The Real Kent Manning
Posted July 30 by nick
photo credit: Rev Aaron Pepelis
Our friends in the_Network have uploaded a new track ("You Fucking Fakes") from their upcoming record Bishop Kent Manning to their MySpace page and (in our totally biased opinion) it rips!
Since guitarist Kevin Howley is delinquent in providing another chapter of his mammoth Australian tour diary, we scored a different Deciblog "exclusive": part 2 of the Bishop Kent Manning story. Bishop Kent Manning (out on BMA on September 15th) is a concept album about the decline of a corrupt televangelist and the album follows the plot of Howley's short story. Part 1 premiered on the Black Market Activities blog. The rest of it (never before published anywhere) follows after the jump:
By Kevin Howley, the_Network
When he awoke he found himself where he had begun, being ripped apart on a doctor’s bed. The sheets smelled of strong bleach and were growing a dark maroon as his black blood suffocated the bed. There was a death smell in that room and everything sickened him. The egg shell linoleum, the covered faces above him, and the damn blood bleach smell angered him to a point instinctual. Everything moved around him just as they did before he threw himself out of the hospital room window cursing God and his own new found sense of uselessness. As before, the drugs slowed him. He willingly fought them this time and found some ancient and horrific knowledge within himself. The topography of the room, the masked fools, and his own body combined to design a puppet only he’d control and, he thought, when they pull that fucking bullet out of me, I’m decapitating this whole thing.
Kent remembered that he had only a short while after seeing the bullet being pulled out of him before hearing the words, “spinal anesthesia,” and passing out, so he primed his brain looking for answers as to what was going on and thought hard to fight the effects of whatever sedatives he had been given. He’d made enemies, even the kind capable of putting him through whatever all this was. He had even stiffed the mafia a few times. Fame will give you the idea to fuck over the mafia, and God will give you the balls to do it.
“There is no God.”
“…but the mafia would just kill me,” Kent thought. This is all too theatrical. For a moment, he thought he was on some reality TV show. This was all too real. There is a fucking hole in his body. He wondered if the sharp featured man was behind everything. If so, Kent would make sure not to be here to see him again. Could these “doctors” be in on it? Such grandiose illusion he’d bear witness to here and trust was the first thing he abandoned. If he still believed in God, he would maybe consider this had some divine purpose. God was reason. God was purpose. God was an excuse. And now, God is dead.
Kent’s mind never wandered. It always had a destination when nurtured to fruition. His mind always went back to a time when he was too naïve or too arrogant to realize the importance of. When things felt the way they ought to. He’d think back to a time when just the sun on your face or the moon chasing you down the road was enough to feel alive. And this wasn’t God. It was just her. Andrea Morgan. Andrea and the time Kent spent with her became the measure of all things to come and all of history. If only Kent was as smart as he always thought he was, at least he wouldn’t be lying here with his guts exposed. Kent never trusted all those thoughts, feelings, and ideas normal people are supposed to have. Kent wanted the whole world to listen to him and love alone wouldn’t make that happen.
“There is no God.”
With a crunch, the bullet came out of him and clinked into a metal bowl. He knew he didn’t have much time now and took notice of his surroundings. Such heavy confusion and curious anger still infused Kent with some inherent survival ability. Two doctors left the room while a male nurse and female anesthesiologist stayed behind. The nurse leaned in over the blood covered blue smock covering Kent’s body to sew up the wound. Kent heard himself screaming while using all his strength to reach as far up as possible. He grabbed the huge surgery light and pulled it straight down using all of his weight and strength. The light’s mechanical arm screeched loudly before it crashed on the nurse’s head. The nurse’s head shot downward and unconscious into Kent’s open wound with shiny glass falling to the ground like a shattered crown. Again, Kent heard himself scream and jumped up from the bed. The anesthesiologist was quietly in shock with her back against the wall. With tubes and wires ripping out of his body, Kent shouted and pushed the rolling television stand full of machinery into her. The television on top of the stand showed the image of a camera being yanked out of a man’s stomach and toppled over while the anesthesiologist fell unconscious to the ground.
With his gunshot wound open, he grabbed handful after handful of gauze and taped it around his stomach. He went to the surgery room’s only exit and locked the door. After disrobing, Kent stripped the male nurse of his uniform and put it on. The nurse was breathing when Kent headed for the exit door. The anesthesiologist, Kent wasn’t sure of. He just knew he had to get out of this hospital in order to avoid that sharp featured psychopath and to figure things out.
Kent opened the door to the rest of the hospital and reminded himself to act naturally. This short opportunity to act somehow pleased him. He closed the door behind him and, following the elevator signs, took a left down the hall. He walked slowly at first, then heard fast foot falls nearing the surgery room he’d just escaped, and increased his pace. With each movement, his entire body burned. As he got to the elevator, he heard people rushing the surgery room. Alone in the elevator, he frantically pushed the 1 button. As the doors slid closed and the elevator began descending, a sense of relief hit him. He focused on the digital display of the floor numbers; 15,14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, **, and the elevator stopped. They must be closing all the exits, hunting me, Kent thought.
The doors slid open on the sixth floor and no one seemed to notice him there yet. From the elevator, he walked into the first empty room he could find. The room was dark, only lit by the moon through the windows and the glowing of LED lights. He paced backwards, planning, panicking, and gripping his bleeding abdomen. In the calming quiet of the room, only Kent’s heavy breathing was audible and, to him, it seemed loud enough to wake the dead. He heard a moan to the left of him. In the moonlight, only half of a heavily bandaged human head was visible. A breeze rattled a clipboard on the end of the person’s bed and Kent instinctively grabbed it.
Morgan, Andrea
D.O.B. 05/12/69
Burn Ward
Room A2
Bed #1
And, in handwritten ink underneath that, the clipboard read: Abortion clinic bombing victim. Third degree burns. 70%.
Kent dropped to the ground as security kicked the door in. His bloody hands holding his head, he whispered, “Kill me. I’m sorry.”
“There is no fucking God!!!!!!!” Kent repeated as he was tackled to the floor and stuck in the neck with a needle.
“Bishop,” a voice called to him. His mind fumbled to wake up.
“Kent! Wake the fuck up!” the voice continued.
He did wake up and tried to recognize the voice. Kent was in a hospital bed and sitting in a chair next to him was a stranger and Kent was in heavy restraints.