This shit is real

If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,

As were appropriate to the dismal hole

Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,

I would press out the juice of my conception

More fully - Dante, Inferno

I visited Atlantic City this weekend. It's a place I never intended to be, in no small part because it's in New Jersey. I imagine there's no need to describe the common debauchery of a bachelor party in this town. There was a part, however, that stood out to me.

After we parked our car in the high level of the Tropicana parking building, my friends and I, and the embarrassed to be, followed exit signs to the street. We found only a stairwell, and made our way down. The faint odor of urine wasn't unexpected, but the halls and landings kept descending into greater depravity.

The hall was sparsely littered with beer cans, and scuff marks covered the walls at least seven feet up. We walked ahead laughing, and looking above like midtown tourists in wonderment. The first landing ended in stark, poorly lit concrete room larger than most Manhattan studios. I imagined madmen and vagrants under the stairwell, and peaked around into the darkness. "We're probably going to get stabbed." "It's like we're descending into hell," a friend agreed.

As we made our way further down, the smell of urine grew stronger. I imagine it ran down and collected at the bottom. At the end of the third flight, we were surrounded by caved in drywall. Some of the holes looked like the result of fists and tools; sole aggression taken out. Around the corner, a much larger impression evidenced a man thrown through the wall. Pieces had been ripped away and everything around the spare beams gutted.

This led to one more hallway, and a final staircase that wound down flight to flight like the fire escape we had expected from the beginning. More walls were torn out and the floors were covered in grime so aged our shoes didn't even stick. I saw in the corner a shit stain that was half-heartedly scraped away with a rough piece of cardboard. It had ridges, depth, a rounded edge that clearly suggested it's former consistency.

I don't know what it is that's so definitive about human shit. There's never a question about what animal it came from, and it's so much more repulsive than any other turd one can happen upon. My friends had taken everything up to this point jovially. "I can't believe it, you were right. We're descending into the circles of hell," I said, still laughing while the others groaned.

We descended faster, almost to the end. The last flight had a prominent display of vomit that no one had bothered to try and remove. It looked ancient, brown and red. Everyone stepped around it, looking down, inspecting. I could still make out the meal someone hadn't stomached. Beans, mostly. It wasn't like the vomit I'm used to seeing on Saturday morning Manhattan sidewalks. That's usually thinned by alcohol, with little food. Sometimes pieces of spaghetti, strewn about on a colorful background of cocktail mixers, like dadaist macaroni art. This pile was large. I can only think to call it meaty. It reminded me of a volcanic island.

We stepped through the last door, into an alleyway that led to the Tropicana, and breathed. "I can't fucking believe that shit."

So began our night in Atlantic City.