Drinks with Dead Poets

by Glyn Maxwell

  Well, yes, there we go (but now the Yankee fellow thwacks his hand on my shoulder, a friend for life for the evening) ‘To be controlled is to be ruined!’

  Hey let’s hit the venue, shall we?

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ goes Edgar with a sniff, ‘Lord help my poor soul.’

  *

  ‘Prophet! said I, thing of evil—prophet still, if bird or devil! –

  By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore –

  Tell this soul with sorrow laden if within the distant Aidenn,

  It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore –

  Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.

  Quoth the Raven, Nevermore.

  Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend! I shrieked, upstarting –

  Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

  Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

  Leave my loneliness unbroken!– quit the bust above my door!

  Take thy beak from out my hearty and take thy form from off my door!

  Quoth the Raven, Nevermore.

  And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

  On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

  And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

  And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

  And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

  Shall be lifted – nevermore!’

  He signed off with a flourish, blew out his taper, I heard girls whispering nevermore’ in awestruck echo. Then began the loudest longest drummingest ovation of the autumn term. He bowed and gazed and bowed and stared, the mad old ham, the pissed old pro. Even the sceptics were nodding and grinning at his force and energy, indulging a child, as dead professors do living artists. I leaned out of my row and peered back at the whole crowd. Lots of black and red and orange, some horns and beaks and masks, but not remotely bloody frightening.

  *

  I was glad I’d caught that early drink with him, because as soon as the applause died down he was swamped with acolytes, and did his cause no harm by declaring the cold hall no place for literary talk. At the Keys I couldn’t get close.

  ‘I’ve made no money!’ he proclaimed from his long packed table, ‘I’m as poor now as ever I was in my life – except in hope, which is by no means bankable!’ and his audience blared approval. Some dozen drama, literature and genre-fiction students were clustered along, while others knelt or leant or stood in his smoky aura. Some of my poetry students showed, some didn’t, no surprises. The only other focus in the room was a little intense booth where format was reading Edgar’s story The Imp of the Perverse to the ones who listen when format speaks:

  ‘We stand upon the brink of a precipice,’ he read from a large black volume: ‘we peer into the abyss – we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. . .’

  Poe himself seemed unaware of his own words being intoned to a rapt audience a matter of yards away. He had his audience where he sat:

  ‘What’s Poetry?’ he exclaimed and no one was quick enough – ‘Poetry! Give me – I demanded of a scholar some time ago – give me a definition of poetry. . . He proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr Johnson, and overwhelmed me with a definition!’

  Poe’s brand-new circle duly trembled with contempt. ‘Think of poetry – and then think of Dr Samuel Johnson!’ Presumably knowing nothing at all, they saw what the words Doctor Samuel Johnson made them see – think of all that is fairy-like – and then all that’s hideous and unwieldy – think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! And then think of Prospero – Oberon – Titania!’

  And the voice of Wayne/format murmured on in the background: And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. . .’

  Scare me. Next week. Its Halloween. Scare me.

  Scare you how. ’

  You and your actor friends. Do something. Weave a circle round me thrice.

  You serious Max? Cos you know we could. ’

  Why do you think I’m asking.

  You had a weird day, who knows. Guess we can scare you.’

  I want you to. I want you to scare me to death. So I can go home.

  ‘You okay there, Glyn?’

  Ollie was at my table, pulling cellophane off a new notebook. Yeah man, I’m good, I’m good (and then I hear Poe, middeclaration -)

  ‘Every plot worth the name must be – ’ he had raised his hand for quiet and his finger on high for emphasis – ‘must be elaborated – to its denouement – before anything be attempted with the pen.’

  Hold your horses though (I murmured to myself) –

  ‘It’s only with the denouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its air of, of, of consequence, causation, by making the incidents – and especially the tone – tend to the development of the intention!’

  Hold your horses though (I spoke under the noise, to no one in particular) why? Life’s not like that, why should stories be? Why not grow the flower of a chapter from the soil of the last? (Something about me – or him – made Poe aware I’d said this, and nor was I quite done yet) If the ending’s written, Edgar, none of us can breathe, and we can breathe, we will breathe!

  Pointing right at me through the grinning of his devotees, with transatlantic brio he boomed: ‘We know the British bear us ill-will!’

  (I smiled at them all, a writer myself) But the denouement’s not in view! We see some yards into a fog, that’s all!

  And Poe has raised his glass to what? to our all being there this ancient autumn night, to storytelling, to book-talk, to raising a glass itself, which he did and lowering it said this: ‘I’ve often thought how interesting a magazine might be – written by any author who would detail, step by step, the, the, the process by which any of his compositions attained completion. . .’

  That’s a first-class idea, man (I called out, seeing where this was heading)

  ‘Why such a paper’s never been given to the world,’ he wondered to his drained glass, ‘I’m at a loss to say,’ and the rest was drowned in voluble proposals from his blissful fanbase, including this from a vampire-girl all but contiguous to his cheek: ‘Like, Mr Poe, how did you write The Raven for example?’ and off he went, in clover, ‘My first object was originality. . .’ Done with it all, drunk and aware I am, I glance at Ollie, who’s opened his new notebook and is titling its first blank page.

