, a drug dealer. The drug dealer was in prison now. The girl was in the room doing all the drugs. The girl stopped speaking except, her arm, her arm, you shoot straight into the blue string, not the red, the blue gets you lost. She was lost inside the room. The cops came. They called us. They said, take her. We did. It's what we do. Room 108. This is what I do. I take lost people and I give them beds in places with big rooms with many beds. The shelters are stepped down from the SRO. The only thing the girl says is her name, Bess. She has straight brown hair to her chin that hangs meekly in her face. She is the gray brown of the walls. Her pinprick eyes glare right through the curtain of hair. Her mouth is in asterisk. She nods that she'll come with us because she has no choice. Then she says, wait, my shoes. We wait. That's the last thing she'll say for a while. Room 109. There's no door you can lock behind you. The girl stands between two big rooms with many beds in them and braces herself in the door frame with her arms outstretched. She walks to her bed. She takes off her shoes then towards the elevator and she gets back and she goes back and she gets her shoes and puts one on and heads towards the elevator and on and so on until morning and then she's gone except for one shoe. Room 110, what they never told you. The minotaur was just as lost as the men who came to slay it. What they never told you, the minotaur was a girl. Room 111, I'm relieved. She's gone in the morning when I go to check on her. I call my supervisor, it's what I do. She's gone, I say. He says, have you checked the hotel? The labyrinth yawns. One 12, there is no string. There's me and there's a hotel. There's a metal gate that you have to be buzzed through then stairs then another gate that you need to be buzzed through then more stairs. This time there are no police and so it seems darker inside. Police emit light. It's darker inside now. It smells like old Indian food and something burning in Mildew. There might be something burning. The girl's there at the desk clerk says she's been walking around and walking around and trying to get into her boyfriend's room but he's in jail. Room 201, I have a work partner in all this. He's a man. When we go up to the boyfriend's room with a building manager and a key to see if she's inside, he throws his body against the door when the key won't open it. The building manager does that too. I stand behind both of them talking quietly. I say, don't. If she's in there and you force it open, you might hurt her. And if it's not her in there, you might get hurt. Don't do it. They give up because they don't want to break the door not because they're listening to me. Bess, I say, come on, Bess. 202, many famous people who spent time in SROs including Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Patty Smith who were tenants at New York's famous Chelsea Hotel. Room 203. What I haven't done a good enough job of telling you how gone Bess is. She is the A Bess. She's covered in menstrual blood, a carry and pink long johns wearing one shoe. Room 204. My boss has done research on Bess. She's met the police before. They responded to noise complaints at a hotel to find her, chained to the bed wearing a dog's shock collar she was for sale. Now she's broken, 5150. Room 215. They say she's on the second floor. I walk through the first floor unspooling my thread. I walk through the second floor unspooling my thread. I walk sideways to get through the hallways. No girl. No girl. No girl. 206. Where is the girl? 207. Bess. 208. People shuttle in and out of rooms. Cockroaches. Crouch. Indoor frames. They're the same color as the carpet. They're the same color as the smoke. The hallway smells of old Indian food. Something burning and mildew. There's a man following me now. Room 209. I walk faster. The hallway gets narrower. I walk faster. Left or right. She's in her friend's room. He says I walk faster. She's in her friend's room. Room 211. I call my supervisor. It's what I do. She's in her friend's room. I say go in there. He says I can't do that. I say why not? He asks. Room 210. It's Theseus who kills the minotaur. But it should be noted that Theseus himself dies in exile. Broken. Pushed over a cliff by his best friend. Room 211. Here she is. Room 212. All the police and my supervisor too. The room is so bright. It's bright nicotine all over. She's wearing long johns covered in menstrual blood. And now handcuffs. Room 301. By returning to the hotel. By looking for her boyfriend. By bearing her throat to the minotaur. By being the minotaur. By being broken. By walking around with one shoe on. Wearing only a set of long johns covered in menstrual blood. By not talking. 