“You are the last of my mercies, Poe. As for Fox, I will have no mercy.”
“No mercy? Such an angry god – you pose as such an angry god.”
“You do not know what I seek, Poe.”
“Redemption, Jupiter. We all seek that.”
Jupiter’s laugh was sudden and deep. “You offer me redemption, Poe?”
“True, there is a joke in the damned offering the saint such a gift. But that is the nature of our situation, is it not?”
I listened to the two – taking in the words as best I could from my vantage slumped next to the trunk. My mind was fogged by drink. The earth beneath me seemed suddenly above then below me again and swift spinning like a whirligig, everything about and within me was swinging wildly. I vomited.
“There’s your redemption, Poe.” Jupiter snorted. “You expect me to carry him?”
“Of course you will.”
“And why will I? You have all the answers, Mr. Poe.”
“We are your burden. You carry all our sins for us.”
“I’ll not be your savior, Poe. Or his.”
“Oh, you will be, Jupiter. You will be.”
“Fuck you and your fantasies. Fuck all your delusions of resurrected brides and unholy bargains, Mr. Poe.” Jupiter’s back was up again. “I don’t live in your world of poetic self-pity. And fuck you and your cipher.”
“You are an interesting…” Poe caught his tongue.
Jupiter jumped in. “An interesting man? You were about to speak those words, Mr. Poe? An interesting man?”
“You can’t be a man.”
“I can’t?”
“No. You are a nigger.”
Even I, in my dissolute state, sensed that Poe had gone too far. I also recall that, for an instant, I suspected Poe might have led the conversation to that deadly point by purpose. I don’t think I actually saw Jupiter’s hands become fists. Perhaps I sensed some ripple in the chill air. Perhaps I only guessed at the black man’s reaction.
Jupiter’s response was dark, but measured out carefully. “I cannot be a man?”
“No.”
There was a long silence. Or at least I felt it as a lengthy calm experienced just before the waves rise in sudden fury. An electrical charge built in the fetid alley air. But there was no lightning. There was no storm. The energy leaked away with no climax. Out of the silence, in the distance, a dog yelped out in pain.
Jupiter stooped over me and lifted me back on his shoulder without a sign of strain. My head was loose on my thin neck. I was washed in a tremor.
“As I said,” Poe spoke carefully, “you cannot be a man. As a Negro, you can never be a white man’s equal. Slave or God – those you may be. But never equal, Jupiter. Never. Still…”
“Be quiet, Poe.” Jupiter started walking.
“I’ve figured it out.”
“The cipher?”
“No. I have figured out your place in the universe, Jupiter.”
“You have?”
“You are a god. And you are fishing for souls.”
“Which way to the hotel?”
“But the house must be near. I tell you, I know the house is close.”
“This night’s search is over, Poe. No dock whores tonight.”
“But…”
Jupiter cut him off. “The hotel, Poe. We go to the hotel.”
Poe must have resigned himself and pointed out the direction. We turned out of the alley onto a broad street, past a shining hydrogen glass streetlamp and started up a hill.
“You are fishing for souls, and I am your cuttlefish on the hook.”
“Is that so?” Jupiter seemed resigned to Poe’s prattle continuing. “And my puke stained friend here?”
Poe laughed. Jupiter half jumped over a small pile of discarded wood scraps left in the middle of the walk. When he landed, the shock nearly split my head in two with pain.
“Ah yes – Griswold. I told you that you would bear him.”
“But why, Mr. Poe? Why were you so sure?”
“It’s obvious, Jupiter. Inductive.” Poe sniffed.
“Why?”
“You can never have too much bait, can you?” Poe stepped out ahead of us – the big black man and his burden.
Jupiter laughed softly.
I was conscious enough to take my thumb and comfort myself by softly rubbing the back of the ruby ring I now wore on the little finger of my left hand. My eyes were starting to focus as the purging in the alleyway had given me some relief from the vertigo of the liquors in my blood. With my head dangling, I tried to lift it and avoid the rhythmic impacts with Jupiter’s broad back as he walked.
