Brent Zirnheld
497 • A Laymon Remembrance
498 • Coastal Pickup
Nicole Cushing
503 • Gorgeous! Beguiling! Lethal!
504 • Scabby Nipples and Sharp Teeth
Weston Ochse
511 • A Laymon Remembrance
512 • Crashing Down
Mark McLaughlin
520 • A Laymon Remembrance
Michael McCarty & Mark McLaughlin
521 • From the Bowels of the Earth
Robert Morrish
529 • Still Life, With Mother
Roger Range
540 • Laymon’s Legacy
541 • Scavengers
Patricia Lee Macomber
556 • A Laymon Remembrance
557 • Past Tense
Philip Robinson
568 • My Laymon Remembrance
570 • Occupied
Jim Hillman
581 • A Laymon Remembrance
582 • For the Light
Geoff Cooper
588 • Trying To Keep This Under Three-Quarters-of-a-Million Words
593 • Strangers: Good Friends and a Bottle of Wine
Edward Lee
605 • A Laymon Remembrance
606 • Chef
Matt Johnson
613 • A Dream
Kelly Laymon
N SATURDAY, June 25, 2000, I attended a memorial service for the mother of one of my closest friends from high school. I only had about three close friends in high school, so the funeral for Andrew’s mother was a pretty big deal. And, knowing my study and work in television courses in high school and college, he asked me to videotape the service for him. I gladly agreed, ready to help in any way possible.
Andrew’s mother was just fifty-two when she lost her battle with lung cancer. She didn’t smoke, just drew a shit deck. She was diagnosed in 1998 and during her two years of illness, therapy, hospitalizations, and counseling, she was a feather.
Yep. A feather.
The feather was chosen by Andrew’s mom, her family, and the folks at the cancer support meetings for visualization and relaxation exercises.
She pictured herself as a feather, drifting about. Ya know, all free and stuff. Just like that damn feather in the opening credits of Forrest Gump.
Then, after she died, feathers were just showing up all over the damn place.
A feather blew in the window as she died.
A feather was found under the box holding her cremains in the trunk of the car when they brought her back to the house before the service.
Feathers were showing up in her favorite chair without explanation.
You name it and feathers were there.
Assuming this wasn’t the handiwork of an evil smartass, great meaningful significance was attached to the appearance of all these damn feathers.
I was ten miles away at my Marina Del Rey college campus when my father collapsed just before 9:30am on Wednesday, February 14, 2001. My mother called 911 and the paramedics arrived quickly.
The day my father died, we didn’t exactly get feathers.
The time of death was called at 9:41am.
The paramedics then had to stick around for ten or fifteen minutes until the police arrived. Once the cops were there, the paramedics left. Their job was done. Then it was up to the cops to sniff around and make sure nothing was hinky. My mother overheard one cop say to another, “Did you check the medicine cabinet for pills?”
While the cops did their thing, my mother called family members, had several conversations with an en route Alan Beatts, and showed the police officers her squirrel feeding tricks. (Mom and I are pretty obsessed with the little critters.)
After about an hour of that, while waiting for the funeral home, our large black metal driveway gate slammed shut around 11:00am.
It had not been open.
My mother, who was inside the house when it happened, walked to a nearby window expecting to see the gas or electrical guy walking past to check the meters. It wasn’t their day to come by, but that was the only possibility that made sense.
Instead, she saw a bushy-haired man with a fresh gunshot wound to his arm and dirty bare feet run through our backyard and jump over our wall and into the neighbor’s yard.
With my father dead on the floor of the living room, mom notified the cops of the intruder and the police officers took off, tear-assing through our yard.
Then the helicopters showed up.
Our street was quickly blocked off at both ends with yellow tape and police cruisers parked ajar at both ends, and our neighbors were told to go inside their homes, lock their doors, and stay there.
We never found out what exactly that guy had done to get shot or be chased by the fuzz. He hid in our neighbor’s yard in a pile of trash for a couple of hours and prevented the mortuary from getting to our house before he was finally apprehended. During that time, the helicopters circled our neighborhood and my uncle had to park several blocks away and fight with road blocks to walk to get to our house. My mother was afraid that I would get home from my day at school and be excited by the activity only to come home to a pretty serious bum-out. One of the cops even stopped by later that night, still covered in mud from the chase, to apologize for the weird chaos that ensued during a very difficult time.
Oddly enough, as life would have it, my father collapsed while preparing Alka-Seltzer before heading out to buy Valentine’s Day cards as well as a sympathy card for one of the co-editors of this very book, whose mother had recently died under unexpected circumstances a week earlier.
I’m not the biggest believer in hauntings and what have yous, but that said I think there are too many things that go on out there that fall beyond the realm of mere coincidence.
So, in that spirit of very unusual tributes, here we go. Dad died and we ended up with a bloody criminal in our yard, a memorial service held at a local horror bookstore, a crazy drunken funeral tribute weekend with friends, and now a book full of nasty tales and humorous remembrances.
I’m sure to some, it might not make sense, but it’s all a fitting tribute.
It may not be a feather, but what’s the fun in that. Let’s have some curse words, sex, and rump action.
Richard Chizmar
HE MOST IMPORTANT things are usually the hardest to say...which explains why I have sat down three or four times now to write this short introduction to In Laymon’s Terms.
I miss Dick Laymon. I think that’s maybe the most important single thing I have to say here. I miss talking to him on the phone. I miss his letters (yes, he wrote great letters, and I still have a file stuffed with them). I miss listening to him laugh and talk books and movies and people.
After he passed away, I ran a special tribute section in honor of Dick in Cemetery Dance magazine. A lot of great friends wrote lengthy essays to honor him. Mine was only a handful of short paragraphs, but I meant every word.