I'm sitting here trying to remember the first time I met Zeb Carter. I was almost certainly drunk at the time. I'm sure it was at a party thrown by the Forced Viewing folks, Jason and Jori. They threw great booze parties. It was probably 15 years ago? Maybe longer? But he and I have had many great conversations over the years. He wrote for Forced Viewing under the name Blick Tolkien, and almost all of his reviews were Walking Dead related. I probably haven't seen him in two years, but every time we met I always asked him about his fucked up superhero anthology. It was a work in progress for him for nearly the entire time I knew him. I liked to rib him a little over it (and even offered to help him with it!), but now I can't believe I'll never get to have that conversation with him again.
I heard this morning that he passed away. He was a friend, but he also had a special place in my heart because of one night/early morning four years and 53 days ago. By that time I knew I was a full-blown alcoholic, something I'd been denying for many years, and my life had gotten so lousy that I found myself in a state of emergency over what to do about it. I called everyone I thought might pick up, but it was one or two in the morning, so it was a lost cause.
I remembered Zeb had said something about always being there if I needed to talk, so shot in the dark, I reached out to him on Facebook Messenger, and he dropped everything. He got on a video call with me, and without his help, I don't think I would have called Sonny next, and Sonny was the guy who got me into Recovery Centers of America. I'm reasonably sure that I'm alive today because of Zeb.
And now Zeb's gone, and I'm absolutely stunned to say that. This is a man who sat in my lap on several occasions. If I ever get back to one of those Halloween parties, I'm not going to see you there. I won't get to ask you about that anthology. Well fuck.
Rest in peace, Zeb.
No comments:
Post a Comment