The Actor

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Richmond, Virginia, 1806—The Actor
 

The tavern was busy, noisy, and full of smoke, a dull haze clung to the rafters and fell down amongst the heads of the rabble within.  David Poe, Jr. was often the life of the party.  Good-looking and outgoing, he could charm anyone, or so he thought.  Today though, he wasn’t mingling with his people, the down-trodden salt of the earth, no, today he was sitting alone in a crowded tavern with this back to the wall of a corner table.  The lighting was low and flickering, giving the wooden surfaces an oily appearance.  He didn’t mind.  He had just married the girl of his dreams and stood up to his father in one fell swoop.  He lifted the glass to his lips and sipped at the cheap whiskey.  She’s too good for you, David, his father had said.  Too good for this family.  He smiled into his drink with appreciation.  “I showed you, father, didn’t I?”
He had purposefully chosen the cheapest whiskey in the place, deciding to build up a tolerance to it before that was all he could afford.  His father had planned out his whole future for him, a future that David just didn’t want.  He was supposed to be attending law school to be a great and wealthy man, a man people looked up to, just like his father, the General.  He had never actually been awarded that title, but he had performed so admirably at war that Washington himself was said to have dubbed the man.  David shook his head.  “A general?”  He giggled to himself.  “What an idiot.  I’ll never be you, father, never be your ideal son.  I’m to be an actor.”  He caught himself raising a clenched fist in victory and quickly seized his glass, hoping no one had noticed.  He got caught up in his own world sometimes.  You’re too good to be an actor, David.  He laughed and drank deeply.  Actors are all poor vagabonds who have to pretend to be other people in other places.
Eliza was at a rehearsal.  She was to grace the stage once again with her presence in the coming weeks, but this time he was to join her.  He knew they would soon dominate all the productions of the big cities: New York, Boston, even Baltimore.  He smiled into his drink, pouring himself another now that he noticed it empty.  But, tonight was his night to be alone, to celebrate his own greatness.  He had accomplished such a wonderful task.  He, David Poe, Jr., had gotten Eliza to marry him.  How could he have done such a thing?  Because he was a Poe, and a Poe is a charmer.  “Too good indeed, father, too good indeed.”
He was a third of the way through the bottle when a man entered the tavern through the main door.  Poe was quite drunk but found his eyes drawn to the creature instantly; he detested him in that instant.  The man slunk and slithered through the tavern, his back to the door, but his sights very clearly on Poe, passing unnoticed by many of the patrons, though his face should have remained clear in their eyes for the rest of their lives.  The man was tall and gaunt, reminding Poe of the mantis.  His face was marred by pockets of scars and deep veins running around the skin of his angular nose.  When he sat down opposite Poe, leering at him the whole time, Poe felt queasy and unsteady on the chair.  Looking at the grotesque in front of him created the same feeling as staring off an immense cliff, that dizzy unearthly feeling of fear and excitement.  The man licked his swollen lips and took up the bottle with his cadaverous fingers.  “My, oh, my, I would hate to see this go to waste.”  David was about to protest but the man was already drinking deeply and sloppily, a thin line of alcohol leaking from the corner of his mouth.  He sighed lustily.  “David Poe I presume?”
Poe flinched.  Surely he had never met this man.  You’re too good for people like this, David.  The sound of his voice was vile and distorted from too much hard living, the English accent thick and difficult to understand; it made David’s head swim to pay so much attention.  His hair, falling in black daggers out from the crumpled top hat that was crushed onto his head, matched his clothes in greasiness and damage.  His face was covered in a squalid growth of hair, patchy and uneven, that did little to hide the sores and blemishes on his face, all over his face.  His eyes were the worst; they were empty of any kindness or emotion.  “Yes?  And you are?”  David sounded drunker than he felt, and he wasn’t sure which was correct.
“I’ve traveled a long way for you, boy.”  The man took another long drink, the smell of him stagnant and old.  “It’s cost me quite the pretty penny to track you down.”  David grinned.  Obviously this man had very few pennies, now or ever.  Poe stood.
“And now we’ve met.  Enjoy the bottle, sir.”  The man seized him in a deadly look, and David sat when the man motioned for him to do so.  His feet had threatened to betray him at any moment and lead him to the floor, so he was grateful to sit without embarrassment.
“My name’s Tobias Fagin.  I’ve come from London with a very special task for you, a secret which only your ears can hear.”  The man grinned a sinister smile, showing off the dinginess of his teeth, as he leaned in conspiratorially.  “I can see that you judge me, boy, and that’s okay.  I’ve made more than a few dollars in my life and have saved quite a bit of it.  I may not live as grandly as yourself, but do not take me for some common drifter.”  Poe doubted that very much.
