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

by Douglas Vincent Wesselmann

  “There they are,” shouted Tom as he took aim.

  “Look out! He’s got a gun!” Another of the watch yelled the warning, and the three scrambled for cover in a tangle of legs and misdirection.

  Now the street was no tiny lane, but darkness has a way of making the broad seem narrow. In the circle of yellow lantern light, the Nightwatch man with the club spun, and in his attempt to escape, ran smack into Tom. The pistol in the tough’s hand went off with a bang and a blinding flash. Billy attempted to jump over the writhing knot of limbs and glanced off the man with the lantern. The force of their collision knocked Big Billy Dick rump over crown, as the little oil light flew into the air, spinning like a comet.

  Poe and I were already sprinting away as we heard the shattering of the lamp’s glass and the rush of air as the lamp-oil exploded in a dull red flare behind us. The shouting and cursing faded behind us as we dashed first west, then up a little mews and around back west again.

  Our path continued to wander, and I lost all sense of direction. There was no moon or stars to use as any reference. At one point, we scrambled over a split-rail fence into an open area that stretched for some blocks of length. What little streetlight as existed up on the hill reflected off the low clouds and gave some shape to the marble shaft of the monument. Still running, I looked back when I could manage and saw the dull white shape reaching into the mist as if it were an Olympian pillar supporting the clouds themselves.

  With my head thus turned, I caught my foot on a rock and fell, sliding down the slope on my belly until I came to rest with my outstretched hands in a soft steaming pile of manure.

  “Up, Griswold! Up!” Poe whispered with urgency.

  And so wiping my hands as I could on my trousers, we ran on, circling a pair of cows, climbing a short hillock of straw that glowed yellow even in the dark, and across another fence back onto a road. We headed east and soon reached and crossed a broad timber bridge over the Falls. The noise of the water in the course was as muffled as the night’s weather.

  The buildings were more spread there. That is, one block would be filled with a row of houses, and another empty. Again I looked behind me, and the road we ran stretched straight behind us. Monument Square was visible in the distance – the white column still disappearing into the crowding sky.

  Our pace, by necessity, became a slow trot. It was the best speed I was capable of, and though I urged Poe for a rest, or at least a turn back in the direction of our hotel, he did not answer. He was intent on an indistinct illumination that hovered like a rogue star ahead of us.

  We crossed the Old Philadelphia Road and set off south a short stretch until we found another lane leading towards the mysterious light in the sky. In another fifteen minutes it had grown close enough to recognize.

  A tower topped by a cupola emerged from the haze. A single lantern burned under its arches like some lost lighthouse at the end of the world. As we approached, we were able to make out another, taller cupola beyond, and another. The domes topped the rooflines of a large, dark complex of buildings, punctuated with tall chimney stacks, set behind a tall brick wall.

  “I used to wander out here for picnics years ago,” said Poe.

  A cat yowled somewhere in the black shadow of a tree that overhung the wall. Something with a long naked tail darted between my legs and into a clay drainage pipe that pierced the brickwork. I jumped backwards.

  “What is this place?” There was an odd smell to the breeze that slipped out of the grounds – a tint of iodine and burnt linen.

  “The Maryland Hospital. A friend of mine died there.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “But… I don’t understand.”

  Poe shook his head as if clearing away a vision. “Yellow Fever. He died of Yellow Fever years ago.”

  “Shouldn’t we keep moving?” There was no sign of Tom or Billy, but I felt a need to get back to our hotel, however destitute. I wanted to make sure of Molly’s condition. “Do you think Jupiter is…?”

  “Taking good care of Molly?” Poe finished my sentence. “Of course.” He shook his head again, and we turned south, or so I made the direction in reference to the soft glow of the main part of Baltimore, off in what I assumed was the west.

  Soon we came across a taller building with two truncated towers set to either side of an inset front entrance. The edifice towered five full stories with a pair of squat cupolas set at either end of the roof. A series of crushed stone walks were neatly laid out at its front landscaped with hedges and winter-bare rose vines.

