I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Yes… Edgar Poe… Have you news of him? I expected him to be on this boat.”
“And you are his friend?” The man’s voice, at that moment, was so sweet in my ears. There was such an element of care and concern. Only on reflection at this later date do I associate the sensation of his speech with an overpowering perfume or a too thick, oppressively sweet flavor on the tongue.
“Yes, I am Poe’s friend.”
“Interesting. A friend.” There was a hint of surprise in his words. “I am Fox… Mr. Rennelle Fox.” He offered his hand.
Taking his hand lightly, for it seemed fragile and wet in my grasp, I replied, “Pleased. I am Rufus Griswold.”
“Ah, Griswold, the editor. A literary man.”
“You are familiar with…?”
“Your work in the world of letters? But of course, Mr. Griswold. All who treasure poetry and fine literature admire your keen sense of quality, the breadth of your influence.” Fox’s grip on my hand tightened, and he pulled me ever so slightly towards him. His eyes became visible behind the spectacles at such closeness. He did not blink, and the pupils were bright, some indeterminate color… or absence of color. “Your reputation is of the highest standing, Mr. Griswold.” His intense gaze captured me.
Repelled and attracted, I felt some sense of the forbidden in the coldness of his hands touching mine…. a stirring in me long denied. “Mr. Fox, you flatter me.” I struggled with a pleasure that I had not felt in some time.
Of a sudden he withdrew his hand and with a small cold smile spoke. “Yes, I do flatter you.”
“Sir?” Something had faded away. I found myself taking a deep breath and wondering that I had not been breathing.
“You seek Poe, Mr. Griswold?” The rain had lessened without my noticing. Fox’s voice had lost its humility. There was a chill in the air and in the timbre of his words. “Why do you seek him?”
The rain stopped in that very moment. As if some command had been given. There was a silence. The man’s question hung in the stillness. A breeze stirred.
I spoke. “Some business, we have some business.” I looked away from his eyes. The flesh on my hand where he had touched me prickled with some strange heat.
“Well, business must be honored.” Fox almost laughed – a powdery laugh in his throat that only half-emerged, then was sucked like dust back into Fox’s throat. “You seek Poe?”
“Yes, as I said.” I had backed away from the man, further under the awning. The air on the wharf had grown heavy, and a frigid fog began to drift up from the fetid waters of the Patapsco basin, leaking through the crude planks of the wharf at our feet.
“A shame.” Fox turned and started away. “A shame,” he repeated.
“I beg your pardon, sir. A shame?” I called after him as he headed up Lee Street towards the city’s bustling chaos. He was met by two women and a servant, their faces shielded from me by their umbrellas. One of the ladies was dressed all in white, the other in the deepest black. I stumbled over my words for a moment as some vague intuition flitted across my consciousness. I dismissed it and called after the man, repeating, “A shame, sir?”
Fox did not reply. He only gestured -- a half point of one arm holding out the “Ritual Catholique.” The steel-clasped book indicated a pathetic, shrouded bundle dumped at the bottom of the now empty steamer gangway.
I remembered the crewmen carrying that sad baggage off the boat. “Poe!” I cried out, though I knew there would be no answer and hurried across the wharf towards the abandoned pallet and its light, soulless burden.
“Poe!”
Chapter 6
September 28, 1849 2:30 p.m. - That Something, Which I Term Perverseness -
I knelt beside the canvas bundle. My fingers were stiff with the effects of Fox’s touch, and I struggled with the lacing even though the rope had not been drawn with great care through the eyelets on the old sail. I pulled back the stiff, gray fabric still beaded with the rain that had come and gone with such suddenness. A face emerged into the diffuse light of the Baltimore morning. Beneath wildly disheveled black hair – beneath a prominent, distinctive forehead – a face emerged. The moustache had been haphazardly clipped away. The lips were drawn away from the crooked, small teeth. The cravat at the neck was spotted with small, rust-colored stains. A silver angel, slightly tarnished, and serving as the head of a Malacca cane tucked under Poe’s left arm, protruded from the shroud. The eyes were invisible behind the closed lids. The face was marked with death.
