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

by Douglas Vincent Wesselmann

  “Oh, poor Poe. I am so beyond that now. You do not understand, do you?”

  “Come and take Molly from her coffin, Fox. Her casket is the finest oak. It is well crafted. The wood has no gaps. Her air cannot last. Come save her, Fox. Or lose her.”

  “So, the game is clear. The bait has bait of his own.”

  Airtight. I heard the word, and I shuddered. But I had sensed the smell of her. Were my senses lying, or had I felt her across another, higher existence? My head was dizzy with fumes. My God, I heard fingernails scratching at hard wood – a frantic scratching.

  “Come down, Renard. Come down, Samedi. Come down, Fox. She calls for you. Do you hear her in her dark tomb calling?”

  “Throw your sword across the room, Poe!” Fox’s voice was angry.

  Poe’s voice was cruel. “Your daughter calls you, Fox. Come to her. Save your flesh. Can you not hear her scratching plea to her father?”

  I heard her. I felt the vibrations of her struggle. I could taste her. When I closed my eyes I could see her. Her eyes were wide in the blackness. Her pupils were black. Her tongue was black. Her hands were clawing at the oaken lid that sealed her away from life. She was screaming without any sound. Air was whistling through her wound. Blood was dripping from her fingers.

  “Your sword, Poe. Throw it across the room!” Fox’s words were like thunder.

  “Come down, demon. Save your spawn.”

  There was a silence in the room from floor to darkened heights. But there was no silence in my head as I heard Molly’s struggles. I heard her dying horrors.

  Then a new voice – it came from Poe’s direction, but it was not his. The new voice was smooth and young, but there was a hardness in it.

  “Mr. Poe,” it said, “I have a gun pointed at the back of your head. Can you feel the cold metal? I will shoot before you can turn with that thin cane sword of yours.”

  “Johnny?” Poe was amazed.

  That was who it was. The voice was Johnny Hop-Frog’s – the boy of thirteen, the ruler of Bradshaw’s Hotel, the black boy with the cold eyes.

  “Throw your sword away, Mr. Poe. Or I’ll simply shoot you. It makes no difference to me.”

  “As you say, it makes no difference. Shoot me in the head, Hop-Frog. It would be a blessing.” Poe spoke as if he were debating some esoteric point of philosophy, not like a man with a gun to his head.

  “A blessing?” asked Johnny. “Well, it would be a blessing to you – but not yet, Mr. Poe. If I should shoot now, your soul is unprepared – your Virginia un-rescued. Drop the bluff and your sword, Mr. Poe.”

  Fox’s laughter came cascading down. “I have at last found a true servant. Hop-Frog, I shall reward you.”

  “Your confidence and trust is reward enough, Mr. Fox.” Hop-Frog’s sudden air of humility was out of his nature. I wondered what the boy’s true story was.

  “Do as he says, Poe!”

  “I paid you well, Johnny,” Poe said. His voice had lost its command.

  “Yes. And I shall keep your money.”

  “You betrayed Molly.”

  “As did the man at the Western Burying Grounds. Can’t have trash in the Poe family plot. The keeper would not have it.”

  “Jupiter gave him a large sum of…”

  “And we divided it fairly, Mr. Poe.”

  Molly thrashed about madly in her coffin. Her open throat pulsed open and shut like a fish dying on a mud bar. Her broken fingers only brushed at the lid above her face. She had little strength left. I tested my legs. Did I have enough?

  I heard a brick shift and clatter on the floor. I looked through the knothole. I could see Jupiter’s foot. Covered in red dust, it was moving. The Negro was not dead.

  “Your sword, Poe.” Johnny cocked his gun.

  “You heard the Hop-Frog, Poe. Now!” Fox’s voice echoed through the room.

  There was a movement in the air and a metallic sound as Poe’s sword was thrown across my box and onto the floor beyond Fox’s empty pedestal. I caught a glimpse of the blade’s shimmer as it flew across the camera obscure’s image. When the silver-handled blade hit the flagstones, it skittered away into the distance. The steel sparked as it slid across the stones. I saw the tiny flashes.

  “Very good, Poe.”

  “I must see my Virginia,” Poe pleaded. “Please, Fox. Let me save her.”

