Most of you who know me know that I’ve been dragged kicking
and screaming into the 21st Century. It’s not that I hate tech, it’s
fine for other people. Me? I’m usually satisfied with what I have. The computer
I write this on is about twelve years old. I just recently got internet in my
home a couple of years ago. I first got a cell phone maybe five years ago.
My internet presence started because of my late magazine,
TABARD INN: TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE. Getting the name out there was just
too expensive without the aid of social media. I couldn’t get anyone to pay
attention to me except writers who wanted me to publish them. A bunch of
friends harassed me, trying to get me to join MySpace. I relented, but only
because I wanted to use it as a tool for marketing TABARD INN. I got on board
just in time for MySpace to become irrelevant. I joined Facebook for much the
same reason. I joined Twitter after the death of TI, mostly to keep my own name
out there. My blog and website are all testament to TI’s past.
Of course, social media is fun as all fuck. That helps.
But my internet presence isn’t the only thing that survives
my ill-fated publication. Back in the day, TI’s biggest audience was composed
of prisoners and mental patients. That sounds like a joke, but it isn’t. I
received more correspondence from these groups than from anyone else. It was
enough so that I started getting nervous about having TI’s address be my actual
house. There was one guy who decided that I was his agent, and he wanted me to
pay Google on his behalf so that every time someone searched for “science
fiction,” his name would come up.
The rest of the world has gotten the message: TI has closed
its doors to submissions, for now and ever. However, since the prisoners and
mental patients are locked away, word has yet to reach them. They continue to
send me submissions, or they ask for my guidelines. Every time I get a letter
from the department of corrections from anywhere in America , I know that TI has received
yet another submission.
But all of that changed when I received a letter from the
Arizona Department of Corrections. I’m not going to name this guy because I’m
afraid someone out there might read this and take him up on his offer. I doubt
I could get sued over this, since his crimes are a matter of public record, and
I have the letter he wrote and signed to me, but I just don’t want to take the
chance that someone might mistake my purpose in writing this.
This guy, shockingly enough, did NOT want to submit a story
to my defunct magazine. No, he wanted stories FROM me, in addition to any TI
writer who wanted to take him up. It would seem that he’s got a ton of money.
He wants people to send him stories, and in return, he’ll select three he likes
best and pay the writers for them. First and second place gets a thousand, and
third place gets $500. He promises that these stories will never be used for
publication, that they’re only for his “own personal reading pleasure.”
They can’t be any ol’ stories, though. Oh no. He has themes
he wants writers to follow, and anything not fitting either theme “won’t be
considered in any way shape or form.” What are these two themes, you might ask?
“The next two months are to be strickly erotic mind
controled stories with Mother or Wife is Submissive and Son, husband, stranger
male is dom or white couples where husband has a Black boss who Blackmails
white wife into submissive sex. [Too many “sic’s” to note here.]”
That’s, uh, pretty creepy. In fact, that might be the creepiest
thing anyone has ever sent to me. It’s harmless on the surface, but when one
considers the prisoner’s motives, things get a bit more intense. I have no
doubt whatsoever that this dude intends to jerk off while reading these
stories, since he starts out his letter by telling me he can’t get nudie
pictures behind bars.
Every time I get a letter from a prisoner, I research them.
They’ve all turned out to be murderers. Not serial killers, but one-and-done
killers.
This time, I jumped the gun and told fellow Napalm Assaulter
Cliff Breaux about this crazy letter I’d received before looking up my letter
writer. He immediately researched this guy and found a lot of disturbing things
about him. He was charged with nine counts of sexual assault, two counts of
sexual abuse (I’m not sure how that differs from assault, though), one count of
burglary in the 2nd degree, one count of armed robbery and, last but
not least, one count of kidnapping. Holy. Fucking. Shit. Apparently, all of
this took place over the course of two years. He was once released, and within
five days, he’d been arrested again for raping someone. Guilty of everything.
100 years from today’s date, if he lives long enough, he’ll still be in prison,
and he’ll still be looking at 11 more years behind bars.
Cliff asked me if I would write those stories for that kind
of money. No, I wouldn’t. Those stories don’t appeal to me. Don’t get me wrong,
I’ve been paid for writing porn, but I can’t let someone else dictate what I
want to write. But say we take away the specific subject matter and just say
porn. Say we take away the rap sheet. Would I write for someone in prison for
pretty fucking good money for a story? Because let’s face it, writers get paid
shit. A thousand bucks for a story? That’s mighty enticing for a guy who
usually gets paid between $25-50 for a short story.
That question’s a bit harder. Ultimately, I don’t think I
would. My conscience would trouble me too much. Sure, I’d be the one
financially benefiting from such an arrangement, but I don’t think I could
bring myself to bring such sexual satisfaction to a guy in prison. I’ve done a
lot of awful things for money, but I don’t think I could ever forgive myself
for being such a whore. Besides, who knows what kind of fantasies I’d be
fueling?
Well, in this guy’s case, I know. He says he’s got a bunch
of friends already writing stories for him, and it disgusts me to think about
the kind of person who would do this. But he’s aware of how fucked he is, since
he ends his missive in this self-righteous way: “If your not interested thats fine
to, theres lots of places like yours who will understand my money is as green
as the next persons. [Again, too many “sic’s” to mention.]
I always prided myself on the fact that TABARD INN was an
oasis for extreme writers, unafraid of tackling any subject, no matter how
gruesome or questionable, but I found my limit when this guy wrote to me.
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