One day last month, Nathaniel and I took over some of baby’s old clothes and toys to donate, standing for a few minutes in a separate, much shorter queue, and though I’m not shocked by much anymore in this shit-ass city, I was shocked by that center: There were probably a hundred adults and fifty kids in a space meant for maybe sixty people, and the stench—of vomit, of feces, of unwashed hair and skin—was so overpowering that you could almost see it, coloring the room a dull mustard. But the thing that really struck us was how quiet it was: Except for one baby, who cried and cried in a thin,
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