  Fox ignored Poe’s begging. “Hop-Frog.”

  “Yes, master.” The boy’s voice was wrong. The word ‘master’ seemed out of place. I wondered.

  “Shoot the nigger.”

  “Sir?”

  “The nigger on the floor. He is a threat. Shoot him.”

  There was a shot. I turned to look at Jupiter’s foot. It still moved – there was no flinch or spasm. Another shot rang out.

  “You’ve missed him, Hop-Frog.”

  “Sorry, sir. I am just a boy and this gun is heavy.”

  “Walk over to him. Shoot the nigger, Hop-Frog.” Fox was still hidden in the shadows above.

  I heard Hop-Frog’s steps. Through the small hole in the side of my box, I saw his feet, and then his waist. He stood over Jupiter, near the Negro’s foot. I could see the gun hanging at his side, huge in the black boy’s small hand.

  “Shoot him, Hop-Frog.”

  The gun came up. Hop-Frog pointed it towards Jupiter’s head. The thin, black finger pulled. The gun kicked up and out of his hand. When the pistol hit the stone, the cylinder broke free and rolled towards the wall. The carved handle shattered from the grip.

  Jupiter’s foot, all of him that I could see from my vantage, kicked with the impact in a reflex. Soon a thin thread of red blood flowed down and joined the river of Nabbity’s flood that had turned to a rusty slash on the stones.

  “Very good, Hop-Frog. Very good.”

  “Do not deny me my request, Fox.” Poe still stood where he had. There was desperation in his words. “Please, Fox.”

  “I shall deal with you, Poe. Do not think I shall not.” Fox’s voice was coming closer. He was descending. “Hop-Frog, go to the coffin.” His voice ever closer. “No, the other. The fine coffin – go to it.”

  Fox appeared again, slowly drifting upwards in the image of my camera obscure. Up, he came down. He stood by the pedestal. The small golden box still glowed with its blue flame.

  “Open the coffin, Hop-Frog.”

  “I have no tool.”

  Fox was staring straight at where Poe would be standing. He would not relax his vigilance. “Behind me, boy. Get Poe’s sword. Use that. Quickly!”

  Molly’s face – I could see her face. Frozen in the rictus of bared teeth, strained lips, bulging eyes and flared nostrils, she held a final gasp. Her fingers barely moved. The blood dripping from her splintered nails dropped thick and slow onto her white shroud.

  Fox kept his eyes on Poe. I could just make out Hop-Frog’s head as he walked behind the mesmerist and went towards the discarded Malacca sword. I tensed. I would have one chance.

  When I saw that the black boy had turned and begun to return, I shouted with all the air in me. “Poe! Fox’s foot. Get his foot! Now! Do as I say! Fox’s foot! The trigger!”

  All of time collapsed as eyes and ears saw and heard. Arms moved, and a foot was raised. A boy ran with a sword. A poet dashed and dove towards a pedestal.

  I had hoped Poe would have moved more quickly, but he had hesitated. I had not expected Hop-Frog to do what he did.

  I saw Poe begin running towards Fox’s surprised, distorted face. Then the camera obscure image disappeared as I pushed up on the loosened lid with all the power of my rage. I heaved and pulled my legs under me. I screamed as I made the final push.

  The lid was on the back of my shoulders. The kettle of coal tar and its volatile contents was centered above me on the plank of the lid as I thrust upwards. In a desperate thrust, I stood straight up on the pistons of my legs, and the coffin’s lid flew into the air. The pine board launched the noxious bucket like a tin pinwheel tumbling slowly through the air
, back towards the pedestal, the blue flames, and Fox’s astonished green eyes.

  The mesmerist was always the showman and trusted his illusions for cover and escape. His hands cast the powder into the blue flames of the golden box. A flare of light and purple smoke formed as a nucleus of heat in the frozen time.

  The bucket’s liquid skim became a mist of droplets rushing to meet the ignited chemicals. Gobbets of thick tar and viscous pitch tumbled like a cloud of pebbles towards the expanding blossom of fire.

  Hop-Frog charged with his sword. Poe slid across the floor towards Fox’s foot. Fox began to step down on the lever. It was the same apparatus as I had seen on the museum stage – a small wooden stud, the trigger for the trick. Fox moved the toe of his boot towards the device. He needed but a few ounces of pressure – two inches for his boot to gain it.

