Imp: Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe

by Douglas Vincent Wesselmann

  “I need him, Griswold.” Poe’s eyes were on me. “I need Jupiter.”

  Even Molly turned at the tone of his words. She looked young again, as if she were a daughter, looking at her troubled father. “It’ll work out, Mr. Poe.”

  “Yes it will.” Poe kept staring at me. “We will make it work. We will save him.”

  “As you say, Poe.” I hoped to reassure him. I feared another of his attacks. If he collapsed again, I was unsure if I would be up to the task of reviving him. I broke my eyes from his and looked down at my hand. The red ruby ring caught the firelight and magnified its flickering light. I thought of my wife – my Caroline. In the horrors of the day, I had near forgotten the meaning of all the madness. “We will help Jupiter.” My words were as determined as Poe’s.

  “Sleep now,” said Poe.

  And so we sought rest as we could find it. Molly was curled up on the settee with a blanket from the bed. Poe turned the overstuffed chair so that it faced out the window. He propped his feet up on his violated trunk. He took the small foolscap note out of his pocket and examined it for a moment. Then, after returning it to his pocket, he gazed out the window into the night.

  “Poe?”

  He answered only with a dismissive wave of his hand. I stood there for another moment, tempted to ask again about the puzzle. I was about to speak again when he waved his hand for a second time. I let the matter drop for the moment.

  I went to the door and checked the lock. Then I extinguished the lamp on the bed table and sought refuge on the four-poster. The linen on the pillow inspired a memory of Caroline’s fair complexion. I pulled the duvet up over my neck.

  Poe took that moment to speak. “You heard him shout, Griswold.”

  “Shout? Him? You mean the Preacher.” So I thought of the man who had so cruelly stolen my wife from the tomb – the heretic, the demon, the Preacher.

  Poe looked away from me. His head bowed. “Fox shouted at us. What did he say? What did you hear?”

  It took a moment, but the memory of my leaden legs returned. The shout before Fox charged at me in his rig. “The little ape and his mule! Seeking inspiration, poet?” In the repetition, I gave Fox’s words the same menace they had held in that frozen moment.

  “The ape.” Poe was almost whispering. “The mule.” He tapped his finger on the arm of his chair. “Inspiration.” He smacked his lips.

  “Poe?” I feared he was having another spell.

  “Where do you get your inspiration, Griswold?”

  “Inspiration? I don’t think I…” I was too tired for riddles. “You’re the poet.” I was trembling in my bed. The day’s horrors had found me.

  “Yes. Yes, the poet,” he muttered under his breath. He gave a quiet laugh. There was a silence. Then, in a calming tone, he spoke again. “Sleep,” said Poe, his face flickering in the fire’s reflected flames. “You’re safe.”

  “Ha!” Molly sounded like a child again.

  “Safe,” I repeated Poe’s bit of comfort. “Safe.”

  I had a very short dream at some point during that short night. Caroline walked towards me. She held out her arms to me. She smiled. Then Caroline licked her dead lips with the blackest of tongues and spoke to me.

  “Even the grave is not safe.”

  I woke from the terror covered in sweat. Had I heard the door of the room open and close? Poe’s chair by the window was empty. I was so tired. I closed my eyes again, and there was a whisper in my ear that followed me down into the corridor of the short night.

  “Even the dead awaken.”

  Chapter 19

  September 30, 1849 3:15 a.m. - Method is the Soul of Business -

  There may have been another dream, or perhaps it was just a dream of a dream. For in the imagined solitude of my bed, I found myself touching sheets and feeling skin. Though my lids were closed in fitful sleep, lustrous light hazel eyes gazed into mine, and the pupils were wide with excitement. I rolled over onto my stomach in search of her belly and felt a hardness beneath me. There was a wetness in my mind that I sought with my fingers – a gasp in my thoughts that my ears strained to hear. Her breath, rapid as a bird’s, was on my neck. My own being seemed surrounded by her. I rolled onto my back.

  The succubus became serpent. Then flesh became marble, and the dark eyes became coals. Visions became voices.

  Caroline on her deathbed, begging for respite, “Do not curse me with this trance.”

