Chapter Four: THE HOARDERS AND SPENDTHRIFTS

CIRCLE 4 - Misers and Spendthrifts

The room is dark and reeks of stale urine. The music throbs unpleasantly, like a persistent reminder of death, or the will to die. Shadows appear and disappear, fleeting faces, twitching in an occasional, unbearable light, appear to seek out a friendly gesture.

I stand motionless for awhile, a drink in my hand. When the throbbing desists for awhile you can hear scurrying as if these rat-like humans, standing on their hind legs, are gathering goods for the winter months.

The build piles of possessions. They pull them in loaded shopping carts with squeaking, malfunctioning wheels that stick in place. They yank the carts at times when the wheels refuse to cooperate, shouting angerly as though the shopping cart were plotting against them.

When I begin walking again it is because I realise that all around me these people are carrying piles of junk or garbage or stale food containers, a trail of rodents following them gleefully as they appear then disappear into corners of the cavernous bar.

It is dance music. This finally dawns on me. And the dance floor is a swarm of passing people who carry these things, this collection of meaningless possessions, bumping into each other, cursing, bumping into shopping carts and becoming enraged. They all shout at each other yet each of their voices, each slogan of ranting that they emit are drowned in the music, the persistent, throbbing bass, the waning will to live.

Fortunatel all of them manage to avoid me. When I stand still, I can feel their oily skin brushing against me, I can smell their stench as they move past me. When they are not shouting at their carts or others who bump into them, they are mumbling to themselves. They are mumbling persistently and infatiguably. I cannot trace even the language they are speaking. It is as though they are grunting more than they are speaking.

Finally I spot Kinderton seated at a table in one of the shadows. He is drinking a tropical sort of concoction with fruit poking out of the top of a tall glass with a straw. He has paid a woman to perform felltion underneath the table while he sits there, sipping his drink and watching the dance floor with suspicion.

"I see you finally found your way in." Kinderton moans momentarily, closing his eyes. I can see nothing in the shadows but the bobbing head of hair just beneath the table.

"Is that a girl underneath there?"

"What do you think, a troll? She is trading services. When she is finished, I will tell her where to find the nearest viable exit. I am her guide but she is so fucking lost, so fucking gone, that she can't even hear.me. In fact, I never proposed this exchange. She just knelt down wordlessly and started in on me...." He winces as he grabs the edges of the table. His eyes are shut tight, his chest heaves momentarily. His eyes open again. He takes a sip of his drink.

The girl disappears back into the crowd.

The music changes. The DJ has evil intentions. The change in music causes a minor uproad. For a moment, every one stops pushing and pulling and carrying and stand instead, straight up, shouting and protesting, waving fists. I see the DJ in a far corner laughing and waving his fist as well. People attempt to climb to his booth and when they start to get close, he takes a hammer he has on one of the turntables and bashes them in the head with it. They fall immediately back to the floor and disappear beneath trampling feet.

"What happens to all of these people at the end of the night?" I ask, seating myself across from him.

"End of the night? What do you mean? There is no end of the night. These people will stay here forever. Someone from the outside will push more garbage down the chute and it will be as though these peoples' cages have been filled at feeding time. There is a perpetual supply from street level. Garbage, food, spare tires, carcasses, dirty clothes, disposable diapers, you name it. The DJ hasn't slept in three weeks. He's experimenting with some new drug causing sleeplessness. He knows the minute he falls asleep or tries to leave the safety of the sound booth, he will be torn to shreds. He doesn't take requests. He plays the same music over and over again. He keeps all the good music on his own headphones and listens to them during the long repetitive songs he plays for every one else in the club."

"Is he just an asshole?"

Kinderton shrugs and sips his drink. "Well, a real assholle would probably just play the same song over and over again, louder and louder each time until each of these people trying to kill him would probably just lose their minds entirely, frothing at the mouth before falling into some benign catatonic stare...shall we get up and get another drink?" He hold up his empty glass after slupring loudly. I didn't hear the slurping of course. I merely saw the intake of his cheeks, his lips wrapped around the plastic straw and the subsequently look of satisfaction that caresses his face.

It is then I notice that a trio of bankers are being crucified in the space just to my left. I see their hands and feet being hammered into boards. I know they are bankers because when the nails are hammered into their palms, for example, instead of blood shooting out there are cartoonish balloons filled with money floating out of them. Whilst one group hammers in the nails there are others who jump and grab at the balloons. And when one of the ballons is captured, it is popped open and an immediate struggle ensues between everyone to grab at the money while the banker moans and begs them to stop.

*****

a disembodied series of paintings
smells in your hair
that belong to other
women