  I didn’t need to ask Poe what building it was. A double-post sign, white with black painted block letters, announced it WASHINGTON COLLEGE HOSPITAL. And I didn’t need to ask Poe if he had any memories of the place. The expression on his face made it clear. His lips drew back from his small teeth as if he were snarling. He shuddered and in an instant turned and ran full bore away – towards a dim yellowish lamp burning in the distance across a vacant field.

  I was caught by surprise and hurried off in pursuit again of my companion. Within twenty yards into the field, I noticed that it was full of small wooden tablets set flat and flush on the ground. Every third step, my foot would land on one and make a hollow sound. I ran on towards the light. Occasionally, Poe’s shadow would block the yellow glow and I would know I was on the right track. I put my head down and ran for all I was worth. After a few strides and a few thunks of my foot on the wooden plaques, I looked up again, just in time to see Poe’s back, dark against the deep gray of the night.

  I stopped beside him, and with my hands on my knees and my head hanging, I panted for breath. “For… God’s…. Sake… Poe…. Can…. You… Slow… Down…?”

  “They’ve been here.”

  I looked up at him. “Who? Tom and Billy?” I didn’t think I could run anymore if they’d found us again.

  “Look,” Poe said and pointed at the ground in front of him.

  At first, in the poor light, I could make out no more than different shades and shapes of gray and black. Then, as I strained to make sense of what the night concealed, suddenly I realized what was in front of me.

  A deep, dark hole – bottomless by all that could be discerned – yawned, not five feet from where I stood. A low and wide scatter of fresh dug earth scattered away from the lip of the excavation, and on the loose dirt sat a square wooden marker with the number ‘XII’ scratched into the grain and next to it, a large, shattered box. No, it wasn’t a box. My mind finally knew it for what it was – a freshly exhumed coffin, with a broken lid cast to one side. It was made of plain pine, still rich with resin and green in spots – a cheap, pauper’s box – and it was empty.

  “They’ve been here.”

  A shout came from some houses to the south. “Hey! You there in the Graveyard! What are you doing there?” They did not wait for answer or explanation. A heavy shot rang out. It was no pistol. A hundred bees buzzed by my head, and a sting hit the tip of my shoulder. Another shot echoed – and another.

  Poe and I ran again – and the fastest we had all night.

  Two hours later, Poe took the big iron key out of his pocket, and we slipped through the alley door back into Bradshaw’s Hotel.

  That night was my first visit to Yellot’s Retreat Burying Grounds.

  It was not my last.

  Chapter 29

  October 1, 1849 8:10 a.m. - A Deficiency of Imagination in the Severe Precincts of Truth -

  Of my childhood and of my family I have little to say. Tragedy and length of years have destroyed one and estranged me from the other. A small inheritance afforded me an education that helped me rise above the common order, and an organized turn of mind enabled me to diligently build up a horde of facile knowledge that supported my career. Beyond all things, the study of Scripture gave me great delight – not from any blind admiration of the holy barbarity or eloquent abasement those verses contain, but from the ease which my habits of rigid thought enabled me to detect all the
perilous falsehoods of faith.

  Thus I became what I was – a man superior to others by dint of my freedom from the crude level of understanding that ruled under the vaulted ceilings of churches. My certain and assured liberation from all doubt afforded me an unassailable foundation on which to base all my pursuits. And the most central of these was my dedication to the art of poetry.

  By a blessing from God Himself, I was spared the vanity and pride that afflicts the practitioners of the art, and was therefore able to distinguish sacred from profane and guide, through my commentaries, the fragile souls of the poets towards their proper harbors where they might find refuge from error.

  Poe, alone, never accepted my primacy in these matters of taste and truth. His arrogance and vulgarity knew no bounds and refused any halter. And yet – and this was the deepest cause of my vexation – his work touched some source that I could not deny. He was a man inferior, and God had touched him with a spark. Deeper than any personal search for redemption or remorse for my own past sins, I believe I had traveled to Baltimore for the purest of motives – to save Poe and his art. The realization, when it came to me, was overwhelming. I loved them both.