I knelt there on that wharf and looked down on the face of the late Edgar Allan Poe. Death had found him. Mrs. Whitman’s words rang in my ears.
“I am not sending you to save his life. Poe’s life is beyond saving.”
I felt a rage grow inside me, a self-directed rage that might consume me. I bent my head down and placed my cheek on Poe’s cold forehead. Closing my eyes, I was transported to another time, another grave. My wife’s satin coffin-pillow was marked with my tears. I spent the midnight there in her crypt, and I raged at my God for his failure. I would have kissed Satan himself on that night if it might have brought her back. I pressed my cheek to the cold mahogany of the casket and wept. “Speak to me. Speak to me.” I could only repeat the words. “Speak to me, my love.”
My wife never spoke. The stillness in that vault was inviolate. Even my sobs were swallowed by the stone walls and the darkness. “Speak to me.”
“He cannot speak to you.” A baritone voice shaped with an educated accent boomed behind me, snapping me out of my gloomy reverie.
“I beg your…” I turned and was brought to muteness – paralyzed by the sight that confronted me, a tall, heavily-muscled Negro man. Dressed in careworn, yet clean gentleman’s clothes covered by an oiled Nantucket rain-cloak, he stood but ten feet from me, looking down on me as I knelt next to Poe’s body. His eyes held no hint of the inferiority he should have properly felt.
I found my tongue and stood up to face him. “You are speaking to me?” I attempted to stand tall, but found myself still at a distinct disadvantage. He was large by every measure and probably bred for strength.
The black’s eyes moved from me to Poe’s canvass-wrapped remains. “He cannot speak to you.”
“Of course not. I can see that, boy.” My words were meant to be harsh, for I felt myself put-upon and disrespected. I meant to assert the natural order. But my breath failed me, and my remonstrance emerged from my throat, cracking and weak.
“Sir, allow me to introduce myself. I am called Jupiter.” He stretched out his hand.
It was a large, coal-dark hand. The fingers were thick, like sausages, and there was a scar barely visible on the man’s wrist, just at the cuff of his shirt. I immediately recognized the mark of the manacles he must have once worn.
“Sir,” he repeated. His hand was still proffered.
I was in the grip of confusion and fear – Poe dead at my feet and this intimidating African presence in front of me. Then suddenly, I was saved by one of the stevedores working the dock.
“You, boy! What you doin’, boy?” The burly worker dropped a crate he was carrying and strode towards Jupiter, if that was indeed his name. “You can’t be bothering the gentleman, boy. Where’s your master?” The dockworker reached out a massive fist as if to grasp the black man by the scruff of his neck. But Jupiter was nimble, and more.
The hand that had been offered to me swept towards the white man’s forearm, knocking it away effortlessly. Then Jupiter’s other hand grabbed at the laborer’s collar and hauled him around on his heels until the stevedore lost his balance and fell hard to his knees.
“I am not your boy. I am a freedman. I have no master.”
“You can’t…” The white man was in pain as the Negro tightened his grip on the woolen scarf that circled the man’s neck. Jupiter twisted it snug. Almost choking, the man sputtered a few unintelligible words. “Can’t… You… Not…” Then finally, “Sorry. I’m sorry.” The word
s uttered through teeth clenched in pain.
“Apology accepted.” Jupiter let go of the worker, and the man fell back on his haunches, rubbing at his throat and trying to catch his breath.
I remembered that I, too, had called this colossus “boy.” I waited for him to reach out to me and deliver a like punishment, but instead Jupiter just turned and offered his hand again. I did not hesitate this time, but took it and gave a polite bow.
“Mr. Jupiter.”
“You are a friend of Poe?” Jupiter glanced down at the corpse. “You are here to help him?”
Again, I remembered Mrs. Whitman’s charge to me. “Yes, I am… That is, I was here to help him. Apparently, I am too late.”
