*************
“I was born too late,” he often told Christina when they were in college. She agreed.
“You remind me of my grandfather,” she had told him. “He liked things the way they liked them and didn’t want the world to change. But he is over seventy. How are you like this at nineteen?”
“I am a proud luddite and purposefully cultivate the image of a gentleman scholar of the previous century,” he had told her.
“Good luck with that,” she had told him, enjoying his eccentricity but pitying what promised to be a lonely existence.
*************
“This is why Grand Central after one in the morning drives me mad,” he thought. “Why should I be forced to wander the streets of New York City, find an all-night café and try to stay awake nursing a coffee until the server tells me I have to buy something else or leave? The City was so goddamned unfriendly sometimes. Especially late at night.”
Unless it was closed, Grand Central was never empty, not even at 1:25 in the morning on a Wednesday. Those who stayed late at work, those who work late shift, the theatre crowd who stayed for one too many after-curtain drinks, and those who simply preferred the night rushed through the station at this hour. And as last train departures grew near, the station gained an undercurrent of desperation and frustration. Lord knows Theodore had broken into a panic when he had realized the time. He knew he could leave The City via Amtrak at Penn Station or get a bus just a few blocks down, but that was more money he did not have. Both were more expensive options. He had a return ticket via Metro North.
“Why spend more money to go home when I already have a ticket home?” he had asked her earlier that evening.
“Stay the night at my place,” she had said. But he knew he would not stay, despite Christina’s kind offer.
A kindred spirit to Lovecraft, he found The City dirty and the people mysterious and frightening. Were it not for the fact that Lovecraft had lived in Red Hook, Theodore would have never even gone to Brooklyn. When Theodore had to come to The City, his haunts were in Manhattan: bookstores, museums, theaters and libraries. He rode the train to The City in order to do research and claim some culture not his by right of residence. And New Yorkers hate a tourist. No tourist ever thinks they look like a tourist, especially in NYC.
“I am doubly hated here,” he had told Christina the first time they met up. “I am a tourist from another time and another state.”
“Nobody hates you, Theodore. You’re not a tourist —you’re a commuter. Some folks might mock the bridge and tunnel crowd, but I assure you you’re not even the only person from Connecticut in this coffee shop right now. What you are is narrow-minded. If people hate you, that would be why,” she gently explained and he sulked a bit after that.
He ran down the third flight of stairs in less than thirty seconds and hit the platform just as the conductor cried out, “All aboard!” He entered the first set of doors, which closed right behind him with a hiss. He sunk into a seat, relieved that he was on his way and in one hundred and thirty-two minutes would be back in his sensible-sized city with his books and his work. New York would, once again, be a memory. He waited for the initial jerk as inertia fought the engine and its load of cars. Slow momentum began to build in the darkness. The flashes of other trains and streetlights shining down through the grates as the train made its way underground to Harlem, then emerging like some steel badger from its burrow to claw its way above ground to Connecticut.
*************
The day had started with a very early morning train into The City, leaving New Haven at just before five in the morning.
“What is wrong with you?” Christina had asked later that evening. “The good folks of Connecticut are still asleep then!”
“It’s less expensive if I come before peak hours. I get here and can get to work as soon as the library or museum or wherever I am going opens without having to wait until the late morning off peak hours. It’s efficient. And the cars are not as overfull as they are during rush hour.” She had given him a look. “It’s not that I hate people,” he had continued. “I just need my personal space, even on a train. Plus I’m not really alone.”
He patted his beat up copy of At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror, an old paperback he found on an uncle’s bookshelf, a seemingly minor event that changed his life. “See —an old friend with me on the trip.”
“You are the weirdest person I know. And I’m an actress in New York City,” she solemnly informed him. “Maybe that’s why we’re friends.”
“We’re friends because we went to the same college, hooked up occasionally during our sophomore year and realized we were better friends than lovers,” he solemnly informed her back.
“And as a result, I get to have dinner with you the half a dozen times a year you can be bothered to come to Manhattan.”
“I suppose we could go back to being lovers. If memory serves, you told me I was ‘adequate.’”
“I cannot be held responsible for anything I said before the age of twenty-five. And I think we are just fine the way we are.”
“Agreed.”
“Good. Now that is settled, let us never mention it again. What brings you to town this time?”
*************
This trip had been occasioned from “friendly advice” by his dissertation advisor.
“Mr. Dyer,” Dr. Danforth had begun, “I enjoy Lovecraft as much as the next fellow, but perhaps you can expand your research beyond ‘Lovecraft in New York?’ Might I recommend a comparative literary analysis between Lovecraft and other Gothic New York writers from the period? I am thinking now of your long term employment prospects.”
Although he knew Dr. Danforth would roll his eyes yet again, Theodore decided a comparison of Poe and Lovecraft as non-native sons of New York might be in order. Today’s excursion would take him to the Morgan Library and Museum. A short walk from Grand Central and Poe’s manuscripts, personal artifacts and even a piece of his coffin were there for his consumption.
