Not Quite Dead

by John MacLachlan Gray

  In the short time we roomed together at West Point, I saw that his boyhood habit of exaggeration and falsification had swelled to grotesque proportions—sea voyages he had never taken, famous people he had never met, political and theological insights he did not possess.

  Physically, though still decidedly handsome, his deportment took on an inappropriate languor for a young cadet. And he was perpetually short of funds, for which he blamed (with good reason) his niggardly guardian. This funding imbalance he sought to remedy through gambling, with only intermittent success. And he had begun to drink. And, as always, he wrote lugubrious poetry, which he insisted on reciting whether you wanted to hear it or not.

  It is to my regret that I never found the grit to rebuke him for these unfortunate traits. Instead, ever the loyal second, I nodded at his arguments, laughed at his jokes, applauded his tales—and planned my escape.

  (Lest I appear vindictive in describing Eddie at West Point, note that the Conduct Book of 1830-1831 lists a total of 106 conduct points against him, for lack of attendance in parades, roll calls, classes, and for refusing to attend church.)

  For a young man who sought only to do his duty and thereby succeed, Eddie Poe became a dangerous cadet to know. Halfway through the term I gathered my courage and applied for another room, for the stated reason that my roommate and I practiced incompatible study habits—which was, in a sense, true. Eddie accepted that explanation with an equanimity I shall never forget. Nothing he did or said galled me like his indifference to my absence.

  In the act of writing that last paragraph, suddenly I begin to realize why Eddie Poe continues to stir up such resentment: it was because of him that I became a doctor.

  In witnessing Mother’s mental deterioration in my friend’s company, I came to sense the danger to my own reason. As their mutual transport grew more intense, I spent less time listening to their verses and more time out-of-doors, adding to my collection of rocks and insects. I took refuge in science.

  When father brought Dr. Emory to explain to me why Mother would not be living with us in future, my faith in science enabled me to take heart from the logic it represented. When she died, it never occurred to me to put her death to her scientific mistreatment, nor did it seem appropriate, under the circumstances, for me to weep.

  In later years, science served me well—up to a point. At Resaca de Palma I removed men’s legs and arms by the dozen with hardly a qualm—not because I felt indifferent to their plight, but because I refused to give free reign to my imagination. I did not ask what the procedure might feel like were it to happen to me. Had I indulged in such imagining, I should have succumbed earlier to mental infirmity, or killed more men through medical blunders than I probably did.

  My nervous collapse, when it occurred, was the result of simple exhaustion, though some had it otherwise, pointing to my family history of mental instability. According to an alienist assigned to my case, I was not driven mad by what I saw at Monterey, I was driven mad by my mother.

  My honorable discharge from the service remains sketchy in memory. I have a bronze medallion on a green and white ribbon, labeled 1846 MEXICAN WAR 1846, with an eagle clutching a snake on one side and an eagle with wings spread on the other. I once wondered why I earned only the one decoration, but later read that it was the only one issued from that ugly conflict: you were there. Let us leave it at that.

  For his part, Eddie Poe left West Point in disgrace during my second term, under circumstances having to do with gambling debts. Opinions differed as to his activities afterward. Some said he had taken a ship to England under the name Henri Le Rennet; others had it that he joined the United States Army as Richard A. Perry.

  I made every effort to avoid keeping track of his subsequent life and career—not an easy task in later years with “The Raven” on display on every magazine cover, every bookstore window, every repetition of the word nevermore. I wanted no part of the inward stirrings he evoked in his admirers. Despite his artistic gifts, he was not going to do to me what he did to Mother.

  Now he sat before me, sipping medicated tea with the delicacy of an aesthete, taking white powder from a salter he carried in his valise (he took it up the nostril like snuff, something I had not seen before), and giving voice to the most outlandish suspicions, in tones resonating with apparent truth.

