Gentry was roused by the commotion and helped Abe chase the remaining slaves into the woods. Satisfied they wouldn’t return for the moment, they cut the flatboat loose and took their chances navigating the Mississippi at night.
We set out, Allen holding our lantern at the bow and squinting into the night, me working the steering oar from atop our shelter, trying to keep us dead down the middle. I could not help but steal a look back at the bank, and as I did, I saw a white figure running toward the river from the plantation. Here was the first of the overseers come to reclaim his slaves. But this man, this tiny white figure, did not stop running at the river’s edge. He jumped to the opposite bank in one long, impossible leap. They did not run from men or dogs.
They ran from a vampire.
I thought briefly of steering us into the muddy bank. Of taking the bundle from under my bed and giving chase. I cannot say whether I thought the attempt hopeless, or the victims worthless. I can say only that I did not stop. Allen (it now dawning on him how perilously close he had come to having his throat cut) presently let forth a stream of profanity the likes of which I had never heard, and much of which I did not understand. Cursing himself for failing to bring a musket along. Condemning “those murderous sons of bitches.” I remained silent—focused only on keeping us dead down the middle. I could not bring myself to hate our attackers, for it occurred to me that they were merely trying to preserve their lives. In doing so, they had thought it necessary to deprive me of mine. Allen went on. Something about “no-good black” something or others.
“Judge them not equally,” I said.
II
Allen and Abe reached New Orleans at midday on June 20th, twisting round the ever-tightening bends of the Mississippi as they neared its center, where they would be able to sell their remaining goods (and sell their boat for lumber) at any number of busy wharves. A light rain greeted them, welcome relief from the oppressive humidity that had dogged so much of their trip downriver.
The north of the city presented itself first—sprawling and lively. Farms became houses. Houses became streets. Streets became two-story brick buildings with iron railings on their balconies. So many sailing ships! So many steamboats! Flatboats numbering in the hundreds, all clamoring for their little piece of the great river.
New Orleans was a city of 40,000, and the South’s gateway to the world. Walking along its wharves, one was likely to encounter sailors from every corner of Europe and South America—even some from the Orient.
We could not be rid of our cargo quickly enough. How we longed to explore this city of endless wonders! I was all astonishment, for I had never in my life seen such multitudes—their tongues dripping with French and Spanish phrases. Ladies fanning themselves in the latest fashions, and gentlemen clad from head to toe in suits of the highest quality. Streets filled with horses and carts; merchants selling every ware imagined. We strolled the rue de Chartres; beheld the Basilica of St. Louis in Jackson Square, so named for our president’s heroic defense of the city. Here, teams of men and mules dug trenches for gas pipes. When their months of work were finished, one of them proudly sang, the city would “gleam like a sparkling jewel in the night, with nary a torch or a candle in sight.”
Abe was struck by the liveliness of the city and its people. He was also struck by the age of the things around him.
I imagined myself conveyed to those places in Europe that I had so often read about. Here, for the first time in my life, were homes with ivy-covered walls. Here were men of letters. Architecture and art. Here were vast libraries filled with eager students and appreciative patrons. Here were all the things that my father would never understand.
Marie Laveau’s boardinghouse on St. Claude Street was hardly the most impressive of the city’s Spanish-style buildings, but it was good enough for a pair of Indiana flatboatmen to rest their heads for a week.
There was a saloon not far from Mrs. Laveau’s where one could have his fill of rum or wine or whiskey. Flush with money from selling our goods and our boat, and flush with the excitement of being in such a city for the first time, I admit we indulged in these—more even than a pair of young, foolish men should have. The saloon was overfilled with sailors from all parts of the world. Flatboatmen from every point on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Sangamon. A brawl seemed to break out every third minute. It is a wonder they did not break out more frequently.
Surly boatmen weren’t the only strange characters Abe encountered during his first twenty-four hours in New Orleans. The following morning, as he and Allen stumbled through the streets in search of an inoffensive breakfast—clutching their aching heads and shielding their eyes from the sun—Abe spotted something incredible coming toward them on Bienville Street.
… a coach of lustrous white, pulled by a pair of white horses, and driven by a boy wearing a coat of the same color. Behind him sat a pair of gentlemen: one cherubic and red-cheeked, his suit an unremarkable blend of greens and grays. The other wore a suit of white silk, a complement to his fair skin and long white hair. His eyes hidden behind dark glasses. He was as obvious a vampire as I had ever laid eyes upon, and by all appearances, the wealthiest. Elegant and refined. Unencumbered by shadows. Free to mingle as he pleased. And laughing. He and the living gentleman were in the midst of what looked a very cheerful conversation. I could think only of staking him through the heart as his coach neared. Of chopping off his head. How the blood would look against the white silk of his coat! Alas, I could only watch him—restrained by the absence of weapons and the presence of an aching head. The white-haired vampire gave me a knowing look as he passed. And then the strangest feeling… the feeling of invading eyes reading the pages of my journal. The sound of a voice with no source…
Judge us not equally, Abraham.
They turned onto Dauphine Street and were gone. But the feeling of invading eyes remained. This time the source was plain as day. I spotted a pale little fellow across the street, half hidden in an alley, his eyes unquestionably fixed on me. He was dressed entirely in black, with a mess of hair to match, and a small mustache beneath his dark glasses. Unmistakably a vampire. Seeing that he had been discovered, the figure turned and disappeared into the alley. This I could not leave uninvestigated! Aching head be damned! I left my friend to his own stumbling and hastened after the stranger—chasing him down the alley to Conti Street, then across Basin Street, where the devil sought refuge behind the cemetery * walls. I had been no more than ten paces behind him, but on reaching the gates I perceived him not. He had vanished. Lost in a maze of crypts. I wondered if he had simply slipped into one of them; wondered how many vampires were—
“And what mean you by chasing me so, sir?”
