In Laymon's Terms

Jacqueline Mitchell

HEN I WAS a little girl, I loved to be terrified. Hidden behind the couch and a safe distance from the television screen, I watched Dark Shadows and Night Gallery. My Saturday afternoons were devoted to horror like Hammer Films’ Dracula, with Christopher Lee in beautiful, bloody Technicolor. I knew the stories were all in fun but I never gave up hope somewhere, out there in the great world, real monsters roamed the earth.

In my high school parking lot, the goth kids, dressed in black, listened to Bauhaus and Joy Division, and there was Jackie, in English literature class, staring out the window and dreaming of the true Goths. I knew the first rock stars were writers and poets. I soon discovered Edgar Allan Poe and, in his poetry and short stories, a writer with whom I could share my fascination with the macabre. The rumor was Poe was an opium addict and married to his much younger cousin, a la Jerry Lee Lewis. But Poe wasn’t the only bad boy of literature.

George Gordon, Lord Byron, a master seducer and sister lover, and his best friend, Percy Bysshe Shelley, have continued to inspire readers, many years since their untimely deaths. One wild weekend with these two led to the creation of the two most popular horror stories of all time, the vampire and Frankenstein. That’s a party I would have enjoyed.

I first met the Laymons at Dark Delicacies, the wonderful bookstore in Burbank, California, and from the very first moment, I felt a special kinship. I hadn’t read Dick’s books but when he told me about The Cellar, I couldn’t wait to get started. I read the book in one sitting and was hooked. I couldn’t believe the polite, nice mannered, bookish man I’d met wrote such naughty stories. Where was his black cape and tails, his walking stick, his flask of Absinthe?

The women in Dick’s books are tough, like the two women in his real life, Ann and Kelly, and don’t collapse at first sight of evil in the world. They pick up weapons and fight back. I was fortunate to spend many long evenings as a guest in the Laymons’ home. Even though Dick rolled his eyes when I admitted I voted for Clinton, twice, he encouraged me to speak up in conversation and was always interested in what I thought of his stories. He introduced me to Shirley Jackson’s work and we found we shared a guilty pleasure in Jacqueline Susann’s books.

Dick Laymon and I felt a great affinity for Mr. Poe and we discussed him on several occasions. I told him that much to my delight, my college English professor offered an entire semester devoted to Poe. Dick had an enormous library and I was honored to be invited to his office to peruse his collection. He had a habit of writing in his books and underlining particular words, and phrases such as “This is stupid” or “Renunciation of sense perceptions, except when necessary for preservation of mind or body, is for shits” are often found in the margins. In his personal copy of Poe’s works, phrases such as “dreary desolation” and “a certain oppressive closeness of the atmosphere” are underlined.

I even admitted to Dick I had written stories and poems for years but never attempted to publish them. I expected a great big yawn. This was Los Angeles after all, where everybody has a story in development, but Dick not only encouraged me to pursue my writing, but also shared his book, A Writer’s Tale, with me.

Due to an unforeseen series of events, I now sit in Dick’s office, typing this on his computer, thinking of how much he meant to me as a mentor and a friend. Ann and I have become even closer in the time since Dick’s death and I can’t help but think he had a hand in bringing us together.

When it’s quiet and I’m trying to put words on the page, I feel him with me, his hand on my shoulder, urging me on. Dick was a wonderful writer, man and friend. His death overwhelms me but his life and body of work provide me with daily inspiration.

Years ago, my mother took me to see Vincent Price recite Poe’s great poem, “The Raven,” and I was mesmerized with the power of Poe’s words on the audience, so many years after he had unleashed them onto the page. Writers live on through all of us. I love you, Dick. Have a margarita for me.