  “Well now, Eddie,” I said. “Let us assume for the moment that the victim in the newspaper is indeed the unfortunate woman downstairs. I fail to see where that leads us. And as for the teeth you produced— how are we to know they were her teeth? They could have been anyone’s teeth, don’t you see?”

  “Whether or not they are the same teeth is entirely beside the point. It is part of an ongoing, deliberate attack on the validity of my work.”

  “Please explain that last bit, for it is gibberish to me.”

  “Surely you are familiar with my Collected Tales.”

  “I regret to say no.” This was a lie, for in fact I read and loathed every page, some more than once.

  “Even you, Willie? In America, has the written word become debased to such an extent that old friends cannot be bothered to read one another?”

  I found this line of thought more than a little pompous—that a reluctance to read the tales of Edgar Allan Poe sounded the death knell of the language.

  “You needn’t put it that way,” I replied. “It happens that I prefer fact to fiction.”

  “And what of art, Willie? What of the imagination?”

  “I like a good painting. I enjoy a fantasy as much as the next fellow. I dream preposterous events every night for five to eight hours. But when I wake up I am pleased to do so, and I find nothing so tiresome as hearing about the dreams of others.”

  “Even your oldest friend?”

  “Especially so, Eddie.”

  “I suppose you took no notice of the publication of my tales in Grahams and the Southern Messenger—Not even ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’?”

  “Have you ever been to France, Eddie?”

  “No.”

  “Then why should I wish to read it? Besides, I read a report that was unfavorable.”

  “Oh really? And who was the butcher on this occasion?” The expression on Poe’s face was one I would describe as an unbecoming sneer.

  “If you must know, the review was actually the introduction to your Collected Tales. Yes, I did purchase it, but was discouraged from reading further by your own editor. The essay painted you as a madman in the vein of de Sade. Not so much an artist as a symptom. I thought he made a valid point.”

  Poe immediately became so agitated that I feared he would fall into a fit of apoplexy. “Griswold! How hideously appropriate that you should mention him now!”

  “I am not aware that I did.”

  “There is only one Collected Tales, and it is edited by Griswold.”

  “I believe it might have been he. A man of considerable repute, I’m told. A man of character and good sense.”

  “It is Griswold behind this whole affair. I am certain of it. His entire life is directed against me and my work.”

  “I see.” Indeed, I did—that his mind had again slipped into delusion. “What is your evidence, Eddie? And if you have evidence, why not present it to the police?”

  He shook his head wearily, as though dealing with an inferior pupil who had failed to grasp a fundamental point.

  “I understand that you think me mad, Willie. Sometimes I think so myself. Yet I beg you, listen to what I have to tell you. At the end, I will abide by your judgment. If you consign me to a madhouse, so be it. If I require medicines and enemas and ice baths, bring them on. But I implore you to hear me out, if only as a tribute to the memory of your mother, and the sentiments we once shared.”

  Mother. He would bring her into the discussion. How base of him, to use her memory (of which I retain hardly a shred) to influence me!

  I refreshed my cup of tea, sat back in my chair and, in spite of everything, listened.


  T“HE TROUBLE BEGAN shortly after the publication of my Collected Tales. Wiley and Putnam had agreed to the venture on two conditions—that I invest in the enterprise myself (I am still in debt over it), and that Rufus Griswold serve as editor.

  “I had no objection to Griswold, for we had always been on cordial terms, and he was well known, having edited a well-received— though woefully shallow—anthology of American poetry

  “It wasn’t until I received the galley proofs containing Griswold’s vile introduction that I realized what had been done to me.

  “Griswold treated my tales as you describe—as a literary abomination and an object for clinical study, part of an unsavory niche occupied by the writings of the degenerate de Sade, the criminal Baudelaire, and the whoremaster Rimbaud. His introduction even concluded with a warning that only the most levelheaded reader should partake of its contents; that children, ladies, and people with a history of derangement should be prevented from reading my tales and poems, by law if necessary.

  “My Collected Tales had been murdered—and I had paid for the deed with my own money!

