Cancel Toby Chalmers!: Chapters 8 and 9
Well, since my novelette Cancel Toby Chalmers! (copyright me, now) has been sitting around, completed, for nearly 16 months, I’ve decided to share it for free, until it’s later released as part of a Toby Chalmers collection.
Here are Chapters 1-3: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Here are Chapters 4 and 5: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Here's Chapter 6: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Here's Chapter 7: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Here are Chapters 8 and 9.
Chapter 8
Yet again, his grip on his dwindling optimism weakening by the moment, Toby visited his Amazon Author Page. Only self-published efforts met his gaze.
He’d released improved edits of Fleshless Fingers and all of his bizarro books, and put together another collection, Mementoes of Madness II, to showcase his short fiction. Not being particularly artistic, he’d culled his cellphone gallery for drunkenly-shot photos of landscapes, spoiled fruit, stars and roadkill, and fashioned makeshift cover designs from them. Sadly, none of his efforts had resulted in so much as a single sale.
There’d been plenty of ratings and reviews, though, both on Amazon and Goodreads, each bearing but a single star out of five. None of the reviewers had bothered to read so much as a word of his prose, it seemed. They wrote, “Don’t buy from this racist,” “Each dollar spent on Toby Chalmers’ fiction gives Hitler’s ghost a boner,” “Nazi writers, fuck off,” and similar single-sentence contributions. Many listed black authors who consumers should consider, as if Toby was actively attempting to oppose such individuals. Some of the reviewers’ names he recognized, editors and authors now united against him.
Toby had deactivated his every social media account, hoping that his detractors would find someone new to disparage. But successive searches of his name continued to summon fresh vitriol. Alleged anarchists wanted him arrested. So-called liberals were calling for his suicide.
Only black-hating racists, none of whom had the slightest bit of interest in reading his fiction, defended him. They seemed to have adopted Toby as a member of the far right, though he’d never so much as registered to vote, out of disgust with both political parties.
“Don’t do it,” Toby muttered now, even as he visited social media and searched for his name yet again. The top result, new to him, had already attained over two million views, hundreds of thousands of likes, and thousands of replies and reposts. Wow, that’s the smuggest avatar photo that I’ve ever seen, Toby thought. This dude looks like he had his own cock removed, just so he could blow himself every time he sits down to pee. Why’s he wearing a dashiki? He’s whiter than I am. Joseph McCarthy Jr., huh. Runs Transylvoria, apparently. Didn’t I send that magazine a review copy of Fleshless Fingers all those years ago? Never heard back from ’em, or read an issue of theirs, for that matter. What’s this douche have to say about me?
He read:
A CALL TO ACTION
Hello, hi, and howdy again, my beautifully diverse followers. ’Tis I, your ally in all equality efforts, your genial genius, your longtime pal-o-roony, Transylvoria Joe. By now, you must know that I’d never let a single day go by without connecting with you, my horror brethren. And boy, do I have a sermon for you now.
Remember those terrible days when the literary community eschewed censorship? Straight, cisgender, racially challenged males filled books with their rightwing ideology and profited, flaunting their collective privilege in everyone’s faces. Perpetuating white supremacy, gender inequality, heteronormativity, and even worse, gender binarism, they gave us heroes only they could relate to. Ooh, I’m shaking just thinking about it.
When those authors filled their books with hate speech, claiming that they were practicing idiomatic realism, we, as a society, actually nodded our heads and said, “Well, I guess that makes sense.” Boy, were we ever wrong.
Those straight, cisgender, racially challenged males had us all fooled, you see. They wrote bigoted characters so well because they’re bigots themselves. Those of them who became editors only published people just like them. That’s why we at Transylvoria, along with countless likeminded horror fanatics, have spent the last few years pushing those has-beens aside, so that diverse authors can finally stand up and take their well-deserved bows.
Indeed, we’ve taken great strides forward in abolishing literary inequality. But if you think that it’s time to rest on our laurels, to abandon our egalitarian efforts and let the old guard strike back, I say to you not today!
Think about it for a moment. Sure, most straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male authors have seen their books go out of print. And most right-thinking publishers will no longer consider such men for publication. The problem is, with the self-publishing tools available these days, anyone can invent a publisher on the spot and self-publish whatever they want.