In doing so, I looked back at the dark exit of the alley we had exited moments earlier. That is when I saw her.
The girl was wearing a white dress, and a white shawl covered her head. Her face was ivory bright and young – so young. I knew the face. I recognized her. But my addled mind could not place her in memory. The apparition raised a white handkerchief to her impossibly red lips and gave a small cough. Flecks of blood like the reddest of rubies sparkled on the white cloth. In that moment I knew her. I knew.
Was it Poe’s dead bride who stared at me with feral eyes? Across the distance between us, her look was hungry and obscene, and it reached towards me. She would devour my soul with her eyes. I knew I could not stop her. Ruby lips and burning jewels for eyes and scarlet fire for blood – she reached towards me without moving. A black tongue licked her lips, and her eyes came for me. I felt I would drown.
Then, in a blessed second, Jupiter turned a corner, and she was lost to my view.
I tried. Sweet Lord, I tried. But I could not scream.
Chapter 13
September 29, 1849 10:00 a.m. - The Angel of the Odd May Intervene -
He confronted me in my delirium.
A Falstaffian phantom with a rum-puncheon for a body, wine casks serving as legs, and long brown glass ale bottles as arms with the necks being distorted into use as hands. His face and head were formed from a snuffbox, and its polished brass grill became his yellowed teeth.
He spoke, “You mos’ be dronk as de pig.”
“Go away,” I said. And each word echoed in my head.
“I vil not.”
“Who are you?”
“I ham te Angel ov te Odd. I haf come vor you.” He smiled his yellow smile, and he began to transmute from fool into terror. For his lips became red and his skin bone. And his black tongue reached out of his mouth…
I sat up in my bed and leaned over the side. I vomited into the chamber pot – or mostly. I vomited again, and no liquid came up my gullet. And still, I retched, a thin thread of spittle dangling from my mouth.
“Good morning, Griswold.” Poe was in a chair by a tall window. He watched me with a placid expression. There was no hint of the repulsion he must have felt as he watched me in my misery.
“Poe.” It was all I could manage as my stomach spasmed yet again.
He stood up. Or so it seemed, as a wave of disorientation swept over me. My eyes tried to find purchase in the bright sunshine that bathed the room. Poe eclipsed the light briefly as he crossed the room to the oak bureau against the far wall. There was a clinking of glass against glass. Poe came to my bedside.
“Here you are. Drink this.” He held a crystal tumbler under my nose. The stinging vapors rising from the dark brown liquid made my eyes water. “Go ahead. It’s just the thing.” Taking my flaccid hand, he placed my fingers on the glass. I managed a weak, yet sufficient grip, and the noxious concoction remained thus precariously suspended.
“What is it?”
“Something of the badger’s fur,” Poe quipped.
“Badger? I don’t doubt…”
“Hair of the dog, Griswold. Drink it.” He laughed, though the laugh was curiously flat. “Toss it down. No hesitation.”
I looked around the room, trying to find purchase for my eyes. The tall ceilings and the Revival wainscoting bespoke some care of decoration
. I managed to orient myself – Baltimore – the Barnum Hotel – a four poster bed with cherubs carved into the oak of the pediment – my fourth-floor room – Saturday morning – Poe’s hand on mine. My vision blurred.
“Drink it, Griswold.”
I sought delay. “Where is Jupiter?”
“Did you expect the management of such a respectable establishment would allow an African near their linens? He spent the night in the mews with the livestock, I imagine.”
“And as it should be.” Was I relieved or disturbed by the thought of being alone and subject to Poe’s mercies? There was an ambivalence to my feelings, I must admit.
“He will return. Jupiter gave some hint to me last evening that he would be off this morning to visit some of L’Ouverture’s spawn east of The Falls.”
“L’Ouverture?’
“The Haitian refugees.” Poe clicked his tongue as if I were an ignorant student. “Never mind him for the moment, Griswold. We are safe here in this prison.”
“The Barnum Hotel is no prison.”