  Hey how’s old Mimi doing these days, man?

  ‘Do I look like I would know that. Man.’

  *

  No one sees me leave the Keys, or not so as I notice. Last time I walked from here at night my shirt-front was blue with cocktail stain, my chin sticky from my blood-bond, my heartbeat silly, blessed but what? Where was she, where was anyone? Half the crowd at the reading had had animal masks, birds, foxes, cats, that could have been them, and they weren’t in the pub, that could have been them, that could have been them not being there. . .

  Are they scaring me by waiting? Are they scaring me with wondering? With nothing? That would disappoint, I must say, I go walking, it’s bloody freezing. If I wait for the fright will it never come at all? How can I unknow it?

  How can I unknow death? (I keep walking) Is that how everyone lives this life? Did I miss the class when that course was advised? How do you unknow death?

  There is a man stands by a churchyard.

  Hold your horses, only me.

>   The names buried here are like names buried everywhere, weather-worn to monosyllables, defunct like war-dead surnames, carved and dated, gone together, and the children they raised grew dates themselves, have joined them on the journey. Its on the north side of St Anne’s, the yard. Dead flowers for the recent. The dark-now locked-now village hall is a humble barn beside the church, a kennel to its cottage. I walk the path around to that shabby patch with its barred ticking sub-station titled DANGER OF DEATH – I am trying to unknow you! – on the scrap of land that serves as the garden to our Workshop.

  Half the rooms I’ve taught poetry in spend half their lives as kindergartens. We read our Frost or Auden in the Red Room full of coat-hooks, or the Purple Room with big bold crayoned drawings on the walls, Becca, Poppy; Calvin, Juan, artwork turning and glittering in corners. I’m reminded of this when I see the long dark window of our workshop room, see a display of masks those children must have made – what children, what kindergarten – they are seven people’s faces – what children, what children –

  They are not masks they are faces. I am aware my hair’s gone ash-white, is crackling, is on end, I note my heartbeat’s skipped some pages –

  They are six or seven people in a stance together, huddled in the window, looking out at me and they are not faces they are masks, wide plastic bearded faces, broad faces with broad grinning chins, Johnny Appleseed? Paul Bunyan! Lumberjacks! when I stop the faces stop, when I move the faces move and stop.

  Good one (I recover my breath) not bad at all my friends, you are seven lumberjacks, and you are all right. You, er, work all day and you sleep all night. You, um, chop down trees, and, so on.

  They’re lit only by faint lamplight from the road, enough to see they all are sporting different pale-and-black check shirts. How did they know I’d make my way to the churchyard? I mean I would, but how did they know? Because I – said I – wanted to be scared. . .

  I start guessing on my fingers – Mimi, Jacob, Syrie, Blanche, Yvette? – you donned old plaster heads from some bygone end-of-term show – and I feel like saying so but I’ve my part to play. Scare me, I will be scared, mime, dumb-show, play it out, play it through to some denouement over brandies in the Coach House, Mimi, Jacob, Syrie, Blanche? Roy Ford, Ali K? Yvette, I step, the faces move. I stop, the faces look. Make them laugh! Spoil it! You must be hot in there guys! Sweating like pigs am I right?

  No don’t, no don’t, there’s been effort. Mimi gathered them together in the week while I was away, she said we’re going to scare the shit out of Max, ideas, team, ideas... maybe in the Keys this was, or the tables outside Benson, in the daytime, in the sunshine.

  There’s an old green outer door moulded shut at one end of the workshop room and I see it’s been forced ajar. The seven Paul Bunyans suddenly stride from the window as if on cue and cluster, seated, round one end of the table, the end furthest from the green door. I could go in, they want me to, there’d be distance between us, I’ll be nearer the door than them. And someone will break, someone will snort, crease, corpse, wreck it, scream now it’s over! I store some cold white cemetery breath and take a step towards these people.

  And, somehow, what I learn from that deep intake is solemn, rightful, grave: I am going to teach my Night Class.

  Bunyan Bunyan

  Bunyan Bunyan

  Bunyan Bunyan

  Bunyan

  me

  Good evening, Night Class.

  Mind if I sit?

  Good then. I’ll sit.

  Look I don’t really know how to handle this except to – tell you a story. A dark tale’s best for autumn. Would that work for you – you – um, wood-persons?

  Right. I’ll take silence for assent. I can only think of two. So:

  There was a man dwelt by a churchyard.

  That’s that done. Then there’s, there’s – this one. Oh my God

  Bunyan

  Bunyan

  Bunyan Bunyan

  Bunyan me Bunyan

  Bunyan

  Right. O-kay. You gathered round me. On we go. It’s the greatest of Poe’s stories. It’s about a man who believes something dreadful will befall him. He doesn’t know what it is, all he knows is it’s coming.

  If you stay here, I will spoil it for you. You will find out the ending. I don’t want that. Don’t listen.

  I MEAN IT, DON’T HEAR IT! It’s the greatest of Poe’s stories. It’s so great he didn’t write it, Henry James wrote it. Skip this!

