The Five Circles of Hell

I've never taken hallucinogens, but the school for children is an acid trip on wheels and a half, a goad to indulgence in Hysterical Realism!

Aesthetically it has all the charm of a concentration camp/suburban High School. Tunnels in the basement for ritual abuse. Shiny, antiseptic floors. A one level building. Hallways with lockers.

The fuckshit Hell next to Tyco's corporate headquarters known as the School for Children is divided into five circles, each one containing horrors equal or greater than those described by Dante.

Circle I

The first circle of Holy Hell on Earth is a preschool. Farty moms! Farty moms! Farty moms, many with pregnant bellies, bellies full of buttoned-down seed. They loiter in the hallways, chatting with the teachers, chatting with the aides, dressed in sweatpants, smelling like corn chips, blfarrrting between the creases of their New York Giants sweatpants - just like my mom.

The mothers sprinkle Prozac on raw beef and cowbrains and say: "That's right! I'm a bovine! I'm a bovine cannibal! I want to be more bovine! This is ritualistic eating! Make me more bovine! The Prozac is an added supplement! Let me eat at that shit!"

Today, one of the mothers turned to me: "I want my unborn child to be a Mad Cow baby!" She then ripped out her breast and squeezed out a spray of mucousy off-white milk: "You want to taste my human/cow milk, you faggot? I didn't think so! I'm a bovine! I could make any man a homosexual!"

"Listen, lady - I don't want your milk," I said.

"You get out of here, you creep!" she screamed. "I don't want my child to pick up on your free vibes! You might convince my little son Bradley and my future witch-burning daughter Kayla to be more than just consumers! Get out, you sicko!

At this point Kayla came out of the classroom, pointed to me, and said: "Mommy, who is that mean man?"

"That's a man who likes cranial freedom and as we all know, freedom is bad. He wants you to grow up to be less than a perfect consumer. I want my beautiful little Kayla wayla to grow up to be the best consumer ever!"

"I will, mommy!"

"You better. Because I could never love someone who wasn't a perfect consumer."

At this point the collective mothers shat in their hands, smeared it on their faces, and chased me down the hall.

Circle II

The next circle of Hell is known as Kaotic Kaka Kindergarten. Children are tagged behind the ear with a microchip, tattooed with a scannable bar code, fed Prozac-laced gummy bears and forced - like a Muslim bowing toward Mecca - to recite the consumer pledge three times daily: "My only purpose on this earth is to be the best consumer possible."

If any child resists consumer indoctrination he or she is taken to a "private room" where they will be forced to eat a concoction of goose shit, dog urine, human snot, milk, ketchup, and cigarette ashes. While they do this a metal fork is shoved up their rectum and they are told: "This is what happens to non-consumers."

Circle III

The next circle is Horror High School. The High School classes are more advanced. The classes are divided in two. The "rebels" get to choose a socially acceptable counterculture identity, a "counterculture" identity completely compatible with consumerism. The "good kids" are allowed to choose one of several mainstream identities, each one completely compatible with consumerism. They are forced to recite the advanced consumer pledge three times daily: "The only purpose of an education is to get a just good enough job and to be a just good enough worker. I will keep the system running and contribute to the only worthy system: that of mindless, unquestioning, drone-like consumerism." Any teenager who shows the least bit of non-compliance is branded on the forehead with the letters HB. HB stands for Human Being and actual Human Beings are to be denied all food and shelter until they agree to comply.

The teens are allowed to openly drink, do drugs, and have sex, all while singing one of their battle hymns: "It's okay to drink, smoke, and fuck as long as you're a consumer!"

The teens run down the hallway! They spraypaint the walls with slogans like: "Racists suck" and "Celebrate African-American History" or "White kids should celebrate Kwanzaa" or even "Frederick Douglass was a better man than Shakespeare". The teens dress like hippies, skateboarders, and commercial punk singers and say "Racism sucks! We hate Nazis! Peace, Love, Consumerism! We can have our 60s and eat consumerism like locusts too! Eat that cake, Zizek - someone we never heard of!"

Circle IV

It gets worse. The Fourth Circle is the Hall of Retards. After all, retards should contribute too! Down Syndrome cases walk back and forth slapping themselves in the head. Microcephalics say: "I like to spend money. I like to spend money. I like to spend money." Mangled re-re's in scooters and motorized wheelchairs drawl: Doo doo doo doo ga ga ga ga..." The all wear signs that say: "America won! We beat the commies!" The re-re's are adults, there to get job training, to learn how to host at Applebee's. Conformity training at all levels. "We smell like poopy! We smell like caca! Doo doo doo doo! Ga ga ga ga! Neeki-neeki!"

Circle V

The Fifth Circle is the most fearsome circle of all: The Rehabilitation Room for Intellectually Normal Adults who for Some Reason or Another have Not Become Consumers.

I have been sentenced to this circle. They simply call us CH's: the CHRONICALLY HUMAN.

To them we are frightening and monstrous. The fact that we are still human makes us nothing but circus freaks to them.

"You're 28 years old and you're still not a perfect consumer? How does that happen?"

In the Fifth Circle, the counselors are just there to help, to rehabilitate. Perversely, they use what was learned from the 1960s to assimilate rogue humans, the dangerous incorrigibles, those who simply cannot stop living, loving, and feeling.

All five circles of this Hell are a particular chaos that would give Bosch a run for his money. The cacophonous din reminds one of a dungeon/torture chamber/nursery/hospital/rehab center/bus station/homeless shelter/country club/bacchanalia/clusterfuck/traffic jam/desolate wasteland/William S. Burroughesque-Kafkaesque bureaucracy/Fellini orgy/bourgeois tea party/suburban tupperware party/biker rally/Hip-Hop concert/Rihanna and Chris Brown dance contest/three-ring circus/county fair/Nuremberg rally/be-in/love-in/acid test/casting call for old vaudeville performers/everything you could imagine.

And in the middle of all of this hangs a framed picture of Barack Obama.