“Why, of course it is, dear man. Do you think chains may not be affixed to flocked wallpaper? Worry not, Jupiter may have the key, but I’ll soon have the pick.” Poe’s eyelids fluttered. “Now enough of that. Come, man.” Poe wrapped his hand around my hand and the tumbler. He placed his other hand on the small of my back. I winced with the touch. And in that moment, when I was distracted by that familiarity, he bent me back as he forced the glass to my lips. The potion poured into my mouth. “Drink it down.”
I sputtered. My tongue shriveled with the biting sour tang of the drink. Then a second later, the burning ran down my gullet into my stomach. I might have vomited as my ears began buzzing, but there was a strange paralysis that took me. I tried to pull away from the tumbler, but my muscles did not obey, and Poe poured the contents into my mouth. I swallowed, as I had no choice.
When at last he released me, the glass had been drained of its poison. I fell back on my bed. The intense burning turned to the feel of a warm coal in my gut. Slowly, I was able to regain my normal breathing. My vision cleared. “What was that?” I asked.
“A simple remedy, Griswold. Wormwood Bitters and Kentucky whiskey.” Poe stepped back. He had taken the crystal tumbler from my hand. He crossed back to the bureau.
“I need no more,” I said softly.
“Need? Whatever does need have to do with it, Griswold?” Poe poured more liquid into the glass. I clearly heard the gurgling and the splash.
“No, please.”
“Now don’t be such a prig, Griswold.” Poe returned to my bedside with the glass. “Here you go.” He offered me the drink.
“I am not a man of the bottle, Poe.”
“Ha!” Poe jerked with the exclamation. “Mr. Griswold, you have joined me in my world. There is no safety for you save in the bottle, as you put it.”
“I would rather…”
“Of course, dear man. Of course you would rather. Now drink this. I have not included the bitters in this mix.”
Weakly, I reached out and took the tumbler into my hand. I struggled to roll onto my side. I propped myself up on one elbow and sniffed at the whiskey.
“Now granted, many disparage Kentucky whiskey – so provincial and lacking the respectability of the nobler distillations. But they are wrong, Griswold. There’s wood in this whiskey – American wood that will stiffen your spine for the tasks ahead. Drink it down.”
I did as I was told. And I downed another tumbler of the sweet liquor after I finally found enough string in my wobbly legs to leave the bed. Between splashes of cold water on my face, I poured myself a few more inches of the nectar.
The basin on the vanity was of the finest porcelain. White and translucent with a miraculous Oriental glaze, the bowl was ornamented with delicate royal blue-winged dragons, their tails entwined to form a chain around the rim. The towel was of the softest cotton, and I was gladdened by the presence of my personal toiletries, arranged neatly as I had left them the previous day. I shaved slowly, carefully, savoring the pure sensation of the steel razor on my neck and cheeks.
Indeed, I felt as if I were awakening from a terrible dream. I was overcome with relief and gratitude to God for finding myself once again inhabiting a sane world. The previous days bizarre events coupled with the primitive air of violence in this strange city and my uncharacteristic dissolute behavior had no doubt pressed my mind to the precipice. The lather of my shaving soap and the comfort of the towel restored me.
Standing there, looking at myself in the mirror, in the comfort of my room at the Barnum Hotel, I felt sure that yesterday had been some living parable shown to me for my moral edification. The lesson having been taught so well, the new day would return to the predictable nature of the life I had built for myself. Surely, my world had been restored to order.
Yet, without thinking, I raised the crystal and took another sip of the whisky. “Curious,” I said under my breath. I determined that I would have no more of the drink. Then, within three heartbeats, as I was watching myself again in the mirror, the tumbler in my grasp seemingly floated to my lips unbidden, and I drank again. And I saw on my left hand a ruby ring – the symbol of my own sin and the unknown Preacher’s treachery.
“My God.” I must have said it out loud.
“Your God indeed,” said Poe.
“Her ring.” Last night’s conversation came back to me. I had suppressed the words. I had hoped not to remember that everything had changed. “Her ring,” I repeated, still amazed.
“You saw the girl last night?”
I turned towards Poe as if I had been slapped. “I saw nothing.” Was I hoping that a denial would be believed? Yes, I swear I wished to believe the morning rather than the night. “I saw nothing.”
