The Carolina Cunts

I’m backstage with a needle stuck in a vein, meth shooting throughout my body when Stumpy comes rushing towards me. Stumpy’s the guitar player, a fundamental factor in our musical vision of carnage. Not only was he one hell of a guitar player, but he made sure to protect me from soaring off the rails. A fiend needs a buddy like so.

“Johnny we’re up.” 

My name is Johnny Jennings, lead vocalists and orchestrator of discord for the punk rock band The Carolina Cunts. I make my entrance on stage wide eyed and tweaking a million miles a minute when the guitar starts up. Like a mechanical man, my mouth opens and I holler out the lyrics to the song Scumfuck Revolution. The crowd’s in an uproar as I thrash my gaunt frame all about, exchanging copious volumes of saliva in tandem with flying middle fingers. This is my church service, these are my people, and The Carolina Cunts are the religion.

“Fuck the Vatican, the pope he can kiss my ass,”

The crowd screams the lyrics at me while I shout them back like some demon infested loon. The drugs amp up the carnage and before you know it I’m running a box cutter across my scar covered chest, abandoning the weapon before smearing blood all over my body and face. I am their messiah and this is my blood.

The song finishes and I’m floating in reverb. Profanities are hurled at me while others chant the band’s name. Some asshole tells me to suck his dick, to which I reply by taking mine out and wagging it at him. The man proves to be fucking bonkers. He begins losing it like some church goer ready to speak in tongues. It’s this second between songs where I experience the magnificent freedom, natural bliss.

Then we kick in with “Gutter Trash” and off I continue, spouting off the punk gospel in a church that smells like old beer and piss.

A few songs later, the setlist is finished and I drop to the stage with exhaustion. Delivering my sermon takes it out of me and Stumpy knows this, that is why he’s carrying me offstage. Now on my feet, he hauls me through a pack of worshippers and into a private room. The sole objects are a table and a few chairs. This is the band waiting area. Right now its empty so Stumpy hands me a needle and tells me to make it quick.

Once again I surrender my sanity to the tweaker gods, injecting myself with redneck racing fuel, go-go juice. My eyes roll around in my skull like slots and I’m babbling word salad like a schizophrenic. 

Outside. It’s another sweltering summer night and the stuffy air makes me want to vomit. Stumpy leads me to the gig van where he tells me he will be right back. “Alright buddy.”

My mind is racing, I feel as if I could read the dictionary, in its entirety, in an hour, that’s how fucking focused I am. Fuck Adderall, give those ADD kids some of this poison. I could change worlds with this drug, I could, but I won’t. Why? Well, surely not because I’m somewhat incapable, but rather its due to the fact I just don’t give a fuck about this world or the people in it.

Throughout my life people have struggled to cage me, to castrate me, but not anymore. I will rot my brain with drugs, life fast, fuck a lot and when I’m ready (and only when I’m ready) I will die on that fucking stage. When the planets are in harmony, or some shit, I will feel the spirit within me and thus it will be time to deliver the final sermon. 

Oh, I plan on going out like a warrior. There will be blood by the bucket and tons of gore. People will holler out final words before joining me in eternal communion. Yes, I will go violently and I plan on taking people with me. This will be our religion’s end times, Armageddon.

But that’s not now. Nope, for today is a day of getting high. One day I’ll find more time.

One day.