![\"EndofRoad-web\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/EndofRoad-web.jpg?resize=468%2C60\")
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In an earlier installment of this column, we talked about the early days of the Internet. I\u2019m taking you back now to the year 1998. There were exactly four websites dedicated to horror fiction\u2014Horror Net (run by Matt Schwartz), Masters of Terror (run by Andy Fairclough), Gothic Net (run by Darren McKeeman), and Chiaroscuro (run by Brett Savory). Think about that. Four websites devoted to horror fiction. By contrast, nearly twenty years later, Google horror fiction and see how many websites you get. But back in the olden days, we had four.<\/span> Richard Laymon used to hang out on Horror Net and Masters of Terror. You could find him in the chat room of the former, and he had his own primitive message board on the latter. Now understand, this wasn\u2019t some half-wit hack or some brash newbie just starting out. This was Richard fucking Laymon, the fourth head on the Mount Rushmore of Modern Horror, the guy that some would argue was outselling his friends Dean Koontz and Stephen King in the United Kingdom and Australia, one of the titans of what had yet to be branded as Extreme Horror\u2014and almost every single day he would take the time to interact with fans and newbie authors on both websites, answering reader questions and offering advice to budding writers.<\/span><\/p>\n These days, we take that sort of interaction for granted. If you enjoy an author\u2019s work, you can probably tell them via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or a host of other social media outlets. But in 1998 we didn\u2019t have those things. What we did have, though, was Richard Laymon. <\/span><\/p>\n As I wrote for Ginger Nuts of Horror last year<\/a>, \u201cDick Laymon was a mentor and cheerleader and scout master for so many of us working in the field now. When we were all just starting out, we could always rely on him for advice, encouragement, laughs, and even a gentle ass-kicking when we needed it. Even writers who didn\u2019t care for his work (preferring their horror quieter or their prose more \u201cliterary\u201d) looked to him as sort of a guidepost as what to do and what not to do in this industry. <\/span><\/p>\n “His autobiography, <\/span>A Writer\u2019s Tale<\/span><\/i>, is the seminal bible for an entire generation of writers\u2014as essential and mandatory as Stephen King\u2019s <\/span>On Writing<\/span><\/i> and David Morrell\u2019s <\/span>Lessons From A Lifetime of Writing<\/span><\/i>. Stylistically, you see echoes of his influence in the works of writers like Bryan Smith, Steve Gerlach, J.F. Gonzalez, Monica J. O\u2019Rourke, Brett McBean, Jonathan Maberry, and so many others, including myself.<\/span><\/p>\n “What doesn\u2019t get acknowledged as much is his influence as a human being. Yes, his books were filled with depravities and atrocities, but the man himself was humble and good-humored and a monument to what it means to be a husband, a father, and a friend. As I said on my podcast, The Horror Show with Brian Keene<\/a>, a few weeks ago, there have been times in my life where I have regretfully failed to follow that example (a sentiment that my co-host Geoff Cooper agreed with for himself), but it\u2019s something to aspire to. With Dick, there was always another book or story to move on to and write, and with life, there always another chance to move on to and get it right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n No, we didn\u2019t have social media, but we had Richard Laymon. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Until Valentine\u2019s Day 2001, and then we didn\u2019t have him anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n I still remember getting that phone call. I was living in Maryland at the time, and had just come home from a lovely dinner with my then-wife (ex-wife now but still one of my best friends). This was before cell phones had become so prominent, as well. We weren\u2019t in the door a minute and we got the call that he had passed away\u2014which pretty much ruined the rest of that Valentine\u2019s Day. And that\u2019s the reason why I\u2019m not crazy about celebrating the holiday anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n I told you in this very first column<\/a> that much of this tour is spinning out of my reaction to the deaths of J.F. Gonzalez and Tom Piccirilli. They\u2019re not the only friends I\u2019ve lost in this business, but their deaths hit the hardest. The one thing that brought me a bit of peace in their cases was that I got a chance to tell them both what they meant to me. They knew for sure. But I never got that chance with Dick Laymon.<\/span><\/p>\n Until the last night of this year\u2019s WHC.