“Did you see her red eyes?”
“No.”
“And her black tongue? Did you see that dead tongue of hers?”
“No.” I shouted at him, “No!”
“She followed us for quite a ways from the oyster cellar. I hoped she would catch us.” Poe was staring out of the window. With his hands held behind his back, I could see that he held the small piece of foolscap that was marked with the mysterious message. He had been puzzling over it. Poe stared out across the square. Up the hill to the north, the white of the marble Washington Monument soared above the Baltimore cityscape. “Of course you saw her.”
“I did not.”
“Jupiter didn’t sense her as she flitted from doorway to stoop behind us.”
“He didn’t?”
“Jupiter only sees what he is looking for.”
I drained the last of the whiskey from my glass. “What is he looking for, Poe? Why are we here?”
Poe put the note into his vest pocket and turned from the window to face me. “Ah, interesting questions, Griswold. Interesting. Jupiter is here to find his wife.”
“She is dead? Jupiter’s wife is dead?”
“Such an insane question, that, Griswold.” Poe took a small brown bottle from his jacket pocket. I recognized it as one we had purchased at the apothecary. Removing the stopper, he raised it to his mouth and threw his head back, downing the remaining laudanum. “Bastard left me only this.” He threw the empty bottle into the hearth where it shattered. “No matter. No matter.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, yes, you do.” Poe’s eyes were dark. There was no iris, only black, bottomless, open pupil. “You saw her.”
“I saw the girl.” I admitted it, though I feared such a truth might destroy me.
“My wife. My Sissy. My child-bride. You saw Virginia.” “Perhaps.” I remembered the face – familiar, yet… Poe looked at me with such an intensity I surrendered to his vision. “Yes, I saw… Yes, as you say.”
Poe rushed towards me and embraced me so suddenly that I nearly fell over. He smelled of some sharp, cloying chemical I could not place. I struggled. I felt claustrophobia. His arms were tight around me, and he was weeping into my sh
oulder. “You saw her.”
“Yes. Yes, I saw her.” I pushed at him, but could not break his embrace. His breath was over-sweet, like dead roses. “Please, Poe.” I struggled, until finally off balance, he fell away from me onto the foot of my bed.
Sobbing, yet with his eyes free of tears, he looked up at me. “You saw her. You must understand, Griswold. You, too, have heard the hideous beating of that heart.”
“That heart? Poe, I don’t…”
“Under the floorboards. The murderer hears the heart beating. No one else can sense the disembodied pumping of the heart where he has hidden it. Yet the killer is sure… sure that others know. And the beating… the beating… He fears the deathless sounds reach the ears of his enemies. But more… more, Griswold… he fears more than anything else that no one else hears anything at all, and that dread that he is alone in the dream that drives him mad.”
“Poe, you are making no sense.”
“You saw her. I saw her. She must be real. I am not mad.”
“I was drunk, Poe.”
“In vino veritas.” His eyes were red.
“The night was dark and misty.”
“You saw her,”
“I have told you. I saw her. And I wear this ring.” I held up my left hand. As if I thought Poe had forgotten the ruby.
“Yes. Yes.”
“Where is my wife, Poe? Have you truly seen her as well? Or do you seek to drive me mad?” I was angry.
“I do not know where she is.”
The air went out of me. My legs weakened. I found myself sitting in the chair by the window. “Then she is lost.”
Poe stood up from the bed and began pacing. Back and forth from one side of the room to another, Poe’s steps began to take on a manic nature. “Not lost. Just not yet found. We will find her, Griswold. I swear this.” He removed the folded bit of foolscap from his vest pocket. “Here is the key, Griswold. I have pondered the cipher on this note all night. I will solve the meaning of it.”
“It makes no sense.” The memory of the columned numbers beneath the greeting from Annabel Lee made my head swim again.
“I’ll find the sense in this. But I need you, Griswold. If not before, I’ll surely need you in the end. Jupiter cannot be trusted. For your soul’s sake and mine, join me.”
Imp: Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe Page 8