  I don’t want you to hear it. That’s what the woman tells the man in the story (too late) the man’s called John, she says John I don’t want you to hear it, because she’s worked out what it is. She’s worked out the ending. She’s understood what’s coming, the terrible thing he fears, the thing he’s spent his life afraid of, waiting for, being ready for. Years go by, she knows, grows ill loving him, she withers and dies, never told him what it was. At her grave, now elderly, in mourning for the lady, he finally cracks it.

  He has wasted his life waiting. Unfulfilled, unseen, unmarked, unknown to love. He was simply the man to whom nothing would happen. Nothing happened because he was waiting. I told you not to listen.

  *

  Six Bunyans turn their great gleaming heads towards the one at the top of the table, and she (he?) produces a small brown bottle from the pocket of his (her?) checked shirt, from which slowly and deliberately the Head Bunyan shakes out some pale-and-dark capsules.

  A reward for a dark story? (I repeat) I told you not to listen. (Round it comes towards me, are we all taking capsules?) Are we all – I think we are – taking this together are we?

  I don’t mind. I’m in a coma, dead, dreaming or in heaven, I’m more or less untouchable, and I don’t do Friday mornings.

  Should you be taking this? Haven’t you trees to cut down somewhere? (if I can just make one of them giggle, bloody actors, they never break that way) it’s a health-and-safety question!

  I’m taking my brown capsule, friends. It breaks in two halves. 2P and 3P, but I’ll take it all at once! Will I grow a face like yours? Can I get the shirt at least?

  (As I swallow the thing, go ha! there comes a rustle through the Bunyans and a couple of them seem to wobble out of character – why, because a Prof is getting high with them yay? – no it’s something else, it’s someone, faint light’s spilling from the village hall, there are footsteps) er, someone’s in the hall. Shit (and the door opens)

  ‘What the blummin heck is this.’

  Bunyan Head Bunyan

  Bunyan Bunyan

  Bunyan Bunyan

  Bunyan

  CAT! me

  A little black human cat is here, has stepped through the dark cold hall with a torch and her perfume makes the air go rosy. The Paul Bunyans face her, grouped untidily and she waggles the torch-beam along their scowling grins.

  Are those heads from the wardrobe department?’

  Hey Tina (I go) it’s Night Class!

  ‘Oh for pete’s sake.’

  (Ambushed by this accident, the hitherto creepy Bunyans have quite lost their drilled wooden poise, and are distinctly beginning to resemble seven students arsing about, but Tina Yeager, cheap costume notwithstanding, has priorities) ‘No candles please, people, that’s a no-no and I’m going to switch the main light on.’

  This appals all seven Bunyans, and while some frantically wave their arms in protest, others make for the door, sod this for a game of woodmen, and are out before Tina makes her move. Two or three of them loom with menace over the little indignant cat -Minnaloushe! they seem to hiss – then they quit the scene and she simply stands her ground with folded arms: ‘I hope you signed those heads out.’

  The last to leave, the top-of-the-table Head Bunyan, comes via me, looms its flaky plaster head towards me, exposed in its fading am-dram crumble, and murmurs under breath: ‘Don’t be alone. Top floor of Benson.’

  ‘And close the door behind you please!’

  I hear them striding sprinting through the hall a
nd out, not doing what she asked.

  ‘Hm. Charming. What did she tell you?’

  Now accustomed to the darkness, nocturnal after all, Minnaloushe marches around, double-bolts the green door shut, blows out the perilous candles, one, two, ‘there!’ then stands up silhouetted, wire whiskers, little cat ears, wells for eyes.

  ‘Honestly, you. I turn my back for a minute.’

  *

  We go out through the village hall, and she padlocks it behind us. I play the sullen reprobate as she witters on about regulations. I’m wondering why I didn’t run off with the Bunyans. It never entered my mind to. I hope they have another plan. Then again, I hope they don’t. I am led down the lane like a fool.

  ‘I was actually singing your praises for once, small wonders never cease, I was saying what a cool show he put on, Mr Poe, I was saying to my assistant, and how maybe Maxwell was right and some poets are great readers! You see? I can learn, professor, I can compromise! can you though.’

  Nevermore.

  ‘Very funny. Nevermore! I expect he’s a terrible wretch that Poe, he’s really in his cups, so what happened was: I said to my assistant I’m going to find this Maxwell and make, you know, make a suggestion, and I thought you’d be in the Cross Keys pub, seeing as you are always!’

  Nevermore.

  ‘But one of your students said he saw you opening the churchyard gate and you know what I said I said Halloween shenanigans! and lo and behold.’

  You saw a cat coming out of the mist ‘Are you alright?’

  Did you just say something about a cat and the mist?

  ‘Um, no. But I am one, I am a cat in the mist, meow! so are we going to have our peace-making drinks or just stand here in the cold.’

  It was like, a voice.

  It is a voice, it’s your voice

  ‘Very creepy. Come on.’

  You see the red sign of the bar down the street, it’s the moon for you, the red moon you ordered, rival people want this. You turn, there are people singing your name, foxes, smoking and drinking foxes: professsssor, professsssor

  Yeager.

  ‘Yes. Maxwell.’

  Yeager. Tina Yeager. There’s a voice commenting on this.