The Seven Deadly Sins

by Corey Taylor

  We have been taught to live with what we know. We are just minions of the past, hauling baggage we have no idea we are carrying and have no clue where it came from. The duties of living are given to mistakes we never made and hamper our abilities to learn from the mistakes we are going to make. But that is the cycle: We are too busy fixing things behind us while simultaneously missing the things we are breaking in our own path. So I think we should turn around and pay attention to the road. The past is like ornery children in the backseat: You know it is a mess back there, but you have to keep your eyes on the highway. You can curse and throw threats, but nothing is going to change what is behind you—you can only control what you see. That is what I think a new deadly list can do: Give us a modern reminder with a classic tint. By upgrading the Seven Deadly Sins, we are embracing the original list as human inevitability. We are all those things—greedy, gluttonous, angry, vain, envious, lazy, and horny—and more. We are flawed and perfect. We are miracles of commonality. We just need to lift the guilt from our emotions and put it on a set of true sins. Is this perfect? Hardly. Is it credible? Of course it is.

  There is going to come a time when we have to accept who we are without the assistance of religion. That will be the dawn of true faith. We leave the big decisions to invisible consultants and pray we get the answers we are looking for. You might as well flip a coin. The late great George Carlin once said he gave up praying to God and started praying to Joe Pesci because his prayers to Joe Pesci were answered with as much accuracy and frequency as those to God. He had a great point. I will not try to outdo his genius, but I will say this: Great minds had the insight to look for answers from the gods. They had the intellect and necessity to coin the Seven Deadly Sins. In this day and age, we need to look beyond the virginal approach to how we treated our instincts. If we need a list of Seven Deadly Sins, let them say exactly what they need to. If we as people are still looking for answers, we should turn our eyes away from the heavens and look to each other. I know we do not play well together—hell, some of us do not even like being in the same room with each other—but the divine lies in all of us. We are miracles. We are “god.” If we shared a little more, we would not be left feeling less. We hold the keys to our own destinies. It is time we started looking for the locks.

  chapter 11

  The Dramatic Conclusion

  Dear Readers,

  We apologize for the interruption, but we thought we should at least warn you before you went any further. You see, the author has taken poetic license a little too far in this last chapter.

  What follows is Mr. Taylor’s original ending. When we suggested to him it was not only implausible but also completely out of context with the subject matter, he immediately started to hurl whiskey bottles and soft toys at us in an attempt to do harm to our persons. After a lengthy discussion and a few strange requests (one being a vintage Darth Vader costume from 1978), Mr. Taylor acquiesced to our demands for an alternate ending if we first include his original. As per our agreement, here it is slightly edited for time and out of fear of prosecution. Thank you for understanding our position.

  —ANONYMOUS

  In a hail of glass and poisoned darts, I exploded out of the tenth-story window, spinning like Louganis in midair while clinging to the documents I had just stolen from a secret locker hidden deep within the last place anyone would think to look for information of that nature: the Capitol Records building in Hollywood, California. After a clandestine meeting with members of an ultra-conservative sect of the Moonies, I had stumbled onto the pieces of the puzzle that were about to blow this case wide open. Unfortunately, my escape was nearly thwarted by an elite mercenary team that had been hired by a clandestine adversary known only as the “Shadow Man” to keep me not only from revealing the contents of the documents to an unsuspecting world but also to keep me from evading capture any longer. Having no other choice but to hurl myself through inches of seemingly unbreakable high-rise glass, I let gravity hold me in its icy cold grip for what felt like an eternity before deploying my camouflaged Urban Parachute from underneath my Josh Groban hooded sweatshirt. As I floated down to safety, I could still hear the cursing from hundreds of feet above me, the sounds telling me that I had shot the gap and remained unscathed. I landed, bent my knees to take a little of the impact, cut my chute loose, and cast one long look up to where I had just come from. “One more for America,” I thought to myself silently.

  I made my way to my high-end but fairly inexpensive Toyota parked a few blocks away in a zone that had a two-hour window on Sundays and a fifteen-minute opportunity on Labor Day. So I was surprised when I noticed the ticket glaring at me from underneath my windshield wipers. Those sick bastards. . .I plucked it from my automotive sanctum sanctorum and, with a malicious grin, crumpled it into an oblong paper baseball, discarding it into a stream of water flowing toward one of the city’s many sufficient drain openings. For a dangerous second, I allowed myself to watch its journey like a capsized ship on a raging rapid hurtling in the direction of the deadly falls. “One more for America. . .again,” I reminded myself. I also made a mental note to explore other catchphrase possibilities.

  My thoughts ran to that fateful meeting on the patio of one of my most trusted compatriots. He had brokered the rendezvous at great risk, as his wife was having friends over for Bridge and Tequila Night. So this tête-à-tête would be sequestered to the backyard and a generous portion of the concrete driveway. If my friend’s wife happened to come across us while she roamed the house looking for more margaritas, we were to explain to her that “we were the caterers.” As he snuck back inside to provide subterfuge, I scanned the faces of those assembled before me and, deciding against caution, cut to the quick with a hard-hitting direct question.