“Never too late to help a friend.” Jupiter’s voice was not loud, but there was a power to it that demanded attention. He bent down, and in one fluid motion picked up Poe’s remains, still wrapped in the rain-beaded canvass. Straightening, he threw the tragic bundle over his left shoulder without any apparent effort. The silver angel-headed Malacca cane fell loose as Jupiter adjusted Poe’s weight. It clattered on the planks and came to rest at my feet. I picked it up.
“Help?” I must admit that I was unsure of his actions. “Of course, I have money. I will pay for a proper burial.” I was thinking that Jupiter meant to carry Poe off to a mortician or such. I was not thinking clearly.
“No burial for this one,” he said.
“No burial? Then what…”
The giant turned away from me to face towards the crowded street. “I will carry him to your hotel. Do you have a room at a hotel, sir?” Poe’s limp head swung like a pendulum between the black man’s shoulder blades. His jaw was slack. His open mouth exposed a greenish lolling tongue.
A whiff of wormwood and angelica enveloped me. The question traveled unbidden from my nose to my lips. “Absinthe?”
His deep laugh answered. “Aye. And the verdant color of hyssop.”
“The Green Muse?” I understood his suggestion. Was Poe in the grips, not of black oblivion, but of the emerald liquor? “He’s been drinking?”
Another low rumble of amusement. “We all drink life to the end, sir.”
“He’s not dead?”
“Do you have a hotel room, sir?”
“Hotel? No. I mean, yes. I have a room at the Barnum.”
“Then lead the way, sir.”
“But, Jupiter, may I call you Jupiter?”
“My name, sir. And yours?”
“Rufus Griswold.”
A rough voice yelled down from the deck of the boat above us. “You, Sir! You with the big nigger!” Looking up, I saw the steamer’s captain. He had a wild beard shot with white and a stubbed cigar clenched in his teeth. “Get him and your mad friend off my dock. We don’t want no trouble here. Your little friend had enough of that last night, I wager.”
“Yes… Yes,” I replied. “We will remove ourselves. Pray, what happened to Mr. Poe?”
“Mr. Poe is it? Don’t give a shit what his name is. He was drunk – or maybe just crazy. He was blaspheming, accosting a fine young woman and such. He was justly punished by another passenger last night in the gentleman’s cabin. Good riddance.”
“Punished by who?”
“I don’t want no investigating or trouble with the constables. It was justified. Mr. Fox was justified in stabbing your friend there. That’s my testimony.”
“Fox?” I could see the green-tinted spectacles. “Fox? But…”
“My arse! Get your cold friend and your nigger off my dock! And take his fucking baggage as well!” The sailor tossed a small iron-banded steamer trunk over the side. It landed at my feet with a crash.
“Why you impudent…” I was angry and meant to put the man in his place.
“I believe we should go, Sir.” Jupiter spoke quietly and now had taken on almost a humble demeanor. He reached over with his free hand and picked up Poe’s trunk as if it were an empty purse. “We should go now, sir.”
“Very well.” I headed up Light Street, heading for a group of three carriages for hire. “We’ll get a conveyance, “ I said.
“No, sir.”
“No?”
“They won’t carry a dead white man or a live black,” said Jupiter, with a distinct drawl shading his voice. The man was putting on a disguise. His posture, his glances, now his voice – Jupiter was transforming himself like a chameleon.
“But where can we go? Surely my hotel is no place to take a dead man.”
“To your hotel, suh.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Griswold.”
“Don’t worry?”
“He’s not ready to be buried.” Jupiter might have winked at me.
What had the Negro said? My mind took a moment before understanding. “He’s not dead?” I felt dizzy and distracted by my sudden realization. I almost stepped into the path of a Belgian-drawn omnibus. “He’s alive?”
Jupiter’s bulk caused the horses to turn aside. He did not answer, but only looked at me with an expression that brooked no argument.
“I said what I said, suh.”
That’s when, as Jupiter half turned to make sure the wheels of the passing wagon didn’t run us over, I saw Poe’s face where it hung, limp, against Jupiter’s back. The poet’s eyelids fluttered.
“He’s not dead!” I almost shouted.
“As you will, suh. Your hotel?”
“Yes. My hotel.”