The sun was rising on The City as he exited the station. He noticed a woman sitting by the entrance to Grand Central. At first he thought she was just another street person with a “Homeless Please Help” sign, but he did a double take. He could not tell what made him look again. There was something simply off about her. It was not her clothing. She wore mismatched boots that were falling apart and repaired with newspaper. Her long plaid skirt was torn in several places revealing another black skirt underneath. She wore a greasy, stained ochre sweater barely visible under a dirty winter coat. He thought he saw a bloodstain on the sleeve. Her matted black hair disappeared into a knitted black cap. None of which would have attracted a second glance.
He realized she was staring right at him. She was not looking at the other passers- by on the street. She was staring at him and only him. Not blinking. No emotion on her face. Just staring at him.
He turned and walked in the direction of the Morgan, only realizing as he entered a diner down the street that she had cast no shadow.
The reading room opened at 9:30, so he treated himself to breakfast while he waited. While eating, he reread his favorite parts of “The Dreams in the Witch House.” At precisely 9:30, he entered the Morgan Library. Five hours later, he exited, enthusiastic but tired. He was due to meet Christina at 7:00 that evening in the Village, after she finished a rehearsal. He decided to go to the Poe Cottage in the Bronx, and simply soak in where Poe had lived. The trip there and back, along with an indulgent visit to the site, ate up the rest of the afternoon.
The only odd moment in the Bronx came as he walked from the subway station to the cottage. As he stopped at a red light, waiting to cross the street, he heard a paper cup full of change rattled in his direction and a female voice say, “Hey, mister, spare a dollar or two?”
Without even looking he said, “Sorry, no cash.” As she turned and moved away he saw a dirty winter coat and a black knit cap. His head snapped back,
thinking it was the woman from that morning. But no. Just another homeless person. He rapidly forgot about it upon arrival at the cottage.
Arriving back in The City, he headed south to the Village. First, so see the Poe House again and then to meet up with Christina for dinner at this little restaurant she liked, so it became “their” place. The Poe House was only a façade, but it was something to look at while he waited. He wandered through the small, winding streets of the Village, so different from the rest of The City. He tried to imagine what it must have been like a century and a half ago and wondered what Poe had thought as he had walked these same streets.
Theodore was so caught up in thought that he did not notice the woman until he literally bumped into her. “Excuse me…” he began, but gagged on the odor coming off of her. It was a mixture of the sweet scent of decaying apples and the rancid perfume of spoiled milk. She looked up at him and he realized it was the woman from this morning. She stared again at him. He took a step back, overwhelmed by both the aroma and the intensity of her empty glare.
“Sorry. Um…are you following…?”
Before he could continue, she turned and scurried across the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a speeding BMW. He lost her in the fading daylight as she darted down the opposite sidewalk, continually glancing back at him.
Again he was struck by the utter wrongness of her. Now that he had seen her up close, albeit only for a moment, he realized her eyes were empty. They were devoid of emotion or sense. Yet lurking behind them was something that left him uneasy.
Theodore was running late and was still feeling frustrated about it, even though he knew Christina would still be later than him. The Lovecraft paperback was out again and he was on his second bottle of Newcastle Brown, and fourth short story in a row, when she made her entrance.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” and a kiss on his check before he could even acknowledge her presence. Her red hair, luxurious and thick, spilled out from under a hat, over a scarf and surrounding her sweater. She was dressed casually for the day, coming from rehearsal, dropping her backpack by the table and collapsing dramatically in the seat across from him. “Now put the book away and talk to me, I need constant attention. Lovecraft gets enough of yours, anyway. Good lord, how can you stand to read the same stories over and over and over again. Doesn’t it get boring? I mean there is only so many times one can read the same horrific descriptions. Let me ask you: does it scare you at all anymore? I mean did it ever even scare you in the first place?” And with that she pulled her turtleneck up over her chin and mouth, dropped her head so that she was glaring at him over her nose and in her most unearthly voice intoned, “You fool, Warren is DEAD!” Hastily fixing her sweater, she then smiled at him, snapping up a menu.
“Hello, Christina. How are you, Christina? Why are you looking at a menu since you always order the same thing, Christina? And since you’re the one half an hour late, perhaps attention could be paid to me,” he said, placing the paperback back in the monogrammed briefcase (a present from his parents when he began his doctoral program). “And ‘The Statement of Randolph Carter’ did scare me when I was a kid, thank you very much.”
“A lady likes to have options and know what they are, even if she has already made a choice and you are still too young to be this much of a fuddy duddy.” She put down the menu and smiled at him. “Now, I only get to see you so many times a year, so please stop thinking about going home early like the fuddy duddy you are despite your relative youth.”
“We’re the same age, sweetie.”
She feigned indignation. “Never mention a lady’s age. Come on, Theo, even Lovecraft would know not to do that. He was, after all, a Gent from Providence. And that is the last we will speak of him tonight, please? Let’s talk about normal stuff. What brings you to the city?”
He scoffed. “Uh, Ok. No, I’m in town to do some research on Poe. Stop rolling your eyes. Danforth says I need to include comparative Gothic in my dissertation and since he is god, I have been sent forth to do god’s will. So today was Poe Cottage and Morgan Library, not in that order. And before you roll your eyes again, that is the last we will speak of Mr. Poe, ok? What are you doing nowadays?”