  A small boy’s weeping behind a shadowed door down the passage.

  My own shouts in an empty tomb – echoing.

  Again a child cried.

  There was a young girl, naked, beside me in my bed. Was this dream, demon, or damnation? Molly’s words, uttered one inch from my ear. “A child? A son? Your son?”

  “Her son.”

  Molly’s wicked laugh stirred the skin of my cheek. Her breath caressed my face – rich with cloves. “The virgin bride defiled.”

  “I did not touch her.” I was trying to awaken. I felt a sickness as the girl’s hot flesh rubbed wet against me. “Do not touch me,” I begged the spirit.

  Fingers brushed my forehead. “Then these horns are shame, not lust.” She made a sound low in her throat. Her hands awoke memories in me. Memories of bargains made with mentors and sponsors, and demons in straight collars.

  “I cannot…” I began.

  “You must,” said the spirit. “You love me.”

  And so I did – and so I said. “I love you.”

  God forgive me, but I was helpless in the dream – if dream it was. The unclean emission was not by my will, but by that of the succubus. I have purified myself since, and I hope the stain I bear might be bleached before my judgment. It was not the spasm that marked me that night – rather, my soul was fouled by the careless bond my heart made.

  “I do love you,” I said. “I love you.”

  Molly straddled me, and I felt myself slipping away into some paradise I had always denied myself. The energies were released and became a fountain in the shrine. I gasped and sought to hold her. I sought freedom in the dream… for a moment…I tasted her.

  Forgive me. I did love her, dream or no.

  But the phantasm was wavering, and Molly’s face became my wife’s death mask. In the beat of a heart, Caroline was above me with withered breasts and hollowed belly, her weight was suffocating me, and her black tongue reached out between sharpened teeth.

  “Griswold! Griswold!” Poe was shaking me.

  “No! No!” Did I scream aloud?

  “What is it, man?” Poe was shouting. His hands were on me – touching me. And they were cold as the Baltimore night. My vision faded and was replaced with Poe’s face. He hovered over me, his eyes black as ever, bearing down on me like a witch’s stone. “Wake up!” he shouted.

  “Let go of me.” I reached up and grabbed at his hands. I pushed him away.

  He left me and went to Molly who was sitting up on the settee rubbing her face. “Molly, get up. No more sleep for us tonight.”

  “My, such hospitality,” she complained, but was on her feet stretching before Poe could grab at her to administer a shaking.

  “What is it, Poe?”

  “It’s Jupiter. We must go now. We have only the narrowest of chances.”

  “But it’s not close to dawn yet,” I protested.

  Molly had no concerns, or at least, voiced none. She was at the washstand splashing water on her face. I was still warm under my covers and aware of some lingering horror mixed with lust from my interrupted dream.

  “There’s no time to explain now, Griswold. Get up, damn you. I need you. It will take all of us to make this work.” Poe rushed to the occasional table, and taking Jupiter’s envelope of strange powders, dumped the contents into a glass. Then he unstopped the small brown apothecary vial and emptied it into the glass. Stirring it with his finger as he brought the concoction to his lips, he took a deep breath and then drank the glass dry.

  “That’s more than three ounces of laud
anum,” I cried. “Too much of a dose for any man, Poe.”

  “There’s never too much. Never.” He looked at me wildly, and I noticed his hair was more tussled than usual. And tangled in the black strands were some dried leaves. The front of his vest was muddy, as were the knees of his trousers.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I have been to the Justly Celebrated’s fine home.”

  Molly toweled her face dry and looked up. “The Justly Celebrated, eh? You’ve been to Austin Woolfolk’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is Woolfolk?” I asked.

  “For God’s sake, get up. We must go!” Poe tossed his great coat to Molly. “Wear this. It’s a cold night, and we have cold work.” He grabbed his Malacca cane and tapped me on the shoulder. “Hurry, Griswold.”

  I struggled into my vest. “You must tell me what is going on.”

  “There’s no sale tomorrow,” Poe said as he rummaged through his trunk. “Leastwise there’s no sale so far as Jupiter is concerned.”