5150. Room 302. A hotel has many rooms. And a hospital has many rooms. You have a name in a hospital. You have a number in a hospital. What do you have in a hotel? Room 303. A locking door 304. The building is laughing and it has no teeth. The building laughs her all the way to the hospital where her boyfriend will come and visit and bring her drugs and get barred from ever. Visiting again. They don't like it when you bring in string. When everything unravels so easily. When you take the whole ball of string with you you can't find your way back. What she tied off with. What tied her to the bed 305. So there's her in a hospital. And me in a hospital. And her with a hospital gown. And there's me visiting her. And a vest with my credentials on it. Her door doesn't lock. But the ward does. So I say. I say it again. So her hair is in her face. But it doesn't cover her pinprick eyes. 306. Best. Tosses her ball of string up in the air. She catches it. She tosses it up in the air. She catches it. She tosses it up in the air. She catches it. 307. I tell my supervisor later how she stared at me. She hates me. I said. It's just a psychotic stare. He said. She doesn't mean anything by it. I tell him this second. Then a third time. Well he says finally. You 5150 to her. She's not going to love you for that. Room 308. The hotel opens its mind. Tries to swallow her whole all the way from across town. The hospital walls are thick and hold her in. I'd give anything for one hit. She tells her doctor. That's the only thing she says to him. 309. I brought her chocolates. Peppermint patties. She hands one to me. It's melted. She's been squeezing it here. She says. It's oozing and disgusting. I put it in my mouth. Thank you. I say. 310. Her eyes are ice. So she says she remembers me. Her eyes roll back in her head. She glares at her lap. Her head rolls up now. Once she stares back at me. She purses her lips and it looks for all the world like a kiss. Room 311. She was inappropriately sexual on the word. The social worker tells me. So she had to be isolated. She was isolated. 312. She's fine. She tells me. She doesn't know when she's getting out. She doesn't know yet that she'll be there for months. And months are psychosis not abating. She can't find the string. She can't find the way out. She stretched the string between her hotel windows and used it for a tightrope. It snapped beneath her weight. String and girls break so easily. Room 401. Her eyes don't waver staring at me. So she says, savoring the world. Have you been back to the hotel? Her eyes transport me there. Make me shudder. You should go back there. She says. The hair on my arm stands up listening. It's so cold. It might be evil. Can a place be evil? Can a person be abducted by evil? 402. The minotaur. The girl tosses her ball of string up in the air. She catches it. She tosses it up in the air. She catches it. She tosses it up in the air. She catches it. 403. When you knocked on the hotel door, she says it reminded me of when I was locked in that storage space. She says all that knocking on the door. Everyone knocking. It was so dark in there. She says she puts her arms around herself and stops talking. She gets up and walks away fast. Her head down. 404. Have you been back to the hotel? You should go back there. You know what she meant, right? My supervisor asked me. I think so. The hair on my arms listened standing up. She wanted to see another white girl go down. He says 405. It's so hard to find your way back. 406. Over and over. Maybe three or four times. I bring her peppermint patties. Those are her favorites. They're not the hits she wants. I'm not one of her boyfriends. She stares at me and I ask, how are you? She doesn't answer. She doesn't look at me. I tell her something. I tell her anything. I don't know how long I have to be here for, she says. 407. The hotel waits. The hotel is patient. 408. Any day now, another of her boyfriends, the one she was staying with, the drug dealer will be released from prison. Room 409. Bess is looking out of the hospital window at nighttime city. Somewhere past all the buildings she can, she is one she can't. The hotel. It is behind everything. 410. You should go back. She tells me. 411. Her hand is covered with chocolate. She licks it and smiles at me and it's a threat. 412. Bess is a patient. The hotel is patient. Bess has not come back yet. She might not come back at all. She tosses her ball of string up in the air. She catches it. She tosses it up in the air. She catches it. She tosses it.