  “Soon after publication I received the first newspaper clipping. With it was a piece of paper on which had been written the title of one of my tales, ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.’ Here it is—do you want to see? Read for yourself.”

  WOMAN DROWNED

  Dreadful Discovery in the Erie Canal

  by J. H. Travis The Republican Compiler

  ROCHESTER——Canalmen received a woeful surprise in the early morning Tuesday upon the discovery of a cadaver floating near Genesis Falls, female, and in a shameful condition …

  Though I would not have admitted it for anything, I had read The Mystery of Marie Rogêt—a mutilated shopgirl floating down the Seine, based on a dreadful crime that took place in New York. As I mentioned, Eddie had never been to France—yet he had spent time in New York. Why would a man abandon what he knew for what he did not know? Figure that one out if you can.

  “I take it, Eddie, that you think the combining of the report with the title of your tale was meant to suggest that the one had indirectly caused the other.”

  “You are not stupid, Willie. Obviously, that is what I am trying to tell you. It insinuates that some weak or twisted mind had read my tale and had been inspired to imitate the deed.”

  I chose not to reiterate that I quite agreed with Mr. Griswold. There can surely be no doubt that violent or sensual writing, sufficiently vivid, can inspire a diseased imagination to depraved action. However, as a doctor I proceeded to calm the patient through reassurance and flattery.

  “On the other hand, Eddie, the clipping might have been sent by an admirer. Someone who read about the crime, and noted a curious coincidence that might interest his favorite author. You must admit that the sender’s true motive is a complete mystery.”

  “Quite right, Willie. A mystery. Remember that the nameless terror is always the worst. Death is not a skeleton but an empty cloak.”

  “Please continue,” I said, noting that his pupils had dilated and his mind had gone off on its own.

  “The letter joined with the poor reception for my Collected Tales— and, it goes without saying, the loss of my dear little wife …” And there it stopped. Slowly his face crumpled as though the bones themselves withdrew. With his broad forehead and delicate mouth he resembled an aged toddler, helpless and inconsolable in the face of overwhelming hurt. As I watched his display of mourning I admit that I was touched—though we must always remember that he came from a family of actors.

  Gradually he regained control with the assistance of more medicated tea. “Forgive me. I do not want your pity. I know that you too are a widower. All I meant to say was that I fell into a decline—abetted, I admit, by the use of alcohol. By the time I recovered my senses sufficiently to look after myself, I was nearly penniless. Worse, I had stretched the physical and spiritual resources of my poor little family beyond anything previous—and we had suffered through some difficult times. Purely to fend off starvation, I accepted an assignment from the publishers Topham & Lea—whom I would never have entrusted with the Tales, though they could hardly have done worse. Yet this assignment was so far beneath my standard as to be almost criminal.”

  “Would this be what you would call back work?”

  “Not the first time, I regret to say. A few years ago I wrote a textbook on conchology for Topham—under a pseudonym, of course. This new assignment was worse. I was engaged to write the final CHAPTERs of a novel by a well-known British author.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the author hadn’t written it yet, I suppose. Topham wanted an edge over the competition.”

  “I regret that I know nothing about the publishing industry”

  “You have nothing to regret I assure you. In the meanwhile, other newspaper clippings arrived. You may read this one for yourself:

  THE BODY IN THE CHIMNEY

  A Thief Meets His Maker

  by John R. Basswood The Brooklyn Eagle

  FLATBUSH——Firemen, upon investigating a report of excessive smoke issuing from a home on Church Avenue, discovered a cadaver wedged in the flue. The owners being out of town for some days, it is thought that a burglar died of thirst…

  “Eddie, to my mind, this evidence is even more tenuous than the first. Am I to suppose that a body stuck in a chimney is a feature of another of your Collected Tales?”

  “Correct. Again, with the obvious implication that the two are linked.”

  “But surely, unlike the female in the canal, your writing can hardly be blamed because a man is stuck in a chimney—especially since, according to the tale, it was the work of an orangutan.”