  “What do you mean?” I had caught the sense of urgency and as best I could was hurrying my preparations.

  “It’s a ship, isn’t it?’ Molly had Poe’s coat on – a perfect fit.

  “That it is.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “While you two slept, I went over to Pratt Street.”

  “The Woolfolk house?” Molly was already standing at the door.

  “Of course, as I said. Such a pretty house – so substantial, as befits a man of standing in the community. And behind that lovely house, there’s a lovely little prison.”

  “Keeps his best property close.” Molly knew the man. “That’s only a sign of his prudence. The Woolfolks have been in business for years. ‘Course, Papa – the true Justly Celebrated, as they called him – died two years back. It’s his son and heir, Austin the less celebrated, running things now.”

  “I still don’t understand.” I had my coat on and was struggling to get my gloves adjusted properly when Poe and Molly both near pushed me out of the room. I only barely had time to grab my hat. “You must tell me what is going on,” I demanded.

  “Ssssh!” Poe hushed me. “Hold it down, man.”

  “Quiet,” added Molly, a born conspirator.

  We moved quickly down the carpeted corridor and down a back set of stairs I had never seen before. They were surely the servant’s access to the hotel’s floors, and why Poe had chosen that route I had no idea.

  “Moving quickly but quietly, we reached the bottom of the steps and were about to go through a large door that offered an exit into the alley behind the building, when he stopped us.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said, addressing Poe. “May I help you, sir?” He was a slightly built black gentleman. I call him that because he was dressed in a fine waistcoat and starched shirt with a silk cravat. The Negro’s hair was silver, and he held a lamp that illuminated the landing. “These are the service quarters, sir.”

  I can only theorize that he felt quite equal meeting us, white or not, on his ground. He gave us a good examination, suspicious of our unconventional behavior.

  “Your name, sir.” I had never heard Poe so polite to a colored man.

  “I might ask yours, sir. And your business.” He was not backing down.

  “I am Edgar Poe, this is Griswold. We are guests of the hotel, and we are on urgent business.”

  “So you say.” The man gestured towards Molly. “And she would be your sister, no doubt.”

  “Listen, man. I cannot explain. There is so little time.”

  “Woolfolk’s marching them,” said Molly.

  At that the man’s eyebrow raised. “Woolfolk marches them tonight?”

  “That’s what I said, boy.” Molly had no delicacy at all.

  “Excuse her, sir,” Poe interrupted. “She is a doxy, pure and simple. I confess that. But she’s also got a gun.”

  “A threat, sir?”

  “No, I assure you. We have no quarrel with you, mister. …?”

  “Mr. Jeffers. Francis K. Jeffers, nightman for the Barnum these thirteen years.” The black man rubbed his chin. “Keep your whore quiet.”

  “I’ll keep…” Poe elbowed Molly, and she was quiet.

  “I beg your pardon, sir.”

  “You say he’s marching them tonight?”

  “Yes. I overheard the plan earlier tonight. The schooner Kannapolis is at Fell’s Point waiting for cargo, bound for New Orleans.”

  “He’s moving some stolen property, then.” Jeffers was considering something. “They’ll be chained.”

  “Of course. But are all the slaves stolen?” Poe had been focused on Jupiter, his only concern. He had given no thought to any others.

  “The Woolfolks sell what they can sell. There are some operators who range North or West. Some even grab Baltimore freemen as well. They grabbed a man, Jim Tasker, here last week.”

  “They can sell freedmen?” I had no idea, assuming laws were followed strictly. Slavery was in my mind, a regrettable thing, but a legal institution governed by just property statutes.

  “The ones without good papers, they forge up some. The ones too well-known like Tasker or maybe your friend…”

  Poe admitted all to the man. “Jupiter is a freedman. And involved in some business with us.”

  “Yes. I met Jupiter the other day when you checked in. He slept here for part of that night. Too big a man to miss. That’s why they’ll move him to Louisiana. Not such sticklers for legalities there.”

  “So you understand. We must go.”

  Another black came out of the shadowed hallway behind Jeffers. A younger man, he put his hand on the old bellman’s shoulder while keeping his eyes on the strange white folk wandering in his part of the world. “What is it, Frank?”

