Grim Legionby Jack Alcott |
Table of Contents Synopsis Part 7 appears in this issue |
| Part 8 |
His stepfather had in fact already taken a new bride at the beginning of October, and hadn’t even bothered to notify him. He learned about the wedding from Henry. More tellingly, Allan and his young wife had visited her relatives in New York and then returned to Richmond without stopping to visit him at the Academy.
Edgar interpreted this callous action to mean his stepfather wanted nothing more to do with him, and indeed, he hadn’t heard a word since. The old stud was no doubt planning to sire a son with his new wife, someone to carry on the family name and business.
Painful as it was, Edgar accepted that Allan had tossed him aside. What was harder to accept was his stepfather’s randy willingness to share a bed with another woman so soon after Edgar’s beloved Fanny had died.
In truth, whatever tenuous link he’d once shared with the man had already started to dissolve years earlier when he got kicked out of the University of Virginia. But what had his stepfather expected? The cheapskate sent him away from home and didn’t give him enough money for his daily expenses, ignoring all pleas. There, in the company of some of the South’s wealthiest young aristocrats, he’d lived like a pauper with threadbare clothes and used, dog-eared books.
His impoverishment had forced him to rely on his skill and guile at cards; there was nothing else he could do to earn money. Fortunately, Henry had taught him well and he usually came away from the table with some coins in his pocket. But then there’d be a run of bad luck and some debts... and of course the usual drinking that went along with gambling, and, well, he’d made mistakes. But he was only seventeen at the time. Who didn’t make mistakes at that age?
His relationship with his stepfather had steadily worsened. Finally, he was forced to join the Army to earn a living. Ashamed at how low he’d fallen, he’d enlisted under the name of Edgar Perry. That way, in the distant future when his fortune was secure, no one would be able to trace him back to such humble beginnings.
But the Army wasn’t all that bad. In fact, although it wasn’t really for a man of his class or breeding, he did quite well and rose to the rank of sergeant-major for artillery. Even now he felt a glow of pride when he reflected on that accomplishment, the highest rank a recruit could attain in the Regular Army.
Besides putting ten dollars a month in his pocket, the military helped keep in check the creeping chaos and frenzy of his natural inclinations. He’d always enjoyed physical exertion, and contrary to what many who first met him thought, he was strong and had a lot of stamina. He’d enjoyed the Army’s boxing program, and he’d become quite a skilled pugilist. The Army had ushered him into manhood, no doubt about it. And after his duties were done, he’d always found plenty of time to read and write and follow his imagination.
But after two years, he’d aspired to something more. His success spurred him to think he might have a career as a commissioned officer, which meant, of course, appointment to West Point.
And then, nearly two years ago in the cold depths of February, Fanny had died at the age of forty-four. He’d been stationed at Fortress Monroe at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay when news of her untimely death arrived. He was devastated. His gentle stepmother had shown him nothing but tenderness in all the years he’d suffered John Allan’s constant rebukes and criticisms.
Standing on the fort’s battlements that dreary day, he had contemplated throwing himself into the bay to end his misery. But he was not ready for death’s embrace, and he’d gone on with his worthless life. The Army granted him leave for Fanny’s funeral, but it wasn’t soon enough and he’d arrived in Richmond the night after her burial. Brokenhearted, he’d gone straight to her grave at Shockoe Hill Cemetery, where he’d stood alone in his mourning clothes and wept in the spectral moonlight.
It was there that a strange thing happened. A raven as black as midnight had landed atop Fanny’s stone and commenced to stare at him with glittering eyes in a most beseeching way. Whether it was his grief, or the cheap Tennessee bourbon he’d sipped to soothe his heartache, his brain was feverish and he was sure the bird was trying to communicate with him.
Like a thunderclap, he instantly understood that Fanny’s dear departed soul had taken on the raven’s form to say one last goodbye and he lay down on top of her grave and dug his fingers into the freshly spaded earth, crying until dawn.
* * *
After Fanny’s passing, his stepfather grew even more aloof, sometimes not even bothering to answer his letters. It had taken a great deal of cajoling to convince him he was worthy of West Point. Eventually, though, John Allan relented and used his business and political connections to get a U.S. Senator from Mississippi, of all places, to send a letter of recommendation. And so, in June, he became Cadet Edgar Allan Poe.
Hard as it was, Edgar knew the regimen and military discipline was good for him: rising at dawn, reveille, the battalion’s morning parade — there was so much that was right about the place. Most of all, he loved the camaraderie of his friends, the sense of brotherhood and, of course, the drinking bouts at Old Ben’s.
Nonetheless, the strict schedule and long, dull hours of class exhausted him, and he sometimes felt that his destiny lay elsewhere. So far, though, he had disregarded the nagging doubts and soldiered on.
