{"id":3685,"date":"2024-01-11T12:44:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T17:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=3685"},"modified":"2024-02-14T08:13:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T13:13:25","slug":"new-horror-story-can-the-masters-tools-dismantle-the-masters-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2024\/01\/new-horror-story-can-the-masters-tools-dismantle-the-masters-house\/","title":{"rendered":"New Horror Story: “Can the Master\u2019s Tools Dismantle the Master\u2019s House?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(This story is brought to you by the generosity of my Patreon patrons<\/a>. Supporters get access to exclusive horror and SF stories, an odd short film, and more.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author’s Note<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

“Can the Master’s Tools Dismantle the Master’s House?” asks the truly pressing question of our time: Should I bring home that rag doll my wife and I found while checking out the fall foliage?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote this story almost four years ago. It\u2019s my COVID story and, in a way, my George Floyd\/BLM story\u2014albeit one more about privilege than race. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started submitting it for publication (about 6 months into the pandemic) it was turned down as being \u201ctoo soon\/too topical.\u201d Several editors (each of whom have bought longer stories from me since) said basically the same thing: this is too of-the-moment; it won’t age well, or necessarily even really make sense in a few months. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Book<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

But the thing is, all the stuff I feel like I was talking about in this story, it hasn\u2019t gotten better. If anything, it\u2019s gotten worse. Time hasn’t healed these wounds much at all.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the story has gotten no closer to publication. Usually, I\u2019d just assume a story that doesn\u2019t sell after four years and dozens of submissions simply isn’t a good story. I’ve written not-good stories. They seem like a good idea at the time, but you look at them again after the twelfth “Thanks, but this isn’t a good fit for us” and realize that the idea might have been good, but your execution isn’t.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here’s the thing: I honestly don’t believe this is a bad story. I think it’s a good story. But I also think it’s a really uncomfortable story, in a way that’s gotten even more uncomfortable in the last four years. (I also have past experience with that: writing stories that are extremely uncomfortable for most readers, and not understanding that until the story has been rejected a few times and some kind soul finally explains what’s glaringly obvious to everyone but me That’s what happened with one of my earliest sales, “Exit Exam, Section III: Survival Skills, Question #7<\/a>.”)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, “Can the Master’s Tools\u2026” might just be a bad story. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, it\u2019s short. I\u2019d be interested in hearing what you have to say about it. I\u2019m on Mastodon at @dave0@a2mi.social<\/a><\/strong>, or can be emailed directly: dave@dave0.com<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

“Can the Master\u2019s Tools Dismantle the Master\u2019s House?”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by David Erik Nelson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            It\u2019s your wife, LaSonia, who finds the doll. She pulls it free of the frozen leaves, laughing. You laugh too, laugh along. But looking at the thing makes you want to puke.
            There\u2019s really no other way to say it: The doll looks super-duper racist.<\/em>
            Boneless arms dangle and jounce as LaSonia peels away frozen leaves, revealing eyes that are wide white iris-less circles sewn onto a black cotton face. Thick red embroidery-floss lips bend into something more rictus than grin. Mud-matted wooly hairpuffs peek out around a red scrap of kerchief.
            Pale, awful somethings\u2014like water-logged corpse fingers or fat white worms\u2014just barely peek out from under the skirts of the black-faced doll\u2019s dark-blue gingham check dress.
            You\u2019re so revolted by the squirming white worms that you almost slap the doll from her hands. But you can\u2019t stomach the idea of touching it.
            LaSonia squeals, \u201cOh. My. GOD!<\/strong><\/em> I haven\u2019t seen one of these since I was tiny!\u201d
            She flips the doll over and pulls the dark check skirt down to reveal another doll\u2014or, really, another half<\/em> doll. This doll she\u2019s found in the frozen leaves is something you’ve never seen before, a ragdoll composed of two doll torsos sewn together at the waist, \u201cjoined at the skirt.\u201d The worms hadn\u2019t been worms at all, but the second doll\u2019s pale arms.