  “I believe the sender wished to imply that I am poisoning the general atmosphere. There were many other letters and clippings, as you can see.”

  “I think that you give your persecutor too much credit,” I replied. “It seems more likely that he spent his time scouring newspapers for an appropriate item, and this was the best he could do.”

  “Well done, Willie. I admire your deductive, scientific mind.”

  “The same might apply to the unfortunate woman in our morgue.”

  “But in this case, the package containing the article from the Christian Times was accompanied by the pulled teeth.”

  “And what meaning do you draw from it?”

  “I can only suppose that, unlike the others, she was expressly murdered for the purpose.”

  “What purpose?”

  “To drive me to suicide, or insanity, or to stop writing—which amounts to the same thing.”

  To this I had no rebuttal. Just because a man suffers from persecution mania is no guarantee that he is not being persecuted.

  “I think you had better have a little of this,” I said, noting his pallor, and produced a bottle from my bag.

  “What is it you are giving me?”

  “Morphine. Perfectly harmless I assure you.”

  “Oh, I know about morphine,” he said ruefully, and took the entire dose in a single draft.

  “Please continue,” I said. Though I would not have admitted it, I was thoroughly drawn in.

  “I wonder whether you have noticed this, Willie: that upon reaching a certain depth of despair or dismay, one can break through to a state of serene detachment.”

  “That is what morphine is for, Eddie.”

  “Finally, I determined to travel to Baltimore and see the evidence for myself. If the woman in the morgue appeared as described in the article, my hope was to enlist the support of my oldest friend.”

  “Yet rather than making an appointment and stating your case to me man to man, you chose to make a theatrical display of yourself, lying in the gutter and raving like a lunatic.”

  “It was essential to the course of action we must undertake.”

  “And what is that?” I noted with alarm his use of the first person plural.

  “I need you to sign my death certificate, and to subst
itute another cadaver for mine. I believe there is an acceptable candidate in your morgue.”

  I nearly spilled my tea. I scarcely knew how to reply. To say that such a measure was out of the question seemed laughably inadequate. But before I found words to express my dismay, he silenced me with a look of such intensity in those black eyes, that in retrospect I wonder if I was being subjected to mesmerism.

  At least it was now clear to me why Eddie had staged his collapse in the street. It would hardly have been the thing for him to meet with me in a healthy condition and somehow die immediately thereafter.

  Eddie leaned forward and spoke sotto voce, either because he feared we might be overheard or because it enhanced the mesmeric effect.

  “I know that there have been hard feelings between us, Willie, regarding my sentiment for Mrs. Chivers. And I know how bitter memories can turn esteem into disdain. Yet I urge you to take care. Consider that your disdain for me cannot help but extend to yourself. You chose to behave as though a mother’s love was finite, as though the affection she felt for another boy could diminish her feeling for her own offspring. I suggest that you, and not I, initiated the heart-sickness that brought about her decline.”

  “Please stop, I beg you …” Now it was I who fell into disarray. I was about to take a draft of morphine, then resisted, not to impair my judgment.

  “There—do you see, Willie? We are two of a kind. We both know what it is to lose one’s mother. We both know what it was to lose your mother. You will never have as close a friend as I.”

  He reached across the table and grasped my hand. “We are brothers. And neither is to blame for what happened. Despite her disposition to melancholy, were it not for your father’s inept physician, Dr. Emory, she would be alive today.”

  “Dr. Emory? By God!” I swear that I had not thought of the man in twenty years.

  “Ah, so you remember. Dr. Morris Emory was his name. He had extremely thick eyebrows and strangler’s thumbs.”

  “Absolutely right! Astonishing!” I followed only intermittently the discourse to follow, for my mind had traveled elsewhere: I cannot say for certain that Poe knew the circumstance of my wife’s death, yet he had unearthed an uncanny parallel between her fate and that of my mother—the two Mrs. Chivers.