Like a wheel stuck in a muddy rut, his thoughts turned again to the murders and the fight with Gant and Ridley. Why did they suspect him? It was true that Old Ben had not liked him much because of his friendship with Eleanor, and it also was true that Dupin had insulted him in class. But more than anything else, it was his reputation as a volatile, unpredictable young man that had gotten him into trouble. He was a suspect because he was different from your run-of-the-mill cadet. He was known for telling outlandish tales and committing outrageous pranks; once again, his sensibility was the culprit. He’d often thought he was his own best invention, and now the character he’d created, his own personality, his self, had crossed some invisible boundary and aroused suspicion.
Such thoughts only fed his depression and he felt his spirits sinking into pity and self-loathing, so it came as a relief when there was a rap on his door and William poked his head in.
“Thought I’d find you moping here,” he said. “Come on back to my room. I’ve got something for you.”
“I really shouldn’t drink right now, Will, I’m trying to study. Alcohol will only further depress me.”
“Who said anything about drinking? Come on, I’ve got something better.”
“You’ve got a woman in your room?” Edgar said, knowing William and Lucian occasionally brought whores back to the barracks.
William laughed. “Come and see for yourself,” he said.
He wasn’t invited into William and Lucian’s room very often and the place always astonished him. Unlike other barracks, which were spartanly appointed, it was lavishly decorated. Richly colored tapestries hung from the walls and there were Persian rugs on the floor. A settee upholstered in blue damask and of surpassing elegance was on one wall. The room’s windows were hung with velvet curtains the color of good claret, which William closed when they came into the room. Edgar tried to pretend not to notice the unexpected luxury and decadence, but Lucian caught him goggling.
“Nothing like your log cabin back in old Virgin-ee, is it?” he said from where he reclined on a bunk across from William’s. His New England accent made the affront even more grating.
“How’d you get away with it?” Edgar asked, still gawking at the room.
“We know people in high places,” snickered Lucian.
“Oh come on now,” William said. “If my uncle knew about all this, he’d have me sleeping on the floor with a horse blanket.”
Everyone knew that his uncle was in the War Department and that William got special treatment, although whatever deal he’d cut bypassed Thayer. There was no way the superintendent would have permitted this. William busied himself at an ornate cabinet next to his bed and withdrew a small green box carved from jade stone.
“Let’s just say no one challenged me when I brought these refinements in,” he said.
“Because they’re scared of your uncle,” snorted Lucian.
William let the remark pass.
“You certainly know how to live comfortably,” Edgar said as he sat down on the couch. William turned from the cabinet holding a long-stemmed, oddly shaped pipe and some other materials in his hands.
“I enjoy the good things in life, soldier,” he said, putting the pipe to his lips. “Here’s one of them.”
He put an oily black lump in the pipe and stepped over to the fireplace, where he knelt and lit a stick of incense. With the pipe in his teeth, he used the burning incense to light the material he’d tamped into the pipe bowl. The chunk bubbled and melted and there was a puff of greasy, fragrant smoke; with a quick intake of breath, William drew deeply on the pipe. A dreamy light came into his eyes then, and he exhaled with a sigh as the air filled with the delicious aroma of roasting hazelnuts. He handed the pipe to Edgar.
“Opium?” Edgar asked, knowing the answer. His brother Henry used the drug, but Edgar had never tried it himself. Now, as he held the pipe and saw the lump glowing in the bowl, he hesitated. Henry had told him about opium and its effects — hallucinations, lurid dreams, even madness — all things he was already too familiar with.
“Go on. It’s good for the soul,” William urged. “This is how your fellow poet, Coleridge, discovered Xanadu. See it for yourself.”
Edgar laughed and then drew on the pipe, taking the smoke deep into his lungs; it was smooth and innocuous, not harsh at all. He took some more and held his breath until the smoke seemed to seep into every part of him. And then it happened — the sensation even his brother had been unable to articulate. His body was slowly suffused with a wave of tingling heat from his head to his extremities, as though he was sinking into a bath of sun-warmed honey. The experience was intensely pleasurable, and he closed his eyes and continued to smoke.
“Don’t waste it,” he heard Lucian snap from across the room. When he opened his eyes, he saw the pipe hanging limply in his hand. Lucian jumped up and snatched it away.
“Steady,” he heard William say. He sounded as though he were a hundred yards away.
“I’ve got to lie down,” Edgar said, falling back on the couch. William’s Oriental cabinet was at eye level and its tangled arabesques seemed to writhe to life.
“What a wondrous substance,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”
“One has only to frequent the New York docks and ask around a bit,” William said as he held a flame to a fresh pipe for Lucian. “British sailors are the most helpful, so I always search the masts for a Union Jack.”
Lucian puffed on the pipe and then William passed it on to Edgar, who, remembering Henry’s Lucifers, dug one out of his pocket and struck it on his shoe. He thought his companions would enjoy the novelty, but its sizzling flame and stench brought immediate complaints from Lucian.
“Put that awful thing out,” he carped. “It’s ruining everything.”
Edgar blew the flame out.