            LaSonia later explains that it\u2019s called a \u201ctopsy-turvy\u201d or \u201cflip doll.\u201d This one was hand-made, not mass-produced\u2014more collectible, if no less racist.
            The second doll\u2019s dress\u2014previously hidden under the Black doll\u2019s dark checked skirts\u2014is a fancy pink block-printed calico. Her pale head has bee-stung lips stitched in the same red embroidery floss as her dark sister\u2019s. Her blue eyes are heavy-lidded. A tangle of yellow yarn hair hangs out below her \u201cMs Muffet\u201d cap.
            “Mommy<\/em> and Mammy<\/em>,” LaSonia explains. Two sets of arms, no legs to run away on. \u201cMy auntie had one just like this!\u201d she marvels. \u201cShe kept hers on a high shelf, alongside her collection of glass whale oil lamps. She got it from Gram\u201d\u2014a.k.a. City Councilwoman Montgomery\u2014\u201cwho\u2019d got it from Great-Great-Gram\u201d\u2014the first Montgomery born free\u2014\u201cwho swore she\u2019d got it from her own Gram\u2014\u201d
            \u201c\u2014who strangled a Johnny Reb, stole his horse, and didn\u2019t stop until she hit Pennsylvania and discovered the saddlebags held an infantry company\u2019s payroll,\u201d you finish numbly.
            It\u2019s easy to be proud of LaSonia\u2019s family tree, which is stout and tall and broad and deep-rooted. She\u2019s a bona fide<\/em> Daughter of the American Revolution. Thirteen generations of Montgomeries have cobbled together scraps of the American Dream. Your own family tree is little more than a hacked shrub with just a single pair of forks: On Mom\u2019s side a couple of scrawny Jewish Kindertransport<\/em> babies, imported to the UK from Nazi-occupied Poland, malnourished and pale as boiled potatoes. On Dad\u2019s a set of Romanian pogrom orphans. All the rest of that tree? Ash and smoke coughed out of Holocaust crematory smokestacks.
            You frown at LaSonia\u2019s doll and mount a weak argument, mumbling \u201cblack mold\u201d and \u201cmildew\u201d and \u201callergies.\u201d LaSonia gives you The Look™. The doll comes home with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The doll takes up residence on the shelf above LaSonia’s desk\u2014sometimes Mommy-up, other times Mammy-up. \u201cMomma Mammy\u201d watches over every minute of LaSonia\u2019s Zoom lectures and remote office-hours.
            You object. LaSonia laughs it off.
            \u201cShe\u2019s my guardian angel, Abe. Or maybe my Kali,\u201d LaSonia winks, \u201cDestroyer of Negative Forces and Remover of Obstacles.\u201d
            In the weeks since she found the doll, LaSonia\u2019s bank inexplicably reversed a fee, a local \u201cMen\u2019s Rights Activist\u201d abruptly stopped hassling her, and her stalled dissertation finally escaped editorial-review purgatory.
            \u201cBesides,\u201d she adds, \u201cit\u2019ll be a great addition to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, once the university reopens.\u201d
            But you can\u2019t get used to the doll. Seeing it up on her shelf makes you nervous. You\u2019re unnerved by the smugness of the White sexpot in her little cap, childishly revolted by the Black mammy imprisoned under her skirts, ashamed of both these ridiculous feelings.
            One night you dream that you hear a scuttling in the front hall. Upon investigation, you discover the doll creeping along the baseboards, tumbling in sloppy boneless cartwheels. She turns to look at you, Mammy-side up. Dark eyes slowly scan you head to toe, unimpressed. Her wriggling black arms lift her skirts, so that the White mommy can peer out. White Mommy winks and pantomimes a smoochie-mouth kiss at you. Then they mount the wall, scuttling like a spider, and squeeze through the few inches LaSonia left open at the top of the window to let in the night breeze.