“Don’t get me started. I was playing Cordelia in this avant-garde Lear for a while, Off-Off-Broadway, which paid the bills and ennobled the soul, but now I’m doing this dreadful autobiographical thing in Brooklyn that’s supposedly by The Next Big Thing, but if this play is any indication, I don’t blame her father for never loving her. The character which I play (who is so obviously the playwright) is an unlovable, misunderstood bitch that should have been strangled at birth. I mean it’s a living, but I am tired of being cast in these vapid roles. I did Chekhov and Strindberg and Maeterlinck in college, you know? I cannot accept that I have been reduced to these bland, uninspiring roles written by self-involved playwrights not worth the paper their M.F.A. is printed on.”
“Tell us how you really feel?”
“Oh, hush, you. Or I’ll kill myself and haunt you. I’ll be a ghost out of Poe. No! Wait! No, I won’t. That would probably make you happy, you morbid little weirdo. And we already said no more Poe or Lovecraft tonight.”
“Actually, despite his reputation there are very few ghosts or supernatural elements in Poe’s stories. He was all about body horror and psychological horror. I suppose the closest he comes is in ‘The Raven,’ where the narrator only feels the presence of his lost love Lenore and this creepy bird doesn’t help.”
“But no actual ghosts?”
“Nope. ‘The Black Cat,’ ‘The Tell Tale Heart,’ ‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ ‘The House of Usher’ —lots of dead folks, and lots of insane folks, but no supernatural.”
“What about insane dead folks?”
She was joking, but the thought gave him pause.
“Not in Poe. But maybe in his house.”
“OK, lost me there, chief.”
He shifted in his seat and put down his Newcastle, warming to the topic. “Poe lived here, in the Village in 1844 and 1845, on West 3rd Street. He also lived out in the Bronx.”
“I have too much respect for you to believe that you believe he haunts either location.”
“No. No, not Poe. He didn’t do much at the Village house, in fact. The Bronx cottage was much more his home. They’ve restored it fairly well to the period. You should go check it out. But the house is supposedly haunted by an insane woman who was kept upstairs and after she died did not know she was dead, so she continues to crawl and wail and strike the walls of the attic to this day. Some think it might be Poe’s wife Virginia, since she became ill with TB while they lived there.”
“My,” she drawled in imitation of a Southern accent, “what pleasant dinner conversation. And we agreed no more Poe.”
“You asked. That reminds me, though, I’ve been seeing this crazy lady all day. Well, twice at least. Once this morning at Grand Central and then on my way here.”
“So what? New York is full of crazy people.”
“Not like this. There’s something just wrong about her.”
“Know what I think? Poe and Lovecraft have finally driven you mad. You’re beginning to see what they saw in New York. Now, for the last time, enough creepy stuff. Let’s eat!”
And so they drank and ate and talked and got caught up on all their mutual friends and enemies from college with whom they were still in touch. Then she dragged him to this late night exhibit claiming he would love the artist. He did, in fact, find much to admire about the images; they were dark, brooding and disturbing. He would have enjoyed himself if it were not for the crowd of pretentious art snobs providing a running commentary at each painting, sculpture, and installation. Still, unusual for him he relaxed and enjoyed himself. The beer from dinner and the wine from the gallery warmed him and reminded him of the best times in college. For once he began to loosen up. Christina could still bring out that side of him.
“See,” she told him, “you can be fun. Let’s gr
ab a quick drink before you go. I want one final chance to convince you Böcklin is a better artist than Redon!”
“I will brook no criticism of my good friend Odilon,” he crowed. They entered the bar. As the door closed behind them and a wave of sound assaulted his ears, he realized that the woman going through the dumpster in the alley next to the bar looked familiar. He could not say from where.
Loud music. Glasses clinking. Waves of banter, laughter, and friendly arguments filled the room. The conversation continued to circle as the minutes slipped away. Uncharacteristically, he ignored his watch in favor of Christina.
Eventually they came back to the subject of his dissertation and she asked him once again why he was so drawn to “that stuff.”
“Because,” he said, putting down his glass, “the endings are not endings. Something always goes unresolved in Poe. The secret is revealed. We learn the truth of what happens, but something is unresolved after all. There is always something we don’t really know or understand.”
“Kind of like life,” she acknowledged.
“Kind of. No matter how much we learn, there are always more ‘whys:’ ‘why did he do that?’ ‘Why did that happen that way?’ And we have no real answers. I find comfort in that lack of comfort, I guess.” And suddenly he glimpsed the time, realizing he had not only missed his usual 10:08 back to civilization, but also the following two trains. He had never stayed this late, preferring to leave The City at a decent hour.
“Stay the night at my place,” she said. “My roommate is visiting her boyfriend in D.C. for his birthday. You can crash in her bed. Why the rush back to Connecticut? You can catch an early morning train and still get to class.”
When he politely but firmly declined and gathered his possessions, she remarked, “It’s almost as if you fear to spend the night here. That doing so would somehow transform you into something you were not, or perhaps would taint some part of you. What’s your problem with New York anyway?”
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