  Poe almost collapsed as soon as the iron door of the Bradshaw slammed shut behind us, and I almost carried him up the back stairs to our room. Jupiter met me at the door and took his trembling body from my arms. Using his great coat as a pillow, the Negro laid Poe down near the pot-bellied stove in the corner. Its dim red glow afforded some small warmth to the frigid morning air.

  “He is nearly frozen,” Jupiter observed.

  “Will he be all right?”

  Jupiter did not respond with any words. He merely gave me a quick nod and began gathering his powders and solutions. Poe’s eyes were open, staring blankly up at the stained ceiling. He gave no indication of awareness.

  For myself, satisfied that Poe was being attended to, I turned my attention to the bed. Molly was now covered with the sheet to just below her torn neck. A towel, pink with ochre spray, was draped around the wound. Her breathing was faint, and I had need to bend my ear almost to touching her chin before I could hear the tiny whistle of its passage.

  Looking up, I noticed Molly’s clothes – the cheap gabardine trousers, crumpled and yellowed shirt, and worn jacket – hanging from nails over the basin table. Even her smallclothes hung there, dripping water from a haphazard washing.

  “Jupiter, you have undressed her.” I was angry.

  “So I did.” He continued to attend to the near comatose Poe.

  “You have… You have…” I had no words to express the impropriety of his actions. “She is naked and…”

  “She is naked.” Jupiter pulled Poe up into a sitting position and poured a large glass of some concoction into his mouth.

  “She is… She is…”

  “A naked white woman. God, Griswold, I should have left you in that oyster cellar for the mob.”

  “And I should have left you in chains,” I shouted.

  Poe sputtered and spit as the liquid choked him.

  Examining Molly, I noticed that her wound was much inflamed. Purple veins traced away from the opening, swollen with noxious gases. There was an odor of rotting meat like a miasma in the room’s stagnant air. It hovered about her and the hole in her neck, almost closed by blackened, engorged flesh. Her throat was leaking a thin stream of a yellow, putrid mucus.

  “Did you…?”

  “You think me an animal, Griswold?” Jupiter’s breath snorted through his nostrils. “You think what you will.”

  I am no physician, but I could see the extremity of Molly’s condition. Tears came to my eyes. “I beg your pardon, Jupiter.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Can you not help her? Do you not have some potion that might aid the girl?”

  Poe was to his feet without my noticing. Already at the desk, he was again pouring some green absinthe into a small and dirty cup. “Yes, help her, Jupiter.”

  “And fuck you, too. Where have you been?’

  “We’ve been to the Palace to see the Queen,” quipped Poe in a singsong.

  “Help her, Jupiter.”

  “I will not.”

  I stood up from the bed. I reached into my pocket. I had forgotten that I had it. In all the fear and panic of the night, its existence had slipped from my consciousness, but at that moment I recalled what I then possessed.

  “My, he has a gun,” said Poe, and he drank from his cup.

  “So he does,” agreed Jupiter.

  I held Molly’s pistol in my hand and pointed it at the Negro. “Help her.”

  “It’s not a very large gun,” said Poe, refilling his drink.

  “Large enough.” Jupiter stood up, and my finger tensed on the trigger. He did not move towards me or threaten me in any way, but instead just sat down in one of the old cane chairs by the alley window.

  “Where have you gotten that firearm?” asked Poe.

  “It’s Molly’s,” I replied. My voice shook – I was not a student of the use of such devices. I turned the gun in my hand, examining for the first time the tarnished silver of its workmanship. The light of day revealed the tracery of fine engraving across the barrel, works, and cylinder. The pearl – if that’s what it was – handles were yellowed with sweat of a hundred hands that may have gripped the gun.

  “A handy little rim-fire,” Poe said.

  It’s trigger protruded like a backward articulated bird’s leg. There was no guard, and the chance of an accidental firing seemed to me to be a distinct possibility. All of seven inches long, the gun seemed large in my hand.