            You awake standing in the hall, alone, your skin stippled with goosebumps.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            You keep hassling LaSonia about the doll. You can be that way, picking, picking, picking, argumentum ad<\/em> attrition. Back when you were both undergrads, LaSonia had quit talking to you for a week after you two had gotten into just such a slow simmering argument. It was about that Audre Lorde essay, \u201cThe Master\u2019s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master\u2019s House.\u201d In all honesty, you<\/em> weren\u2019t even really arguing about the essay, because you\u2019d<\/em> never read it. You<\/em> were arguing about the title;<\/em> the claim felt so transparently absurd: a hammer will smash the patriarchy just as handily as it\u2019ll smash a nail or window or a baby\u2019s skull, right?
            But this argument you actually care about. You argue that doll is a pathogen vector. You argue that it probably harbors bird mites. You argue that she should email the curator of the Jim Crow Museum; if he wants it, you\u2019re happy to drop it off on your way to work. If he doesn\u2019t, the thing should get trashed.
            LaSonia finally snaps: \u201cIf the doll\u2019s so dirty, why the Hell you always playin\u2019 with it, Abe?\u201d
            \u201cYou\u2019re nuts!\u201d you snap back. You\u2019d never touched the awful thing, not in the woods, and not since she\u2019d brought it into the house. You\u2019d assumed it was LaSonia who flipped and posed the doll at her whim.
            The realization comes with an icy and nauseating abruptness: your dream of the doll in the front hallway was no dream. That was something real, which you really saw.
            You open your mouth to speak, but your phone saves you from whatever you were going to say. It\u2019s your dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            At the start of the pandemic you and your dad had gotten into the habit of nightly video chats. You\u2019d had never really been that close. But he’ was’s bored, confined home alone, far from the boardrooms and conferences he adores. Meanwhile, as an \u201cessential worker\u201d in a prison infirmary, you\u2019re permitted to leave the house daily, do \u201creal\u201d things, talk to \u201cactual\u201d people. In Dad\u2019s estimation, your life choices have abruptly flipped from mildly disappointing to endlessly fascinating. You\u2019d be lying if you said it hadn\u2019t been a gratifying turn.
            \u201cHow\u2019s Dr. Puddin\u2019 Pops?\u201d Dad asks.
            Does that sound racist? You think it does, but you know it isn\u2019t. The inmate he\u2019s asking about\u2014a once-popular Black actor and comedian, now a half-blind octogenarian\u2014actually was<\/em> the spokesperson for Jell-O Pudding Pops once upon a time. Back then, he was widely regarded as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Dad.\u201d Now he\u2019s America\u2019s Serial Date Rapist.
            Most of the prison population has tested positive for the virus. They have to isolate in their cells. Because America\u2019s Bad Dad is elderly, and thus at high-risk for complications if infected, admin transferred him to isolation in the infirmary with you. The arrangement is half reverse-quarantine, half internship. He sleeps on a cot in your office, makes you both coffee and Cup O\u2019Noodles, answers the phones, and jokes around with your patients via intercom. It probably helps that he played a doctor on TV for so long.
            You want to talk to your dad about the dream that wasn\u2019t a dream, about LaSonia and the doll. But you can\u2019t find a way to bring the conversation around After an hour you both say, \u201cI love you\u201d and hang up. You go to bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The doll troubles you. You can\u2019t talk to your dad about it. So you do the next best thing, and talk to America\u2019s Dad about it.
            You two sit together in your little office wearing surgical masks. He\u2019s old, mostly blind, a felon that never finished college, yet still does a better job of looking like a doctor than you do.
            America\u2019s Dad listens patiently, hands laced on the head of his cane, his good ear cocked to you.