This means that straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male authors can reprint their old fiction, and even print new fiction, with impunity, and steal sales away from the far more deserving diverse authors. It’s sickening, really. One Stephen King is enough!
The onus is on us, united, to balance the scales in the horror lit scene. Books by straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male authors other than Stephen King must be removed from circulation, permanently. Libraries and book retailers, both online and brick and mortar, must be urged to destroy all such books in their possession immediately and never restock them.
No longer should straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male authors be allowed to self-publish horror fiction. No longer should they post short stories to their blogs or social media accounts. Their books’ Goodreads listings should be deleted, as should all mentions of them online. In fact, these guys should never be allowed to refer to themselves as authors again.
We can erase the literary scene’s past mistakes, one straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male author at a time. For our first target, I nominate Toby Chalmers. The man unequivocally stated that he hates black people. Well, we love black people and hate Toby Chalmers.
Contact Amazon today, all of you. Tell them that you’ll boycott their company if Toby Chalmers’ books aren’t removed from publication. Start a petition. March in the street. Recruit others to our cause. Silence anyone who stands up for Toby Chalmers.
As always, Transylvoria pride forever. I platonically love each and every one of you. Air kisses all around.
“Air kisses all around,” Toby muttered. “What a piece of shit.” Can this man and his lickspittles really do it? he wondered. Can they erase every trace of my fiction, make it as if I never wrote anything?
As he read reply after reply praising Joseph McCarthy Jr. and his position, and denigrating Toby as if he was Hitler reincarnated, the notion seemed far less than impossible. All of these insane, wretched fascists masquerading as liberals, he thought, shaking his head. How did society ever devolve to this?
My books can’t just disappear. I’ll beat cancel culture, somehow. For the moment, I’d better stockpile author copies of my books while they’re still in print. Guess it’s time to spend some money on this “career” of mine. Yippee.
Chapter 9
“Hey, Shadrach, someone’s callin’ me. Why don’t you run into the store and grab us some juice boxes and pickle-flavored cashews. Here’s twenty bucks. With the leftover money, you can buy some candy or a magazine, or whatever you want.”
“I don’t hear your phone ringing.”
“It’s on silent mode.”
Suspiciously, Shadrach squinted at his least favorite person, as Joe slid his phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear. “You’ve got Joe,” he greeted. “Oh, hey there, buddy. What’s the good word?” His free hand made a shooing motion.
Reluctantly, Shadrach emerged from the Prius. What’s this psycho up to now? he wondered. His phone screen was dark. No one was calling him.
Thus far, Joe had limited his domination games to his own private property, but there was a first time for everything, and Shadrach didn’t trust him one iota. There were fourteen vehicles in the parking lot. Would anyone protect Shadrach if Joe went on the offensive again?
He entered the supermarket and grabbed a shopping basket. Rightward, flies buzzed in the produce section. Leftward, oldsters lingered to converse with cashiers, though their groceries were already bagged. Those sonances seemed strangely subdued.
The pickle-flavored cashews and juice boxes were easy enough to find—Shadrach had accompanied his uncle on many a shopping errand—and he wasn’t in the mood to purchase anything for himself. Still, the air conditioning felt good on his skin, and he was in no hurry to return to his uncle’s side, so he wandered from aisle to aisle, avoiding the eyes of his fellow shoppers.
Suddenly, just as Shadrach strode past shelves of dry noodles, a stiff forefinger met his shoulder. “Are you gonna buy anything, nigger?” hissed a voice in his ear.
Reluctantly pivoting on his heels, the boy beheld his uncle. Joe had changed his clothes in the car. The black hat and zipped-up windbreaker he now wore were emblazoned with the word SECURITY. Coiled tubing ascended from his collar to a phony earpiece.
Blushing furiously, more embarrassed than he’d ever been, Shadrach begged, “Please don’t do this.”
“I asked you a question, boy! We’ve had a report of theft on these premises! Do you plan to pay for those groceries?!”
Other shoppers had drifted over to observe the spectacle. Shadrach couldn’t read their expressions through his sudden tears.
“I…I have twenty dollars,” he whined, pulling the bill from his pocket.
“Dirty, stinkin’, thievin’ nigger! Twenty dollars was the exact amount reported stolen! I knew by the look of you that you were no good! Put down those groceries and put your hands behind your back!”