  “You can handle such a gun? It seems to be a man’s weapon.” Jupiter taunted me. “Will you shoot the colored necrophiliac with it?”

  “Help her.” I was begging. “Help her.” I dropped the gun from my hand, and it landed on the mattress.

  “Careful with that thing.” Poe walked over and picked it up. “You will need it before this is over.” He examined the weapon as he walked back towards the desk. “Well, this is sad.”

  “What is it, Poe?” Jupiter was rubbing his face in his hands again.

  “Only two bullets.” Poe clicked his tongue. “You’ll need to make each one count, Griswold.” He set the gun down next to a whiskey bottle and picked up a brown vial of laudanum.

  “Please help her.” I took Molly’s hand in mine and was shocked by its almost frozen stiffness.

  “I’ll do no more left-handed deeds,” Jupiter responded.

  “I don’t understand.” I rubbed Molly’s skin in an effort to warm it, but in place of giving her warmth I felt, instead, the cold in her flesh transferred to mine.

  “What’s to understand, Griswold? Trust us.” Poe laughed. “Did you not once trust an unknown preacher to mesmerize your wife?”

  I spun on Poe and raised my hand to strike. Jupiter grabbed my forearm before I could put the blow into motion.

  “Enough, Griswold. Enough, Poe.” Jupiter warned us both.

  “I will find the Preacher and kill him,” I shouted.

  “We will find Fox, and that will do. That will do, Griswold.” Jupiter shook my upraised arm and threw it down.

  I let the subject drop. Distracted again by Molly’s cold hand, I did not notice what Poe was up to at the table. He had dumped more of Jupiter’s mysterious ingredients into a glass and then, taking the bottle of laudanum, he emptied its contents as well.

  “That’s more than three ounces, Poe. Too much for…” I objected.

  “Never too much at this point, Griswold.” Poe stirred the glass with his finger and emptied the mixture in a single draught. He set the glass down hard on the rickety desk so that the other bottles clinked and clattered with the impact. Then he placed his finger in his mouth and sucked on it until suddenly pulling it free with a popping noise.

  “Poe!”

  He smiled that smile that came from only his mouth – the rest of his face immobile and flat. Though I had seen this expression many times over
the last days, it was still disconcerting. He poured some brown liquid into another cracked cup and crossed to the bedside. He handed me the drink.

  “Griswold, there is no excess. Not now. Not here.” He went back to his chair by the window, picked up his great coat from the floor and, sitting down, draped it over his lap. “Today it is cold in Baltimore. Tomorrow will be colder. We must end this soon, Griswold. My time is short.”

  “I have not forgotten what we must do, Poe.” I pretended courage, though in truth, I was a coward and might have let Hell have its course unchallenged. Had I not the whiskey, and, in some sense shared the madness of my poet friend, I might have run.

  “You saw Fox.” Jupiter did not ask. He merely stated the fact. “You saw Fox.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “We did,” agreed Poe.

  “He offered a trade.” I was surprised by Jupiter’s insight. “I assume he wanted his Molly back.”

  “He did,” said Poe.

  “Am I the only one who doesn’t understand? How could you… How can you be sure Molly wasn’t forced to do Fox’s bidding? What evidence is there, save Fox’s lying mouth?”

  “Griswold, you are a fool.” Jupiter laughed. “You two fine gentlemen slaughter Mr. O’Hanlon, and…”

  “I had no hand in that.”

  “Of course not. You were just a witness, Griswold. An innocent man.” Jupiter spit towards the corner. “You two slaughter Mr. O’Hanlon and within the hour you are nearly run over by Fox and his black horse. Molly, the poor waif, discovers you and offers help. Your good fortune amazes.”

  “She said she would take us to the Odalisk.”

  “Of course, in her charity, she will escort you to your goal. Where once she had been chained and ravished, where her sister was killed, she will return in triumph with her heroes. She will deliver you to the Odalisk. And does she do so?” Jupiter stood up as he asked the question.

  “We had to rescue you. And if she was on some mission for Fox, why did she not use those two bullets in her gun on Poe and I as we slept in the hotel room?”