            \u201cYour Black <\/em>wife found a pickaninny doll,\u201d he reiterates, \u201cand it makes you<\/em> \u2018uncomfortable\u2019?\u201d He chuckles, leaning back, eyes blank but crinkling with that mischievous grin you\u2019d loved seeing on reruns as a kid. \u201cMy dad\u2019s doll made me uncomfortable<\/em>, too,\u201d he reminisces. \u201cUntil it was mine.\u201d
            Your throat squeaks: \u201cWhat?\u201d
            He gives you The Look™, despite being blind. \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta open your eyes, son.\u201d
            Maybe he\u2019d have said more, but one of the patients out in the ward buzzes the intercom. \u201cDr. Jell-O Dad,\u201d the patient calls out to the blind comedian, \u201cDo a Russell!\u201d
            Dr. Dad\u2019s milky eyes sparkle. He presses the intercom button and launches into a 60-year-old stand-up bit about his younger brother. That same brother\u2014now a congressman\u2014disowned his big brother on national TV three years ago, sponsoring a bill named after one of Dr. Jell-O\u2019s victims. Inmate NN7687 doesn\u2019t seem to harbor any hard feelings about this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The pandemic has taken away so many things\u2014bars, birthday parties, road trips, libraries, religious services\u2014but it gave us one thing we never would have had otherwise: Visibility<\/em>. In the months since the stay-at-home orders, we\u2019ve seen the kitchens and living rooms and studies and dens of countless celebrities.
            And once you start to see it<\/em>, you can\u2019t believe you never saw it before:
            That schmarmy, bow-tie loving right-wing news guy? There\u2019s a fat, crocheted Mammy on top of his fridge, leaning against a teddy bear cookie jar.
            The electric car impresario who seemed to have lost his mind, touting bleach-drinking \u201cmiracle mineral water\u201d cures? A clutch of plastic pickaninnies, eyes and lips perfect shocked circles, crowd his side-table.
            That erratic former rapper who\u2019s declared he\u2019s running for President on the \u201cRecord Release Party\u201d platform\u2014and inexplicably keeps rising in the polls? A faded wooden \u201cShuffling Sambo\u201d doll sits in his home office\u2019s broad window. Seeing that stung, because your dad and his dad actually sorta-kinda know each other, having grown-up together in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
            Even in the Oval Office you spy a minstrel doll\u2014a \u201cgolliwog\u201d in blue jacket and red bow-tie, big eyes and wide red lips surmounted by an explosive shock of picked-out afro. It sits tucked among the framed photos just behind the Resolute desk.
            That night on your call with Dad, you must be staring, because he finally cranes around to look up at his own bookshelf. A sock monkey perches there, an old one, made from real Rockford Red-Heel socks: \u201cMr. Lips.\u201d He\u2019s sat up there for as long as you can remember, leering and repulsive: Thick red grinning lips. Staring white eyes. A big, chipped, wooden button shaped like a fat slice of watermelon sewn to one hand.
            Dad turns back. \u201cYou know I already promised Mr. Lips to your sister,\u201d he says. \u201cShe obviously needs him more; her company is just about to go public on the New York Stock Exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The next day, in the prison infirmary, you ask America\u2019s Former Dad how people get these dolls. He smiles slyly. \u201cYou don\u2019t get them; they get you.\u201d
            You ask if everyone who has a doll is a total piece of shit like him.
            He does not flinch. \u201cNo,\u201d he says. He names two prominent judges, a retired basketball player, a CEO, and a civil rights icon\u2014all legitimate American saints. Each has their dolls.
            You start to ask \u201cWhy\u2014?\u201d
            The old comedian cuts you off. \u201cThey get the job done, son.\u201d
            \u201cWhat the hell does that mean?\u201d
            He somehow manages to give you a side-eye, despite being almost entirely blind. You remember your dream that was not a dream, of LaSonia\u2019s topsy-turvy doll tumbling out into the night, hellbent on destroying barriers. You imagine that scrum of plastic pickaninnies somehow derailing an SEC investigation. You recall the incompetent boob\u2019s incomprehensible rise from real-estate shyster to Our President.
