Ray Garton’s Bio- I’m the author of about 60 books and scores of short stories. I’m a passionate lover of movies and books, and along with my wife Dawn, I’m owned by several cats.

Essay by well known sexy horror Writer Ray Garton

I was raised in a family of very religious, irrational people in which the primary emotions were anger, fear and guilt. Physical violence was as common as hugs, and not knowing which was coming made life … tense. Something was always wrong. Plans never worked out, there was always something about which to be upset. Dawn and her sisters were raised in a family of quiet, rational, easy-going people who respected each other. It was a household in which, for the most part, things went pretty smoothly and everyone got along. As she got older, Dawn was surprised to discover that all families weren’t like that. Then she married a guy who’d come from a family that was, in a sense, from an entirely different planet than hers. I was so unaccustomed to things going well that when they did, I was immediately suspicious and looked for problems. Dawn never got angry and was uncomfortable with people who did. Her easy-going nature was so foreign to me that sometimes it drove me crazy. And my angry outbursts and my conviction that something always had to be wrong with things somehow no doubt did the same to her.

She quietly supported me when it came time to deal with my addiction to alcohol. When my doctor asked me in 1990 exactly how much I was drinking, I answered honestly. He rolled his eyes and said, “If you keep that up, you’ll never see middle age.” Then he told me, in clear layman’s terms, what the vodka was doing to my body and precisely how I would die in the not-too-distant future if I didn’t stop. He scared the piss out of me. I stopped cold turkey and had an attack of the DTs that I thought was going to kill me. I ended up in an emergency room vomiting like Linda Blair and shaking as if I had a fully operational jackhammer up my ass. I went to an Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting, where I was told that surely someone as clean and well-dressed and apparently “together” as I didn’t have a problem, but I was welcome to join in. All the people at the meeting talked about was liquor – what they liked to drink, when they liked to drink it, how they liked to drink it, what they did while they were drinking it, when they last drank it, and how very, very, very much they missed drinking it. This seemed counterproductive to me. I wanted to get my mind off booze, not obsess over it. Then I was told that I was absolutely incapable of dealing with my problem and had no hope whatsoever of getting off the sauce unless I turned to an imaginary friend. I decided I was not a friend of Bill W., told them to have a nice day, then drove home and went about the business of stopping drinking without the help of an imaginary friend.

Dawn stood by me the whole time. She was there when I needed her, but she didn’t prod me about it. It was a difficult process — to put it mildly. I was cranky, morose, self-pitying and at times panicky. I had relapses, but a few years later, I suddenly realized how long it had been since I’d had a drink. A few years after feeling sheer terror at the idea of never drinking again, I found that I had become a non-drinker. I could not have done that without Dawn.

In 1999, my right hip began to hurt, and for the next eight years, I was virtually useless as I required countless medical procedures, three operations (including two hip replacements), and consumed a mountain of narcotic painkillers. I spent most of that time in a chair, where I bitched, whined, grumbled, groaned and bitched some more. During those years, Dawn did everything – cooking, housework, yardwork, taking care of me and holding down a job. If she went out, it was almost always alone – knowing I was lousy company because I was in so much pain, I tended to stay home. She never complained, she never threw up her arms. She did, however, quietly go out and buy herself a $350 wind chime she loved as a reward to herself for putting up with me – a reward she deserved countless times over.

And don’t forget, I’m a full-time writer. Along with being neurotic and often self-involved, we writers rarely get rich, and our income tends to be sporadic. Dawn has not exactly lived in the lap of luxury. But she’s never complained about that.

I have not been a fairytale husband, and I have not provided Dawn with the stable, quiet, easy-going atmosphere in which she grew up. But she’s still here. And I’m simply not a good enough writer to express how grateful I am for that.

Thank you, Dawn, for 20 wonderful years. I will spend the rest of our lives thanking you, and it still won’t be enough. I love you more than ever.

Ray

A longer version of this post, along with many other witty, heart felt writings can be found on Ray’s Blog here http://preposteroustwaddlecock.blogspot.com/

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