“Oh…I’m sorry, Uncle Jojo. I’ll be good from now on. I’ll only laugh at what you say I can laugh at. You don’t have to do this to me.”
“Save it for your court date, nigger! Put down those fuckin’ groceries! Put your fuckin’ hands behind your back! Right fuckin’ now!” Joe now brandished handcuffs and grinned from ear to ear.
Supermarket employees joined the shoppers at both ends of the aisle, swelling the audience to two dozen Caucasians, all of whom crept steadily closer.
“Um, excuse me, what’s all this about?” one elderly mop-gripper queried, squinting through cat eye glasses.
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Joe, “this here’s my nephew. He was actin’ like a racist so I’m teaching him empathy for black people. He’s experiencing but a taste of what they’ve endured in this country for so long. Soon, he’ll love his fellow humans as much as I do.”
Surely, someone will stand up for me now, Shadrach thought, sniffling. They’ll call over a real security guard and get my uncle the help he needs. Maybe my mom can leave rehab early and take care of me again.
But as the grocery basket was torn from his grasp, as his arms were pinned behind his back so that his wrists could be handcuffed, as he was led from the store and shoved into the back seat of his uncle’s Prius, all Shadrach heard was a slow clap evolving into full-blown applause.
* * *
After lunch, after dinner, after tearful trembling in the bathtub until its water grew chilly, Shadrach raged his way across Joe’s guestroom, shrieking into a pillow that he held over his mouth. Grace Jones’ Vamp character bared her fangs on framed posters all around him. Shadrach wished that she’d climb into reality to make a meal of his uncle.
The room, which he’d been staying in ever since his mom entered rehab, always smelled like rotted onions and bad milk, no matter how wide he opened its window. If ever it had been vacuumed, he’d never witnessed it. Neither had the bedsheets been washed, nor the cobwebs swept from the ceiling corners, since his arrival. Shadrach wouldn’t miss the place, he decided.
He’d swiped a garbage bag from the garage, which he now filled with clothes, everything but his hated Transylvoria attire. With grim satisfaction, he kicked the window screen from its frame. He wanted to punch holes into the walls and urinate onto the carpet, but feared that his uncle would burst into the room at any minute and chain him to the bed.
“Fuck you, Uncle Joseph,” Shadrach muttered, climbing out of the window, into the night. “I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.”
Here are Chapters 1-3: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Here are Chapters 4 and 5: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Here's Chapter 6: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Here's Chapter 7: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Here are Chapters 8 and 9.
Chapter 8
Yet again, his grip on his dwindling optimism weakening by the moment, Toby visited his Amazon Author Page. Only self-published efforts met his gaze.
He’d released improved edits of Fleshless Fingers and all of his bizarro books, and put together another collection, Mementoes of Madness II, to showcase his short fiction. Not being particularly artistic, he’d culled his cellphone gallery for drunkenly-shot photos of landscapes, spoiled fruit, stars and roadkill, and fashioned makeshift cover designs from them. Sadly, none of his efforts had resulted in so much as a single sale.
There’d been plenty of ratings and reviews, though, both on Amazon and Goodreads, each bearing but a single star out of five. None of the reviewers had bothered to read so much as a word of his prose, it seemed. They wrote, “Don’t buy from this racist,” “Each dollar spent on Toby Chalmers’ fiction gives Hitler’s ghost a boner,” “Nazi writers, fuck off,” and similar single-sentence contributions. Many listed black authors who consumers should consider, as if Toby was actively attempting to oppose such individuals. Some of the reviewers’ names he recognized, editors and authors now united against him.
Toby had deactivated his every social media account, hoping that his detractors would find someone new to disparage. But successive searches of his name continued to summon fresh vitriol. Alleged anarchists wanted him arrested. So-called liberals were calling for his suicide.
Only black-hating racists, none of whom had the slightest bit of interest in reading his fiction, defended him. They seemed to have adopted Toby as a member of the far right, though he’d never so much as registered to vote, out of disgust with both political parties.
“Don’t do it,” Toby muttered now, even as he visited social media and searched for his name yet again. The top result, new to him, had already attained over two million views, hundreds of thousands of likes, and thousands of replies and reposts. Wow, that’s the smuggest avatar photo that I’ve ever seen, Toby thought. This dude looks like he had his own cock removed, just so he could blow himself every time he sits down to pee. Why’s he wearing a dashiki? He’s whiter than I am. Joseph McCarthy Jr., huh. Runs Transylvoria, apparently. Didn’t I send that magazine a review copy of Fleshless Fingers all those years ago? Never heard back from ’em, or read an issue of theirs, for that matter. What’s this douche have to say about me?