            You wonder how the dolls can possibly do these things\u2014do they scuttle around whispering in the ears of professors and stuffing ballot boxes? Or are they more like voodoo dolls, gathering in moonlit cabals to work their sympathetic magic?
            And you wonder if the how<\/em> of it really matters. Your dad was supposed to be in a morning meeting on the 102nd floor of the World Trade Center\u2019s North Tower on 9\/11. He missed it because he suddenly fell ill and crapped his pants in the town car on the way there. You and your family had called it \u201cLuck\u201d\u2014but had<\/em> it been luck? Or had it been Mr. Lips?     
            \u201cYou know what my mistake was?\u201d the elderly comedian asks you.
            \u201cDrugging and raping 62 women?\u201d you spit.
            His face sours momentarily, and then smoothes. America\u2019s Dad, firm but forgiving. The sonofabitch.
            \u201cMy mistake was getting rid of my doll,\u201d he says. \u201cI believed my own lie: that I was better than the Devil.<\/em> That civil rights hero I mentioned? He was ordained clergy, and even he<\/em> didn\u2019t get rid of his<\/em> doll. He didn\u2019t like it, and I know<\/em> he never asked it to do a damn thing for him, but he kept it safe and sound\u2014until it got burned up with the rest of his belongings when they firebombed his house. And you know how that <\/em>turned out.\u201d
            You did. Everyone in America with a high-school education did: bleeding out on a grocery store parking lot just four days after the fire, assassinated by an idiot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Late that night, LaSonia asleep, you creep home from a double shift at the prison. You and the Devil finally have your little talk.
            \u201cI don\u2019t like you,\u201d you tell the tupsy-turvey doll, \u201cand you don\u2019t like me. But we both love LaSonia.\u201d
            The doll sits on her shelf, White-lady end up, smirking. You take a breath.
            \u201cWe both love LaSonia, and LaSonia hates<\/em> \u2026\u201d You name the ex-rapper, the son of your dad\u2019s old pal. LaSonia doesn\u2019t give a shit about him\u2014musically or politically\u2014but any fool can see he\u2019s riding the rails straight into being our next nightmarishly unqualified President.
            Does the doll know you\u2019re lying? Does she care?
            You don\u2019t know. Does a hammer care what it\u2019s swinging at? Who holds it? Or does it smash and drive nails because smashing and driving is what it\u2019s for, and being useful is its own deep fulfillment?
            Mammy peaks out from under Mommy\u2019s pale skirts. She winks.
            You take a double dose of Valium that night. Your sleep is deep, dreamless, and overlong. You wake up late for work.
            Rushing out of the house you glimpse Momma Mammy up on her shelf, holding illimitable dominion over all\u2014but no longer alone: she has her white worm of an arm hooked around the wooden Shuffling Sambo\u2019s crooked elbow.
            Driving in, you hear on the radio that the FBI and ATF have raided Mr. Record Release Party\u2019s ranch. Turns out he\u2019s been a naughty, naughty boy.
            You pull into the fenced and barb-wired prison parking lot, thrilled in a way you\u2019ve never felt before.
            It\u2019s a dark thrill, more in the gut and pelvis than in your heart. Like a towering thunderhead, that dark thrill is heavy with possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9 2023 by David Erik Nelson All rights reserved
Cover art: Jane Iverson, Rag Doll, c. 1936, NGA 27514, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=82172132<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This story is brought to you by the generosity of my Patreon patrons. Supporters get access to exclusive horror and SF stories, an odd short film, and more.) Author’s Note “Can the Master’s Tools Dismantle the Master’s House?” asks the truly pressing question of our time: Should I bring home that rag doll my wife … Continue reading “New Horror Story: “Can the Master\u2019s Tools Dismantle the Master\u2019s House?””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[9,11],"tags":[909,655,831,972,30,970,849,572,53,25],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/a2mi.social\/@dave0\/111738559499332499","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3685"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3742,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685\/revisions\/3742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}