  Poe was too late. His arms would not reach in time. And suspended in the dim air, the materials of death stretched towards their embrace. The heavy bucket of tar had discharged its contents. The dispersed tar, pitch, and thin, oily distillates splashed into the blue flames, the flare of the ignited powders and the purple cloud growing to hide Fox.

  Johnny Hop-Frog’s face was full of a rage I recognized. He ran with the sword in front of him like a spear. Diving through the last ten feet of distance, he stabbed at Fox’s foot. The blade pierced the black boot and, like a nail, stopped its progress just as it reached the trigger.

  Tar and pitch, and oil of naphtha exploded in the purple cloud.

  Viscous burning clumps clung to Fox’s face and body. His green spectacles were melted by the blast of the vapors. His mouth, open in a scream, was full of pitch and fire. His body jerked, and his eyes burst in the heat. Fox was seized with all the violence of his destruction, and he convulsed in agony. The force of his agony tore his own nailed foot in two, and his shattered bones tripped the lever – too late.

  In an instant, the steel line attached to his back was pulled taut by the counterweights released by the switch. Fox’s body shot upwards into the empty space of the room. Up, past the beams that would hold new floors when the workman’s tasks were done. Up almost to the roof, four stories above.

  Fox was a comet of flame, pulled up by the wire line. He bubbled and smoked as he rose towards heaven. His burning body bounced at the peak of the line’s reach. Swaths of ignited fabric from his coat and clothing fell away as a starry messenger’s tail in the winter sky. Swaying like hell’s pendulum, he was a crackling torch.

  Liquids boiled away, and fats hissed as he was consumed. Burning human grease fell in droplets to the flagstone floor and burnt like a thousand funeral lamps. A red glowing ring of keys dropped from his belt as the fire consumed the dead leather. They fell trailing sparks and clanked on the hard floor. I looked up and watched, and I smiled.

  A new scream came to my notice. Hop-Frog had been too close. The black boy’s arms were on fire. I jumped down out of my coffin, my revenge momentarily forgotten. I ripped off my still soaking coat and wrapped it around him as I tackled him. We rolled on the floor, and Hop-Frog’s skin hissed and split as I smothered the flames.

  Poe was moving. He had arisen from the floor, untouched by the spitting fire I had launched at Fox and meant for him as well. He grabbed at the Malacca cane blade and ran towards Molly’s casket. I left Hop-Frog moaning on the floor and ran towards her.

  Poe pried at the lid. The blade bent, but there was just enough separation between the oak and the brass fittings for my torn fingers. I grabbed and pulled. My anger gave me the strength needed. The lid popped open.

  Molly’s sightless eyes stared straight up. Straight up into the smoke and the screams – her finger’s bloody ruins pointed straight up and stiff. Fox screamed from where he hung on his gallows, engulfed in flames. Molly’s eyes were blank with horror.

  Then I screamed.

  Chapter 38

  October 3, 1849 5:45 a.m. - Leave No Black Plume as a Token -

  It is as if, standing on the top of Mount Aetna, I spun about on my heel and comprehended at last the panorama of the world I had always inhabited but never acknowledged. The residue of my anger, my depravity, all the consequences of my perversities, and the cleansing fire itself cleared my eyes of all the petty justifications I had hidden behind – all the illusions of mesmerist and God alike.

  In the shadow I cast on the floor, formed by the guttering star of Fox’s apocalypse, I saw my own soul’s wounds. I saw Molly’s shattered being, twisted in her coffin. I saw Jupiter’s blood mix with Nabbity’s ghoulish mark. I saw Johnny Hop-Frog’s tears and the cooked skin hanging from his hands and arms. And I saw Poe’s face.

  He sat cross-legged on the stones next to Molly’s oaken box. He was bent at the waist, as if he were in some terrible pain of the stomach. One arm held his belly, the other rested the elbow against his side, and the forearm twisted to hold the hand over one of his eyes, its fingers reaching across the broad pale forehead. His uncovered eye was open and unblinking. His mouth stretched open in the preliminary to a howl of fear.