“Those smelly things will never catch on,” said Lucian, waving a stick of jasmine incense to cover the odor.
For the next fifteen minutes they handed the pipe around and it seemed to take forever. Time itself seemed to slow and expand so that there was ample room to notice everything in great detail: the rustle of silk on the napping couch, the plush velvet of the curtains, the green veins on the back of William’s hand. Everything seemed magnified and more interesting than Edgar had ever noticed. And then the pipe was exhausted and William sat with his head on his desk, nodding off, and Lucian was back on his bed, his mouth slackly open as he slept.
Edgar thought briefly of going back to his own room, but every muscle begged him to stay and he felt himself slowly melting into the couch...
* * *
He was standing at the edge of a vast plain and in the distance he saw ivory domes and minarets rising from a blue mist slashed through with gaudy sunshine. Xanadu. But then the light went out, like a flame extinguished, and he was in a dark passageway. Torches periodically punctured the blackness, revealing subterranean walls of cyclopean stone encrusted in webs of fungi and lichens. At the end of the corridor he saw a yellow light, and he ran toward it even though he heard someone wailing. The crying grew louder, more insistent and begging.
He burst out of the tunnel and into a poorly lit room where a harlequin hung from a chandelier. A monkish, hooded figure prodded the dying clown with a saber and Edgar glimpsed the sword’s ivory handle and saw the outspread wings of an American eagle etched in its grip, marking it a West Point weapon. Behind the figures, the room was filled with spindly mechanical gears that squeaked and spun as jets of steam started to whistle like a thousand boiling kettles. The shrouded man was on him, but he couldn’t see who it was because of the hood.
And now the tip of the sword was at his throat and he felt its razor-edge prick his skin as the monk’s hood shifted just enough for him to see the hollow eyes and teeth of a grinning skull. He lunged at the phantasm — and found himself flailing on the floor of William’s room.
“What in hell’s the matter with you?” Lucian hissed from his bed. “Keep it down.”
“I saw Dupin die,” Edgar said, rubbing one of his eyes with the heel of his hand, still disoriented.
“You were dreaming,” said William, who was up now and helping him back on the couch. “You all right?”
“It was so real. Like a vision.”
“He doesn’t know if he’s on foot or on horseback,” Lucian cackled.
“Shut up, Lucian,” William said, and then spoke gently to Edgar. “Opium’s a devious substance. It has a way of forging dreams into reality and then twisting reality back into dreams. That’s precisely why I love it; you have to learn to accept its powers.”
“It’s too potent,” Edgar said, still stupefied by the drug. “My dreams tend toward nightmares, and I would hate for them to follow me back into this world.”
Lucian was laughing again but William took Edgar by the arm and helped him up. “You don’t know what a nightmare is until you’ve seen that pit of hell over at the foundry,” he said. “Now there’s a vision of the underworld if ever there was one. Whenever I’m there, I feel trapped in a bad dream.”
William had recently been put on guard duty at the foundry, a plum assignment for a cadet because it meant extra pay and the occasional opportunity to go on drinking sprees in nearby Cold Spring, depending, of course, on the leniency of the commanding officer. Any of the cadets would have traded places with him in a minute.
William, however, didn’t like the assignment and Edgar listened as he complained about the job’s unpleasant aspects: the heat at the foundry was unbearable, the air was polluted with poisonous fumes, the din and clangor of machinery was overwhelming, and so on. How he hated everything mechanical. He was going to buy a farm in Vermont some day, verdant and green, that would provide him with everything he needed to live and there’d be nothing more mechanically complicated than a waterwheel. It would be his escape from this increasingly inhuman world of engines, gears and drive shafts. They were ruining a paradise. He went on and on in that vein and the opium made his descriptions all the more vivid.
“Your turn to shut up,” Lucian said from across the room. “I’m tired of hearing this bull. If you don’t like the way the world’s going, move to goddamn Mexico or someplace. Then you can live out your life in the seventeenth century.”
William quit his tirade and pulled a bottle of brandy out of the cabinet. He poured two tumblers full, passing one to Edgar, who drank greedily, glad for its reviving heat. The opium was retreating now and the dream already seemed less fearful.
“I should take you over to the foundry,” William said, sipping from his glass. “You, of all people, would appreciate it. It’s astounding and horrible at the same time. You’d think the devil himself worked there.”
He could see he’d caught Edgar’s interest, so he went on. “The blast furnace is big as the gateway to hell. It’s a thirty-foot-high oven of blackened brick, if you can imagine that, with these giant bellows that constantly stoke a mountain of coal with huge, noisy gales of air so it’s raging hot, thousands of degrees. Iron melts like wax and runs in rivers. All the while, half-naked soot-covered men labor and sweat and crawl about in the firelight like lost souls condemned to unending slavery. And the smell, Eddy. There’s nothing like it. Burning sulfur and coal ash constantly sting the eyes.”
Copyright © 2006 by Jack Alcott
