This midnight benediction:
faded rituals on bleached
bones and rusted wheels

I would also like to dedicate this book to three guys
I thought would be around for its publication...
Melvin Melone, Ray Rexer and Ed Lassa.
I miss you guys, and if I ever catch up to you,
I'll fill you in on how my career went,
and of what else I saw.

The Holy Terror by Wayne Allen Sallee, 1991 dedication

"Defining the Common Place Slivers" was written in the course of an hour, after I learned of Ray Rexer's death. He had been a cop in Bay City, Michigan in his "real" life, and reviewed books for the Overlook Connection for several years. I was attending Kathe Koja's wedding in Royal Oak, Michigan the weekend he was shotgunned while investigating a domestic disturbance. I knew that he had started writing fiction on his own, and the thing that haunts me most is that the last time I saw Ray was at the autograph table in Nashville, at the 1st World Horror Convention. He left saying that he couldn't wait to read my first novel and review it for Dave Hinchberger's magazine. I've never missed someone I hardly knew more.

With Wounds Still Wet by Wayne Allen Sallee, 1996 p. 197 A part of the "Author's Endnotes."