  “What the fuck, dudes?”

  “We can dispense with formalities, sir. We know who you are and we are aware of what you seek.”

  “Goody for you fuckers. Say what you came to say.”

  “We are not your enemies, sir. We fight the same cause.”

  “Fight? Are we going to have a problem now?”

  There were ten of them and one of me—hellish odds, even for a man who was a trained master of several direct-to-video styles of martial arts. I squinted against the dying light to show them I meant business. I bore my teeth in a vicious smear of a grimace that hopefully disguised the fact that I had gas. I could not let my occasional irregularity get the best of me—not in a situation of life or death. So I continued to stare at them as if I were reading their minds, which I could if I really wanted to but I did not feel like it at that moment. That jostled something in them, for they got right to the point.

  “That which you are searching for is not far; in fact, it is mere minutes away.”

  “Tell me.”

  “There is a place dark and forbidden to us, a place that takes a form so vile to our way of life we dare not describe it lest our tongues curl to black and fall from our mouths like old chewing gum.”

  “That is a very visual and gross way of putting it.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I need answers, damn it!” My patience was wearing thin, and as much as I would have loved to hang out and admire their matching handmade velour tracksuits, I had business that night, and that business meant. . .business.

  “Wait no further, sir. Come closer, and we will give you the details you need.”

  That had been a few hours ago. After tracking down a building that to them resembled “a stack of plastic ass pancakes or records or something,” I had broken in, retrieved the analog files, and was about to press the elevator button when I had stumbled into the Shadow Man’s little surprise party. The crack squad were armed with riot guns and scatter shot. I had just enough time to see them thumbing back the safeties when I made a beeline for the nearest window. Now I was on the street and ready to run.

  I swung behind the Toyota Celica’s wheel and fired it up fast. The Toyota, or Myrtle as I had affectionately christ
ened her last week when I rented it, jumped at the chance for action. I threw her into gear and sped to the only place I knew that was safe, the last place on earth that a gang of merciless killers would think to look for a rogue fugitive with sensitive materials they were trying to retrieve: the Starbucks on Franklin. But I could not find it on my GPS Points of Interest setting so I was obliged to head for the Rainbow Bar and Grill. Just enough time to tuck myself upstairs and out of sight in the upper bar, but that posed a problem, one of utmost importance—I was getting extremely hungry. If I decided to eat there I would have to go downstairs to the restaurant, as there were no tables suitable for dining in the upper club. And in all my years of frequenting the joint, I would not let a little thing like the threat of assassination stand between me and their world-famous Chicken Caesar salad.

  But there would be time to figure out what I was going to order later. I slid my cell phone from my jacket pocket and dialed Gorby’s number. Gorby was my tech specialist and I knew I would need his help now more than ever before. Skilled in every form of digital defense known to man, he would help me maneuver through the next few obstacles with a few keystrokes and some savvy pieces of advice. “Come on, man, do me a solid,” I muttered under my breath. After a few rings, he answered. “Hello?”

  “Gorby, it’s me!”

  “What the fuck, dude?”

  “No time for that now. Listen, I have the documents.”

  Silence. “Uhh. . .what documents?”

  “The secret documents I got from the meeting with the Moonies!”

  More silence. “What is a Moonie?”

  “I have everything I need to bust this case wide open!”

  “Dude, are you high or something?”

  “Gorby, I do not have time to explain. I need your technical wizardry on this. Do me a favor and go to the computer.”

  There was deafening quiet as he performed the task. Seconds felt like prison sentences. “Damn your eyes, man! Hurry!!”

  “Okay, what do you need?”

  “Look up the restaurant menu at the Rainbow, would you please?”

  Dear Readers,

  Once again we apologize for yet another interruption, but we could not take anymore.

  That was the extent of the original ending we felt obliged to allow out for public consumption. As you can tell, though slightly entertaining, it is almost too strange even for us. You should see the rest of it—at one point he has himself in a dirt pit fighting an ostrich and an elephant that have, of course, been equipped with weapons. Fear not, PETA—they were unharmed in the end and were obviously being controlled by the Shadow Man, who turns out to be the ghost of Don Knotts for a reason that is never explained.

  Artists, man. . . .

  Anyway, here is the alternate revised ending he promised us, and even though it has no explosions or deadly animals, we are sure you will enjoy it just as much. Once again, thank you for putting up with this last chapter.

  —STILL ANONYMOUS

  So that is my book! I know you are complaining that there were not enough photographs of Betty White, but I personally do not know Ms. White so pictures of her in my book would not make sense, nor do I know who represents her at this time, although I would love to work with her! Her role in Lake Placid was fucking hilarious! Shit, where was I. . . .

  Dear Readers,

  Apparently Mr. Taylor was not listening when we cautioned him against this the first time. We have contacted him and he has again promised to reign himself in and finish the book in a more appropriate manner. We apologize to Betty White for her reference in what could have been a promising ending. . .although we do have to agree that Ms. White did indeed kick a lot of ass in—. Her one-liners are priceless! Shit, where were we. . . .

