SERPENT’S BODY RISE OF THE SPREE KILLERS
Collage by Johnny Scuotto
A collection of work written from the perspective of a mass shooter using the cut up method. Words by Patrick Leonard, Johnny Scuotto, David Kuhnlein, CK Kane & Thomas Moore, Edited by Samantha Sutcliffe
At the height of the 2008 financial crisis Eric Natural committed the Washoe County Shopping District Massacre in Sparks, Nevada. Then considered one of the worst such massacres in American history, the incident occurred on August 11, resulting in the deaths of nine people, including Natural. Investigations led Federal Agents to Natural’s home in Diamond Springs, California where they recovered a computer hard drive from the burned remains of his house. Among the documents on this hard drive was the following statement, written approximately one year before the incident.
They don’t speak my language they never did I see holes in them carved out like pumpkins it will be a real mess the end of a boyish face news for the world they love my religion my mushroom haircut mom blames the music always will I had to kill for fame. People are just fake lines and shapes they are their own imaginations. I’m just a mutant surfing on the tide of cum and piss and I want to take a shit and smear it all over my Face I want to detonate a bomb raise the carbon fiber cross the top of a cemetery and shoot down. Sniffing acne creams and bike tires, pills I vomit up for doctors. Badly scored porn has synthesized my life. I sleep against my fist through class. The terrible poet teaching us chalks my face into her dream. I am welded to this world by the chains on my bike and nothing more. When I purposefully inhale too much smog, the cough that follows can break glass. Most pollution is internal. Perfected next to my weapon’s exhaust. The overconfident speech professor told me to picture everyone’s underwear. That would require tugging clothes back onto their bodies. I study at the shooting range. Sick lights for the sky’s agony. The media aims them there. Nothing worth tucking away exists. I am on fire next to the rest. The man standing at the top of the stairs, where light wouldn’t go, held his shoes in one hand. He seemed to be spitting up a fish. Call an ambulance, I thought, but no one would. I bruised and kept bruising. No one lived at the house I grew up in. No jury will survive me. If your situation could be accurately depicted, that depiction would burn its blood.
Live in the moment It’ll all become a blur This is the end now
It never mattered Your piano recital Now, you’re just a pile
Earlier. Morning. Shower fog abstractions Should I jerk off now?
Some say preserve it Though I’m throbbing at the thought Fates and holes are mine
They’ll think it’s profound I stare into the cold sky You will know my name
Whoever I want One face is too much value This is about me
The fields look so huge I’m staring through the window My reflection jolts
This is the way a Nobody becomes a God The last thing you see
The screaming has stopped And the silence seems so loud The Hell crescendo
So what’ll it be Freer than easy rider In this finite space
Go to Burger King Then question after question Instead, I decide.
A sanguine echo Shame I won’t be able to Watch TV tonight
Although, fuck them all I’ve made those kids immortal They’ll get it all wrong
Despite it all - relief At least I can stop caring It’s all over now
My first kiss is with My trusty sawed-off death queen She makes it all stop.
Collage by Johnny Scuotto