  Jeffers turned towards the younger man. “Don’t know how we missed it, Thaddeus. The Three Tuns are moving tonight.”

  “Shit. We figured tomorrow night. Word was the boat was delayed in Charleston.”

  “We’re wrong, according to our friend here.” Jeffers nodded towards Poe.

  “It’s 3:30. He’ll be moving them anytime now.” Thaddeus reached behind him and grabbed a coat off a hook out of our sight. “I’ll see if I can get the others, but it’s going to be hard to pull them all in on time.”

  “Try Missy’s Place on Union Dock. That’s where you’ll find some of them.”

  “They’ll be exhausted. They unloaded two in from London today.”

  “Then they’ll be exhausted. Go.”

  Thaddeus pushed past Jeffers, and Poe and was out the door and running down the alley in an instant.

  “What are you planning?” Poe asked.

  “Why, Mr. Poe, I’m planning nothing. Just thought I might go out for a walk and pay a visit on my son-in-law.”

  “Your son-in-law?”

  “Mr. Jim Tasker, until Wednesday last, a freeman of Baltimore.”

  I understood. “The Woolfolks stole your son-in-law to sell back into slavery.”

  “Listen, Mr. Griswold, I’ve got no time to explain much, so listen quick. You New Yorkers might be a bit slow on these things, and I’ll indulge you this once. The Woolfolks don’t steal nobody. They are very careful businessmen. Now the Rat Tats and the Beelzers and the Holy Gang out west might steal up some poor black man. And then, they just might sell that man to the Woolfolks. Up at the Three Tun Tavern, they’ve got a saying. ‘We sell you the papers when you sell us the meat.’ It’s all nice and almost legal.”

  “Did you call in the police or the Nightwatch? Surely a judge would…” I was sure that a court hearing would be a perfect answer.

  “You are slow, aren’t you?” Jeffers opened the door to the alley. “If you want to help, head on down to Pratt and follow it around down the Falls. Cross over to the city dock. Something of interest might happen there.”

  “Thank you, Jeffers.” Poe gave a little bow.

  “Don’t thank me yet, sir,” he said with a
shake of his head.

  “But we do thank you.” I would be courteous to make some amend for my naïve stupidity. “The South is an evil place,” I observed to him, as I followed Poe and Molly into the alleyway.

  “No, sir.”

  “No?” Again I had missed something.

  “So easy to say, eh, Mr. Griswold? The South is evil. What an indulgence. What a refuge for conscience. The South is evil. The wickedness is in the soil. The sin is in the air. The trees and the plants are in league with mighty Lucifer. What a conceit, Mr. Griswold.”

  “I only meant…”

  “What you meant was to absolve yourself.”

  “I have tried to…”

  “Go, Mr. Griswold. Quickly. And remember one thing tonight.” Jeffers’ eyes were bright. His voice was barely a whisper. “Men are evil.”

  Jeffers shut the door behind me, and I hurried to catch up with Molly and Poe, who were already nearing Calvert Street. The air was still. Hoar frost had formed on some bare tree branches. They glittered in the light of the street lamps as we ran by.

  My footsteps echoed off the buildings. The cold and the damp of the cobblestones reminded me of something. It was several blocks before the connection was made in my memory.

  I felt like I was running through a tomb.

  Chapter 20

  September 30, 1849 4:05 a.m. - Much of Madness and More of Sin -

  A thief robs a stand of a loaf of bread. He shouts out his motive, and it is hunger. A brigand calls on the passengers of a coach to stand and deliver. On the gallows, he proclaims the rule of poverty. A son smothers his invalid father, and the family hides the secret of this fratricide of such intimate kindness. A rich man prays in church as his tenants live in vermin infested hovels. He prays, blinded by his own greed, that the Lord might show mercy to those indolent and misguided souls who so misspend their lives. The true nature of mankind’s sins and transgressions against the Commandments reach beyond any such material explanations as excuse or rationale. If we would seek the nature of our crimes, we would always discover our own fallen state – an ancient curse of an angry God.