  Oh yes—here is the real ending and we hope we do not have to interrupt again.

  —WHO ARE WE KIDDING?

  So that is my book! I truly hope you enjoyed it. I know it was heavy in some spots, but life happens, you know? The episodes I described all happened, for whatever reason. I have no regrets for living through them so you should have no regrets for reading about them. I do not know if you noticed, but it apparently did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm or my optimism. I am a silly bent genius with crazy fingers and antsy legs who craves attention and loves an adoring audience. And if there is anyone out there who is incredulous at the fact that this skinny Midwestern fuck up is successful, you are not alone: No one is more surprised and bemused about it than I am. There are days I still cannot believe I get away with some of this shit. There are also days when I truly believe my karma has caught up with me and I can feel the kick in my nut sack. Then again, maybe that is what qualifies me to write this book. You cannot write a book about birds if you have not studied them in HD for a prolonged period of time. So, consequently, you should not be able to write an entire rambling homage to the Seven Deadly Sins without wearing a few of them on your shirt like Cub Scout badges, right?

  Besides, my “sins” are well under control, at least as far as the old seven are concerned. No gluttony, no greed, no rage (well, not much), no vanity, no sloth, no envy, and no lust—well, maybe just a hint of lust. So I am doing okay right now. But that is not to say I will not be awash in these and other human consistencies on another day in the near future. As I have alluded to elsewhere, our idiosyncrasies are what make strangers seem like family. I know one book is not going to make a dent in the theocracy that is planet earth. Hell, I am fairly certain the first thing NASA will do if we colonize the moon is build a fucking church there. I can see the taglines now: “Our congregation is closer to heaven than the rest!” Dear sweet-gravy Jesus, not for nothing, but most times you religious folk are really fucking annoying. I am dangerously close to plunging back into the old seven, and I would hate to lie to you at this point, so I will just keep my cool at least until the last page. But once the book is finished, I make no promises.

  I am also nowhere near the New Seven, except for maybe the bad music, but now you are just getting into semantics and that is thankfully a matter of opinion. I am not a hit with certain people, but to each his own. I like it, so fuck it. In all seriousness, I have never killed anyone. I have never raped anyone. I have never nor will ever harm a child. I have not stolen anything in a long time. I have not lied to anyone I really care about since 2006, and I have never tortured anyone who did not deserve it. I am a creative force with a hungry intellectual chasm so I am prone to distraction and immersion in ideas and unsung music. I can get stuck in my own head sometimes, but I have become very adept at pulling myself back to Life as We Know It when it comes to my children, my wife, and the rest of my family at large. Call me kooky, but it seems like I am doing pretty good for a person who once stuck his dick in an orange for $26. Don’t judge me—it was a Halloween meet-and-greet backstage. Besides, they paid me in change, those cheap pricks.

  As for Dante’s Infernal list, it has been dissected, dismantled, and debunked to the point where there is not much dirt left to kick in its face. I am proud to say my first book may become my favorite; if I am lucky to write more, they may suffer in comparison. Even if my grandmother is the only person who buys a copy, I stand behind every word. Knowing my Gram, she will buy a hundred copies. She did the same thing when I was selling candy bars for my bowling team years ago. Plus she took all the order forms to work with her and bullied all her co-workers into buying a shit ton as well. You have to love a devoted grandmother, people. She is the best person in the world to me. She will object to the raciness and obscenity of this book, but that will not stop her from loving me, being proud, and cleaning out the nearest Barnes & Noble. And as a good heretical grandson, I will bake her a cake on her birthday.

  Look at me: assuming my first book will be in Barnes & Noble. Maybe I am a little more vain than I thought. But hey, fuck it. If you are going to have expectations, you might as well have gigantic ones. There is the old adage “expect the worst and hope for the best.” That is a good way to look at li
fe. So I hope my book makes it onto a few shelves. But I expect it will end up burnt in some Lutheran parking lot. It would not be the first time I had a burning sensation in a church driveway. Yep, I said it. I will spell it: C-L-A-P. I will take “Unexpected Sexual Byproducts” for 400, Alex. I just pray to Allah it is not the fucking Daily Double.

  Anyway, in conclusion, with all due respect to the plaintiffs, defendants, judges, juries, evidence, and impassioned debates established in the literature therein. . . what the bloody fuck do I know? I think I have made it painfully obvious that when I am not talking out of my ass, I am pulling miracles out of it. So why the hell should any of you even give my misguided musings a second fucking once-over? Well for starters, I have firsthand experience. I have no degrees, no diplomas, no doctorates, or any other slip of paper that is mainly used to make other people feel superior to others. I guess I could have printed at least one sketchy credential out and forged some signatures, but that would not be very honest. Plus they would clash with my Miss Piggy collectors’ cups that I have given valuable knick-knack space to in my living room. Seriously though, I have seen a lot and I have learned even more. I can make educated guesses with the best of them. So I am nothing more than a professional observer, an armchair journalist, and a cynical fuck. But that does not mean I am wrong. In fact, I know I am not.