Given what I know about Edgar Allan
Poe, I can think of a few places where he might hang out if he were still alive
and living in contemporary Baltimore. Most of Mount Vernon would probably
appeal to him, especially the spooky Methodist Church on the circle. I can
easily picture him stalking around the cobblestoned section of Charles Street
surrounding the Washington Monument, or ducking into the basement of Brewer’s
Art for a Resurrection Ale. (He would no doubt approve of the name.) I can also
see him strolling through the small, well-preserved graveyard on the corner of
Fayette and Greene, where he is now buried alongside his wife, Virginia Clemm.
Poe’s reputation as a drinker has apparently been distorted: the facts suggest
that he may have been less a raging alcoholic than simply a
lightweight. Still, I have the feeling he enjoyed a good drink – even if he couldn’t hold
his liquor – and I think I’d be able to recommend him a few good bars. If dark
and moody were his vibe (and I assume it would be) there’s Bookmaker’s Cocktail
Lounge in Federal Hill, or the Wharf Rat in Fell’s Point. And obviously, there’s
Annabel Lee Tavern, a veritable shrine to Poe, whose walls are hung with his
portrait and emblazoned with some of his most quotable quips (especially ones
that relate to alcohol). If he could ignore the undeniable weirdness of having
to stare at his own likeness throughout the experience, he might enjoy a
snifter of Brandy here. (His opinion of the pile of duck fat fries that have
become the tavern’s trademark is anyone’s guess.)
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| As it happens, the internet has a strong supply of Poe memes. |
One place where I have trouble imagining
Poe is The Horse You Came in On Saloon in Fell’s Point, a loud, rowdy bar at
the epicenter of one of Baltimore’s loudest, rowdiest neighborhoods. I don’t
actually know much about Poe’s personality beyond what I can try to infer from
his writing, but I still have the distinct impression that the Horse isn’t
really his scene. It’s a really bro-ey place – meaning that it attracts a lot
of well-dressed, finely coiffed young professionals who watch college football
and order Jager shots or Red Bull and Vodka. Actually, Poe was purportedly a
bit of a fashion plate, but I kind of doubt he’d be at home with the Bros. He’s
too dark, too morose, too artsy. And that’s why it’s strange to me that this
bar is so closely associated with his death.
To be completely accurate, it
wasn’t this bar exactly. The bar where Poe most likely consumed his last drink
was called Ryan’s Tavern, and on the day he showed up, it had been converted
into a polling place for a local election. Still, on this day, Poe certainly
spent at least some time on the inside of the cavernous expanse that is now the
Horse, and later, in an incoherent stupor on the sidewalk outside: in the very
spot where it is now common to see groups of young Morgan Stanley executives
standing in a huddle, smoking cigarettes.
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| Would Poe's ghost stop here for a drink? I'm not sure it's his scene. |
One compelling theory – and there
are many versions of the story – suggests that Poe was given alcohol by
political backers as a reward for casting his vote for their party. In the
corrupt, scantly regulated world of mid-nineteenth century politics, it was not
uncommon for parties to hire goons whose job was to ply prospective voters with
alcohol and then to dress them up in disguises so they could cast their votes a
second time – a practice called “cooping.” If Poe was cooped on the night he
was found drunk in the street, which would turn out to be three nights before
his death, it may also help to explain the story’s most peculiar idiosyncrasy: he
was found wearing another man’s clothes. Normally a sharp dresser, Poe reportedly
had on a dirty shirt, an old coat, a straw hat and (most scandalously) unpolished
shoes. His hair was unkempt and his face unshaven. An acquaintance, who
eventually showed up at Washington College Hospital to identify him, described
his appearance as “repulsive.”
To further complicate matters, Poe,
who was never to regain his lucidity, repeated one name again and again:
“Reynolds.” An untold number of biographers and amateur sleuths have come up
with theories about this odd detail without coming to any real consensus. I wonder about it too sometimes – about all
of it. Who was Reynolds? What was Poe doing in the polling place that day? (He
lived in New York City at the time and evidently interrupted a trip home from
Richmond, Virginia to make a pit stop in Baltimore that was, by all
appearances, unnecessary.) For that matter, what did Poe actually die of?
Alcohol poisoning? Some concealed illness like influenza or cholera? Or maybe
something more nefarious? (Some have suggested the cause was syphilis or
rabies.) The mysteries are many, and it’s hard for anyone familiar with Poe’s
writing not to find the circumstances surrounding his death uncommonly fitting
for a man fascinated with darkness, creepiness and unexplained phenomena.
But what haunts me even more than
the story itself is how little it has to do with the festivity that occurs
almost every night, oblivious to the disturbing demise of one of the most
renowned American writers. Panhandlers are a fairly common sight in Fell’s
Point. And on occasion, incapacitated men or women may be seen sitting or
reclining on the curb outside some bar or other. (On the night of his last
drink, Poe couldn’t have been wearing a shirt any dirtier than some I’ve seen
worn by denizens of Fell’s Point.) Panhandlers are occasionally humored with a
few cents and drunks are occasionally ridiculed, but more than anything else,
people who occupy the curbs are ignored. They are understood by most to be part
of the neighborhood’s wallpaper, irrelevant to the main storyline of young
professionals enjoying a little time off from work.
