Brentwood Projects, a ramshackle building right down the block from the projects he grew up in.
It was a shithole. The brick building was hodgepodgedly painted in yellow and white, and the grass outside was littered with syringes and shards of glass. It stank of cat piss throughout. The apartment he rented wasn’t much better than the rest of the building, but at least it been vacuumed recently and got a pine-scent freshness.
He went out for his shower when it was late enough. The whole floor shared one showering area, which wasn’t that bad — in some of these projects, the whole building shared one shower. There was only adult men on this floor, so the showers ain’t subdivided into areas for women and children, meaning there was plenty of room.
There was one sink, two toilets that was wide-open — no stalls — and a urinal trough. On the other side was four showerheads in a mildewy, dank corner. The air was soggy, and there was a puddle under one of the showerheads. It smelled like rain.From Tyrell the Ex-Con
The buildings here didn’t have hot water in the apartments, just a shared shower on each floor. Despite that, the building was comfortable and warm, and it was as safe as possible in this neighborhood. Teddy liked it here.
The part he liked most of all was that there were no women in the building. The landlord owned another building next-door with showers built in to each apartment. That was where single women lived. Only men without families were allowed here. Most of the apartments were crammed full of workers sharing space.
The showerroom was small and cramped, and it stank like toilets. The bare cement walls and floor were chipped, scrawled-upon and graffitied with arcane symbols, threats and nicknames. Water dripped into a permanent puddle next to the bench where you could change your clothes. There weren’t any lockers or anything like that though, it was just a short narrow bench.
From Aroused by Ex-Cons