I spun around and raised my fists. He was behind me—his back against the inside of the cemetery wall, clever devil. Staring at me, his dark glasses in his fingers. His tired eyes and high forehead.
“ ‘Chasing’ you, sir?” I said. “What meant you by running?”
“Well, sir, the manner in which you shielded your eyes from the light… the familiar glance you shared with the gentleman in the coach… I thought you a vampire.”
I could scarcely believe what I had heard.
“You thought me a vampire?” he asked. “But I…”
A smile grew over the little man’s lips. He looked at the dark glasses in his fingers; at the look on this tall stranger’s face. He began to laugh.
“I believe us both guilty of grave misjudgments.”
“Forgive me, sir, but… am I to understand that you are not a vampire?”
“Regrettably, no,” he said, laughing, “or I should still have my breath.”
I offered my apology and extended my hand. “Abe Lincoln.” The little man took it.
“Edgar Poe.”
III
Abraham Lincoln and Edgar Allan Poe were born within weeks of each other. Both lost their mothers as children. Otherwise, their upbringings couldn’t have been more different.
After his mother’s death, Poe had been taken in by a wealthy merchant, John Allan (who dealt in slaves, among other commodities). Whisked away from his native Boston, he’d been thoroughly educated in some of England’s finest schools. He’d seen the wonders of Europe that Abe could only read about in books. Around the time Abe swore his vengeance against vampires and staked Jack Barts through the heart, Edgar Allan Poe returned to America, settling with his adoptive father in Virginia and enjoying all the luxuries associated with belonging to one of its wealthiest families. Poe had everything Abe could ever want: The finest education. The finest homes. More books than he could count. A father with no want of ambition.
But he and Abe were equally miserable creatures.
As a first-year student at the University of Virginia, Poe drank and gambled away every penny his foster father sent him, until John Allan finally cut him off. Enraged and abandoned, he fled Virginia for Boston and enlisted in the army under the name Edgar A. Perry, loading artillery shells by day, and writing ever-darker stories and poems by candlelight. It was here, while stationed in the city of his birth, that Edgar Allan Poe met his first vampire.
Using his own money, Poe published a short collection of poems, identifying himself only as “A Bostonian” on its cover (for fear of being mocked by his fellow enlisted men). Of the fifty he paid to have printed, fewer than twenty sold. Notwithstanding this poor reception, one reader saw a particular genius in Poe’s collection, and bribed its printer to learn the author’s true identity. “It was shortly [after this] that I was visited upon by a Mr. Guy de Vere—a widower of considerable means. He explained how he had come to learn my name, and that he had been much affected by my work. He then demanded to know what a vampire was doing serving in the army.”
Guy de Vere was convinced that only a vampire could have written poems with such an outlook on death and grief. Poems of such darkness and beauty.
“He was surprised, then, to find a living man their creator. I was likewise surprised to find myself speaking to a man who was no longer living.”
Poe was endlessly fascinated by the stately, bloodsucking de Vere, and de Vere by the gloomy, brilliant Poe. The two struck up a tenuous friendship, much as Henry and Abe had done. But Poe wasn’t interested in learning about vampires to better hunt them—he wanted to know about the experience of living in darkness, of moving beyond death, so that he could better write about it. De Vere was all too happy to oblige (with the understanding that Poe would never reveal his identity in print). *
Several months after making de Vere’s acquaintance, Poe’s regiment was assigned to Fort Moultrie in South Carolina. With no city to satisfy his appetite for culture, and no means of satisfying his thirst for further vampire knowledge, the army suddenly seemed a prison.
Therefore he had decided to grant himself an “unofficial leave” and come to New Orleans for the stated purpose of “studying vampires”—for de Vere had insisted there was “not a better place in America to do so.” Judging by the number of times he filled and emptied his whiskey glass, he had also come to drink himself to death. We sat that evening in the saloon near Mrs. Laveau’s. Allen Gentry had gone off to “consort with ladies of a certain character,” leaving us free to talk on that subject we enjoyed most, but dared not discuss freely. We spoke well into the night, sharing everything we had read, and heard, and witnessed firsthand regarding vampires.
“How then do they learn to feed?” asked Abe as the barkeep swept the empty tavern around them. “How do they know to shy away from the su—”
“How does a calf know to stand? A honeybee to… to build a hive?”
Poe took another drink.
“It is their nature, beautiful and simple. That you would destroy such beings, Mr. Lincoln, such superior creatures, seems madness to me.”
“That you speak of them with such reverence, Mr. Poe, seems madness to me.”
“Can you imagine it? Can you imagine seeing the universe through such eyes? Laughing in the face of time and death—the world your Garden of Eden? Your library? Your harem?”
“Yes. I can also imagine a want of companionship, and a want of peace.”
“Well, I can imagine a want of nothing! Think of the fortune one could amass, the comforts one could afford, the wonders of the world one could see at his leisure!”
“And when this intoxication has worn away… when every desire is fulfilled and every language learned—when there are no more distant cities to explore; no classics to be studied; not another coin to be stuffed into one’s coffers—what then? One can have all the comforts of the world, but what use are they if there is no comfort in them?”
Abe shared a folktale, one that he had first heard from a traveler on the Old Cumberland Road.