What kind of a response, or lack of
response, would a drunken Edgar Allan Poe provoke now, as he lay shivering in
the gutter, wrapped in an ill-fitting coat, muttering “Reynolds… Reynolds”? I
see a recent Hopkins grad, clad in a blue and white striped Brooks Brothers
shirt, elbowing his buddy, gesturing discreetly towards the supine figure, and
smirking, “Get it together, Dude.”
Here’s the ironic thing, though:
Baltimore loves itself some Edgar Allan Poe. His former home, located in a
rather dicey West Side neighborhood is a popular tourist attraction, and its
docents are leaders in an endeavor to package Poe as a Baltimore Native Son,
despite the fact that he wasn’t actually born there. Though he died in
Baltimore, he was actually born in Boston during his parents’ brief sojourn
there. Even Baltimore’s Poe House concedes, on its website, “Richmond is the
place that Poe most considered home.” Frankly, even the work that Poe wrote
during his residence in Baltimore is undeniably obscure: of the stories written
in the house on North Amity Street, “MS. Found in a Bottle” is the only one
anywhere close to a household name.
In almost every way, the Poe Museum in
Richmond is objectively superior to the house in Baltimore, boasting more
artifacts, better hours, and Poe-themed ghost tours. Its attractive space and
desirable location have even made it a popular, if unlikely, wedding venue. But
regardless, Baltimore has fought hard to make Poe “their guy”: that is, to
strengthen the bond between the city and the figure in popular imagination.
Anyone who has spent a few weeks in Baltimore can attest to the success of this
campaign: his visage appears everywhere – even in the most unlikely places.
Just a few doors down the street from
The Horse You Came in On is a store called Nattybohgear, an emporium that
specializes in merchandise featuring the iconic logo of National Bohemian Beer
(“Natty Boh”): a smiling, mustachioed cartoon face, perhaps a cousin of the
Pringles guy. One of the store’s hottest items is a t-shirt featuring a hybrid
of Poe’s and Mr. Boh’s faces. The caption: “Natty Poe.”
Far weirder is the intentionally
ironic mural on the side of a building in Station North, featuring Poe’s
melancholy face on the body of an astronaut. The general tone of Poe’s writing,
which tends toward deadly seriousness, conflicts with the irreverence of this
image – but like Poe, the mural seems to take delight in their own self-conscious
weirdness. This graffiti artist is at least close to Poe’s aesthetic ballpark,
in other words.
But what would Poe think of the
city’s most visible, and, simultaneously, most incongruous tribute to his
legacy? The Baltimore Ravens, who relocated from Cleveland after the 1996
season, were undoubtedly the first football team to take their name from a
poem, Poe’s most famous work, “The Raven.” Divorced from its context within the
poem, the Raven is fine mascot: intimidating, aggressive and predatory. But the
poem itself, the ruminations of a solitary man in his study, looking
desperately for a supernatural message from his deceased lover, is light years
away from M&T Bank Stadium on game day. And it isn’t like the team’s name
is some esoteric in-joke contrived by the eggheads in the front office. Its
poetic origin is widely known to fans, and with small touches, like cartoonish
raven mascots whose names are Edgar, Allan and Poe, the franchise is fond of
reminding them.
For its part, The Horse You Came in
On is slightly understated in the way it deals with its connection to Poe. In a
single sentence on the “history” section of its website, the saloon admits,
“The Horse was the last destination before the mysterious death of the great
American writer E.A. Poe.” Its décor, more country western than Gothic, also
suggests that management may be attempting to distance itself from the Poe
story and its accompanying unpleasantness.
Baltimore, more than most of its
east coast neighbors (especially strait-laced D.C.), has always prided itself
on its quirkiness. It boasts a strong element of artists, hipsters and literary
enthusiasts whose familiarity with Poe’s work often stretches far beyond “The
Raven” and commonly anthologized stories like “The Tell-tale Heart” and “The
Pit and the Pendulum.” They appreciate the man and his work, as much as they
appreciate the ideal union between a character and a city that both revel in
their own eccentricity. But I’ll wager that the majority of Baltimoreans – the
off-duty electrician wearing the Ravens helmet and the Ray Lewis jersey, the
yuppie stock broker at happy hour in Fell’s Point, and everyone in between –
know only a few elementary facts about the man himself: he wrote “The Raven, he
had a mustache and a receding hairline, and (a half-truth) that he was hometown
guy. They love Poe, though – just ask the man on the street in Canton or
Charles Village or Highlandtown. An admission otherwise is a blasphemy on par
with admitting a preference for lobster over crab, or The Sopranos over The Wire.
Baltimore loves Poe
unconditionally, but not the Poe who was found passed out in the street on that
night in 1849, and definitely not the Poe who married his much younger first cousin,
and probably not even the Poe whose poetry and stories are still widely taught
in schools and are still capable of capturing the imagination. They love Poe
the icon, whose very face, around these parts, is as ubiquitous as the Orioles
logo. Except in small academic circles, the details of his life and work only
matter insofar as they add to his legend, which in turn, adds to the identity
of a city.
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