He read:
A CALL TO ACTION
Hello, hi, and howdy again, my beautifully diverse followers. ’Tis I, your ally in all equality efforts, your genial genius, your longtime pal-o-roony, Transylvoria Joe. By now, you must know that I’d never let a single day go by without connecting with you, my horror brethren. And boy, do I have a sermon for you now.
Remember those terrible days when the literary community eschewed censorship? Straight, cisgender, racially challenged males filled books with their rightwing ideology and profited, flaunting their collective privilege in everyone’s faces. Perpetuating white supremacy, gender inequality, heteronormativity, and even worse, gender binarism, they gave us heroes only they could relate to. Ooh, I’m shaking just thinking about it.
When those authors filled their books with hate speech, claiming that they were practicing idiomatic realism, we, as a society, actually nodded our heads and said, “Well, I guess that makes sense.” Boy, were we ever wrong.
Those straight, cisgender, racially challenged males had us all fooled, you see. They wrote bigoted characters so well because they’re bigots themselves. Those of them who became editors only published people just like them. That’s why we at Transylvoria, along with countless likeminded horror fanatics, have spent the last few years pushing those has-beens aside, so that diverse authors can finally stand up and take their well-deserved bows.
Indeed, we’ve taken great strides forward in abolishing literary inequality. But if you think that it’s time to rest on our laurels, to abandon our egalitarian efforts and let the old guard strike back, I say to you not today!
Think about it for a moment. Sure, most straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male authors have seen their books go out of print. And most right-thinking publishers will no longer consider such men for publication. The problem is, with the self-publishing tools available these days, anyone can invent a publisher on the spot and self-publish whatever they want.
This means that straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male authors can reprint their old fiction, and even print new fiction, with impunity, and steal sales away from the far more deserving diverse authors. It’s sickening, really. One Stephen King is enough!
The onus is on us, united, to balance the scales in the horror lit scene. Books by straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male authors other than Stephen King must be removed from circulation, permanently. Libraries and book retailers, both online and brick and mortar, must be urged to destroy all such books in their possession immediately and never restock them.
No longer should straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male authors be allowed to self-publish horror fiction. No longer should they post short stories to their blogs or social media accounts. Their books’ Goodreads listings should be deleted, as should all mentions of them online. In fact, these guys should never be allowed to refer to themselves as authors again.
We can erase the literary scene’s past mistakes, one straight, cisgender, racially challenged, male author at a time. For our first target, I nominate Toby Chalmers. The man unequivocally stated that he hates black people. Well, we love black people and hate Toby Chalmers.
Contact Amazon today, all of you. Tell them that you’ll boycott their company if Toby Chalmers’ books aren’t removed from publication. Start a petition. March in the street. Recruit others to our cause. Silence anyone who stands up for Toby Chalmers.
As always, Transylvoria pride forever. I platonically love each and every one of you. Air kisses all around.
“Air kisses all around,” Toby muttered. “What a piece of shit.” Can this man and his lickspittles really do it? he wondered. Can they erase every trace of my fiction, make it as if I never wrote anything?
As he read reply after reply praising Joseph McCarthy Jr. and his position, and denigrating Toby as if he was Hitler reincarnated, the notion seemed far less than impossible. All of these insane, wretched fascists masquerading as liberals, he thought, shaking his head. How did society ever devolve to this?
My books can’t just disappear. I’ll beat cancel culture, somehow. For the moment, I’d better stockpile author copies of my books while they’re still in print. Guess it’s time to spend some money on this “career” of mine. Yippee.
Chapter 9
“Hey, Shadrach, someone’s callin’ me. Why don’t you run into the store and grab us some juice boxes and pickle-flavored cashews. Here’s twenty bucks. With the leftover money, you can buy some candy or a magazine, or whatever you want.”
“I don’t hear your phone ringing.”
“It’s on silent mode.”
Suspiciously, Shadrach squinted at his least favorite person, as Joe slid his phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear. “You’ve got Joe,” he greeted. “Oh, hey there, buddy. What’s the good word?” His free hand made a shooing motion.