<\/span><\/p>\n I shared a room with Rachel Autumn Deering and her wife, Jessica Deering. On Saturday night, we had a party in our room. Just a small gathering. In addition to the three of us there was (in no particular order) Jeff Strand, Michael Bailey, Jack Ketchum, Linda Addison, Bryan Killian, Michael Arnzen, Stephen Kozeniewski, Kelly Laymon, Wile E. Young, Richard Wolley, Sara Tantlinger, our friend \u201cJenny\u201d (who wouldn\u2019t want her real name used here), and probably some other people I\u2019m forgetting (and my apologies to them\u2014I may have a brain disease brought about by bourbon and too much fun which makes me forget things from time to time). <\/span><\/p>\n It was a delightful evening, hanging out with old friends and new friends alike. At some point during the evening, Kelly Laymon leans over and asks, \u201cWould you like to go say hi to Dad?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I glanced around the room, eyes hurriedly scanning the corners, half-expecting his ghost to appear, tequila in hand, with that big old grin he often had in such gatherings. When this didn\u2019t happen, I turned to Kelly in confusion and asked her to clarify.<\/span><\/p>\n Turns out Kelly was in the process of moving across the country. Wisely not wanting to entrust her father\u2019s ashes to TSA or UPS or a moving company, she had packed Dick Laymon into the car with the rest of her belongings.<\/span><\/p>\n A few minutes later, Kelly, myself, Michael Bailey, and Jeff Strand stumbled out to the hotel parking garage\u2026 well, Kelly, Michael, and myself stumbled. Jeff didn\u2019t stumble because he\u2019d been nursing a bottle of spring water all night. I often secretly suspect that Jeff Strand might be the smartest and most responsible of all our generation of horror writers, but don\u2019t tell him I said that.<\/span><\/p>\n But I digress.<\/span><\/p>\n We got to Kelly\u2019s car, packed tight with all the stuff from her move. She rummaged around inside, moving boxes of books and other items, and then produced a lovely box with her dad\u2019s ashes inside. She handed it to me, and I took it in my hands and stared down at it, and\u2014to paraphrase singer Lera Lynn\u2019s \u201cMy Least Favorite Life\u201d\u2014the blue pulled away from the sky and the station pulled away from the train. I felt time stop and fold back in on itself, collapsing and folding over and over again, until it was that proverbial flat circle we talked about in previous columns. It was 1980 and I was riding my bike to the newsstand, where I would buy some comic books and a paperback called The Cellar<\/em>. It was 1991 and I was working a dead end job and reading The Stake<\/em>\u00a0on my lunch break and fantasizing about being a writer. It was 1998 and I was meeting Dick Laymon for the first time online. It was 1999 and I was meeting him in person, so star-struck that that I was rendered incoherent. It was 2000 and he got me in as a plus one to the Bram Stoker Awards and introduced me to his editor, Don D\u2019Auria, and wrote an introduction for my first book and blurbed another based on a partial manuscript and then he and Edward Lee were polishing off my tequila and leaving hilariously obscene signatures in all of my copies of their books. It was 2001 and he was dead.<\/span><\/p>\n And it was 2016 and here he was again.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of J.F. Gonzalez\u2019s ashes got spread at sea in California. Some of them reside at his home. And some of them are placed in a location known only to a few of us inside The York Emporium, one of his favorite bookstores. Any time I want to talk to Jesus, I just go to the store and do so. And then customers walk by and whisper, \u201cHey, isn\u2019t that Brian Keene talking to the wall over there? That\u2019s a shame. He used to not be insane.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t speak to Dick Laymon out loud. At least, I don\u2019t remember doing so. I said some things inside my head, though. Then I handed him back to Kelly, and Michael and Jeff each took their respective turns. I also snapped a picture of the box and texted it to Geoff Cooper, Mike Oliveri, and Michael T. Huyck, and told them that Dick said hi.<\/span><\/p>\n He would have thought that was funny.<\/span><\/p>\n I said in the first of these columns that this tour was about saying goodbye. <\/span><\/p>\n But in this case, it was about saying hello again, too.<\/span><\/p>\n * \u00a0\u00a0* \u00a0\u00a0*<\/span><\/p>\n This weekend, June 10-12, I\u2019m signing in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Friday night I\u2019m doing a Meet and Greet at 7 p.m. (along with Mary SanGiovanni, Stephen Kozeniewski, and dozens more authors) at Bradley\u2019s Books in the Dubois Mall in Dubois, PA<\/a>. Then, Saturday, we\u2019ll be signing books at that same location all day long. If you\u2019re near that area, come say hello and get a book signed.<\/span><\/p>\n On Sunday, I\u2019m going to try an experiment\u2014a pop-up signing somewhere near Youngstown, Ohio. I can\u2019t tell you where because I don\u2019t know where yet. I\u2019m going to find a nice spot, put the location out there via Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>, and then wait for people to show up. It will either be really neat or fail miserably. Either way, next week, I\u2019ll report back what happens. <\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/dicknbrian-300x191.jpg?resize=300%2C191\")
(Photo by Ann Laymon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BrianKelly-225x300.jpg?resize=225%2C300\")
(Photo by Michael Bailey)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n