  I believe DaVinci has painted such a figure, posed in hopelessness and awaiting the final judgment. The language of the poet’s face spoke clearer than any of his verses had ever aspired. The Raven was about to be cast down. He saw the pit yawn open at his feet.

  I looked down at Molly again. I took a breath full of smoke and oil. I took her broken fingers in my hand, and as gently as I could, placed her hand flat against her gore-stained chest. I closed her eyes, and I bent down and kissed her cold lips.

  Leaving her side, I went to where Jupiter lay on the brick-littered floor. His head was cut on the scalp, and blood had welled and clotted in his thick curly hair. I knelt beside him. There was a wound, still bleeding slightly in the back of his shoulder. He was alive. I turned him over with some effort. The black man’s eyes were blinking, trying to focus.

  “Jupiter.”

  No answer.

  “Jupiter.”

  No answer.

  “Jupiter.”

  A hoarse response at last came. “Griswold. Is Fox…?”

  “Dead, sir. He is dead.”

  “And Poe?”

  “Soon.”

  The Negro closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, there was focus and concentration. “We are not done. Help me up.”

  Again with great effort, I helped the big man to his feet. For a moment we stood there, his arm over my shoulders for support. He wavered and then steadied himself with my help. Our faces were very close together. He looked hard into my eyes. Perhaps he saw something that cheered him. He gave a small smile.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “My honor, sir,” I replied.

  “I let him do it. I helped put you in the box.”

  “I know.” I thought about what had been done to me. “And I thought you less than a man.”

  Jupiter nodded.

  “Can you stand?”

  He nodded again.

  I gradually gave him his own weight, and he stood on his own. Leaving him, I went to the wall. There was a length of cloth there next to a water tank. I dipped the cloth and carried it dripping over to where Johnny Hop-Frog knelt on the floor with his burnt arms stretched in front of him. I tore the sheet in two and slowly, taking up the scraps of skin, bound his injury as best I could.

  Hop-Frog, for his part, did not cry out. Still, tears flowed down his soft young cheeks. Jupiter was there beside us. He offered the boy a brown vial. Johnny leaned forward to drink, but I stopped Jupiter’s hand and turned to him.

  “None of the drugs that…”

  “No. Only for pain. I swear.”

  I let go of the vial, and the boy drank.

  I sat down behind the lad and pulled his head back to rest on my legs. Hop-Frog shivered at first, but began to calm.

  “We’ve some business yet, sir,” said Jupiter. He rubbed the side of his face with his large hand. He was still in great pain. His left arm hung useless from the wound in his shoulder.
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  “In a moment,” I replied. Off to my side was the key ring that had been burnt from Fox’s corpse. I touched the metal carefully at first. The iron was still warm, but did not burn me. I picked up the keys and handed them to Jupiter.

  “And Poe?” he asked.

  “Soon.”

  He nodded at me again.

  “Go get them, Jupiter.”

  He held up the keys. “Now?” He looked over towards Poe. “Will you be all right?”

  I reached into my coat pocket. I held Molly’s small gun up. “One bullet, Jupiter. One bullet – will I need more?”

  “No,” he said quietly, and he stood. “I will not be long.”

  I watched him walk away towards the east. The direction was clear, as a dim light from the rising sun shown through a high window. He went up some wooden stairs and used one of the keys to open a heavy wooden door.

  “You killed him.” Johnny’s voice was weak, but clear.

  “I am sorry you were hurt.”

  “He’s dead. That’s all.”

  “You told Fox about Molly.”

  “Yes. I needed his trust.”

  “So that he would tell you where his hiding place was?”

  “That’s it. Sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t give a shit about her.”

  I sighed. Poe had put young Hop-Frog’s very soul at risk. But all the pieces of the plot were becoming clearer in my mind. “Hop-Frog.”

  “Yes,” he winced with a new surge of barely suppressed pain.

  “Poe used you. He needed Molly here to make Fox vulnerable. He always knew.” I thought about the poet’s many machinations. “He always knew you would betray her.”

  “I’m not sorry that I told Fox. I’m just sorry that I didn’t care.” A tear gathered in the corner of his eye.

  “Did Fox kidnap someone you knew?”

  “Stole my brother.”

  “When?”

  “Last year.”

  “All this time…”

  “I’ve been plotting. You three seemed a good chance.”