Reluctantly, Shadrach emerged from the Prius. What’s this psycho up to now? he wondered. His phone screen was dark. No one was calling him.
Thus far, Joe had limited his domination games to his own private property, but there was a first time for everything, and Shadrach didn’t trust him one iota. There were fourteen vehicles in the parking lot. Would anyone protect Shadrach if Joe went on the offensive again?
He entered the supermarket and grabbed a shopping basket. Rightward, flies buzzed in the produce section. Leftward, oldsters lingered to converse with cashiers, though their groceries were already bagged. Those sonances seemed strangely subdued.
The pickle-flavored cashews and juice boxes were easy enough to find—Shadrach had accompanied his uncle on many a shopping errand—and he wasn’t in the mood to purchase anything for himself. Still, the air conditioning felt good on his skin, and he was in no hurry to return to his uncle’s side, so he wandered from aisle to aisle, avoiding the eyes of his fellow shoppers.
Suddenly, just as Shadrach strode past shelves of dry noodles, a stiff forefinger met his shoulder. “Are you gonna buy anything, nigger?” hissed a voice in his ear.
Reluctantly pivoting on his heels, the boy beheld his uncle. Joe had changed his clothes in the car. The black hat and zipped-up windbreaker he now wore were emblazoned with the word SECURITY. Coiled tubing ascended from his collar to a phony earpiece.
Blushing furiously, more embarrassed than he’d ever been, Shadrach begged, “Please don’t do this.”
“I asked you a question, boy! We’ve had a report of theft on these premises! Do you plan to pay for those groceries?!”
Other shoppers had drifted over to observe the spectacle. Shadrach couldn’t read their expressions through his sudden tears.
“I…I have twenty dollars,” he whined, pulling the bill from his pocket.
“Dirty, stinkin’, thievin’ nigger! Twenty dollars was the exact amount reported stolen! I knew by the look of you that you were no good! Put down those groceries and put your hands behind your back!”
“Oh…I’m sorry, Uncle Jojo. I’ll be good from now on. I’ll only laugh at what you say I can laugh at. You don’t have to do this to me.”
“Save it for your court date, nigger! Put down those fuckin’ groceries! Put your fuckin’ hands behind your back! Right fuckin’ now!” Joe now brandished handcuffs and grinned from ear to ear.
Supermarket employees joined the shoppers at both ends of the aisle, swelling the audience to two dozen Caucasians, all of whom crept steadily closer.
“Um, excuse me, what’s all this about?” one elderly mop-gripper queried, squinting through cat eye glasses.
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Joe, “this here’s my nephew. He was actin’ like a racist so I’m teaching him empathy for black people. He’s experiencing but a taste of what they’ve endured in this country for so long. Soon, he’ll love his fellow humans as much as I do.”
Surely, someone will stand up for me now, Shadrach thought, sniffling. They’ll call over a real security guard and get my uncle the help he needs. Maybe my mom can leave rehab early and take care of me again.
But as the grocery basket was torn from his grasp, as his arms were pinned behind his back so that his wrists could be handcuffed, as he was led from the store and shoved into the back seat of his uncle’s Prius, all Shadrach heard was a slow clap evolving into full-blown applause.
* * *
After lunch, after dinner, after tearful trembling in the bathtub until its water grew chilly, Shadrach raged his way across Joe’s guestroom, shrieking into a pillow that he held over his mouth. Grace Jones’ Vamp character bared her fangs on framed posters all around him. Shadrach wished that she’d climb into reality to make a meal of his uncle.
The room, which he’d been staying in ever since his mom entered rehab, always smelled like rotted onions and bad milk, no matter how wide he opened its window. If ever it had been vacuumed, he’d never witnessed it. Neither had the bedsheets been washed, nor the cobwebs swept from the ceiling corners, since his arrival. Shadrach wouldn’t miss the place, he decided.
He’d swiped a garbage bag from the garage, which he now filled with clothes, everything but his hated Transylvoria attire. With grim satisfaction, he kicked the window screen from its frame. He wanted to punch holes into the walls and urinate onto the carpet, but feared that his uncle would burst into the room at any minute and chain him to the bed.
“Fuck you, Uncle Joseph,” Shadrach muttered, climbing out of the window, into the night. “I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.”
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