I scarce recall the beginnings of our excursion into Baltimore. I only have a memory of repeating to myself over and over again, “He’s not dead. He’s not dead.” To this very day, I am still amazed by the miracle God was about to perform in my presence.
“There’s an apothecary shop just ahead on Calvert,” said Jupiter.
“Of course. Of course,” I muttered. I heard the Negro’s words, but they scarce penetrated my sense of unease.
“I require a few items.” Jupiter adjusted Poe’s unconscious body on his shoulder, and the poet’s mouth grimaced, baring his small, clenched teeth.
“Of course,” I repeated. I shifted my gaze from my companions to the faces that passed us in the crowded streets. On gentle faces and rough, there was no welcome in the glances or rude examinations given to us as we proceeded on our way.
A burly, young, tow-headed boy bumped into me in passing. His shoulder struck mine, and I was near spun around by the impact.
“Excuse me,” I said with a reflexive tip of my hat.
The youth gave me an over-bright, crooked smile. “Entirely my fault, sir.”
Having been set off my pace by the collision, I hurried to catch up with Jupiter and Poe’s bobbing head. I could see the apothecary just ahead.
The shop’s bell rang brightly on its spring as Jupiter entered with his burden. I followed, and as I stepped over the threshold, I happened to look over my shoulder. The tow-headed boy had turned and followed us. My eyes caught his, and again he responded with a friendly grin.
I gave him a slight bow of my head and ducked inside.
I ignored a bitter taste of wrongness on the back of my tongue.
Chapter 7
September 28, 1849 4:15 p.m. - The Animation of the Imp -
I have heard tell of the marvelous pharmacopeias available in Pei Ping, imperial capital of the Yellow East. There are tales of wondrous ingredients stacked, bottled, and sifted in profusion. Nostrums of saffron, elixirs distilled from the gall bladders of the Chinee leopard, and the ground tongues of pygmy dragons are displayed, as well as more conventional remedies such as tincture of Morpheus, mandrake tonics, and extract of buffalo testes. But, whatever the panoply of superstitious treatments available there, surely they are no match for the rational products of our Western civilization.
Modern science has much to learn, but doubtless our scientific medicines, formed by experience and a faith in the one true God, offer mankind more hope in a world of fatal mischance and deadly infection.
Culver’s Apothecary was such an
establishment of science, from the well-designed mortar and pestle sign over the door to the shelves stocked with hygienically packaged remedies of every sort. There was a comforting aura of cleanliness and safety. The silver tingling of a small bell announced our entrance.
A man in an apron behind the mahogany counter welcomed us. “No niggers in the shop.”
“He is my man, sir, and will stay.” I must admit that I found my emotions in a ragged state by that point of the long afternoon.
At that point, the owner seemed to finally notice me. His gaze had been locked on the towering Jupiter with the somewhat disconcerting, unconscious body of Poe on his shoulder. “Sir, I beg your pardon. I only thought…”
“You need not explain. My friend is ill and requires medicine.”
Jupiter dropped Poe’s trunk and used both his massive arms to lower the poor man into a low-backed leather chair near a stove at the front of the establishment.
“Ill? I’ll have no plague in my shop.”
I brought the druggist up short. “There is no hint of such, sir. My friend has a head injury and requires a stimulant.
“No,” said Jupiter with conviction.
“No?” I was nonplussed by the black man’s insistence.
“Some laudanum. Bring him some laudanum.” Jupiter removed an ivory envelope from his vest pocket, and turned to me. “Buy several bottles.”
“But, Jupiter, laudanum is a sedative.”
“Do as I say.”
“Uppity African, is he?’ The shop owner shook his head.
“Bring laudanum,” Jupiter repeated.
“He’s right, though,” said the man, wiping his hands on his apron. “Laudanum is good for a head injury. Once a man gets hit hard, they tend to get excitable when they come around. Laudanum’s good for quieting down the brain after a blow like your friend must have gotten.
“Very well, I’ll buy four bottles.”
“It’s four ounces to the bottle, you understand?”
“Yes, that’ll do,” Jupiter shouted across the room. “Sixteen ounces.”
Imp: Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe Page 3