“Yes, well, I’m not sure what help I can be to you, sir.  I’m to be in a performance very soon with my wife, perhaps you’ve heard of her.”  Fagin cut him off with a gesture.
“None of that is important right now.  I have to take you somewhere, and you must follow.”
“Must?  What if I refuse?”  Fagin’s smile curdled David’s blood in the vein.
“Why then I get to show you some of my other talents.”  Fagin let the words sink in, then rose, motioning for David to follow, and he did.  Before they had reached the door, the man’s arms had snaked out and removed two watches and a gold chain from passers-by.  Poe saw and felt scandalized, but his fear kept him from speaking out.
The wind picked up, perhaps just for them, the moment they exited the tavern.  Poe found himself having to force his muscles to keep up with the man.  He looked sickly and malnourished, but he was obviously in great physical shape.  David began wondering if he had allowed himself to grow too flabby in Richmond when the man gestured towards an immense stone building.  The walls were high and powerful, very impressive as they rose out of the city streets in the row of businesses.  There was no marker on the black iron door and no sign out front.  “A business?”
“No, not exactly.”  Fagin grabbed Poe’s upper arm in an indelicate grip and forced him to the threshold.  “Knock.”  David raised his hand before noticing the tiny carvings emblazoned on the door.  He studied them for a moment, making a mental note to look them up when he had the chance.  They looked to be from some archaic language long forgotten.  Greek maybe, he wondered drunkenly.  Fagin’s hand lashed out to hammer the entrance several mighty blows.  “In,” he said, the moment a tiny sliver of light appeared, and he was shoving David inside.
You’re too good to die this way, David.  His father’s voice was helping him maintain his level of fear.  His companion was terrifying and horrible and intent on harming him.  He knew it deep down, but his cowardice was keeping him from acting, as he found his way through a few narrow stone corridors and finally into a cavernous room, sparsely decorated but warm and inviting.  A set of steps was built into the floor, causing the entire room to rise up in the middle a good ten feet above the ends.  Something, some kind of altar, had been placed at the top of the stairs, but what waited within its confines, David could not guess.  Another shove from Fagin caused him to lose his footing on the brick and mortar stairway, but he was able to catch himself before causing any harm.  Sitting there on the floor, David’s fear finally overtook him, and he found himself cradling his knees in his arms.  “Don’t kill me, sir; I’ve only just married.”
Fagin stared at him, incredulous, for a full minute before bursting into a fit of laughter.  “Kill you?  Why the devil would I kill you, my dear?”  His laughter somehow felt more damaging to Poe than the thought that murder was on his mind.
“Don’t laugh at me, Fagin!  You carry me off to this place and treat me most unkindly.  What would you think?”  The man shrugged.
“Yes, yes, I understand.  My most humble apologies.”  He gave David the deepest bow he could, a horrible little movement that accentuated all his worst features.  “Allow me to explain.”  The man removed the bottle from the tavern that he had presumably hidden in the folds of his many coats.  He took a long drink and extended the bottle to Poe, who shook his head, sneering at the thought of sharing a bottle with those puffy grotesque lips.  “I am a collector of many things.  I’ve collected objects of great wealth from all parts of the globe; I’ve even been getting into collecting people.”  He smiled disgustingly.
“People?  Slaves?”  David found his courage returning and hoisted himself unsteadily to his feet, feeling the effects of the alcohol in his bones.
“No, slaves are too easy.  Children mainly.  It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a child when you teach them early enough.”  He laughed again, genuinely enjoying whatever sick thought was crossing his mind.  Poe turned away from him, finding the sight of the devilish man in a fit of joy too much to partake.  “I digress, Mr. Poe.  I am also a miser, the greatest to ever live I would say.  You judge my appearance harshly and maybe you have the right to, but don’t let it fool you.  I am worth more than your father and all his friends combined.”  David faced him and found truth staring back at him.
“Why live like that?”
“Because I want it all.”  The silence hung in the room with the red and gold tapestries that clung to the walls, the two types of men squaring off in a dual of honor.  “Once I get something, I don’t like to give it up.  And then,” he gestured towards the altar, “I ran into this little gem.”  Fagin left his arm extended, thus leaving Poe with only the choice of finally viewing whatever lay atop the carving and the purple cloths that covered it.  David took the stairs quickly, afraid his fear might not let him if he didn’t hurry.  He was quite surprised with what he found: an axe, a beautiful axe, but it was still just an ordinary battleaxe, nothing so grand as the man seemed to think.  The handle was expertly carved from an old oak, sturdy and gleaming almost as bright and smooth as the metal.  The blade was even more shocking in its brilliance, a black iron wonder, glinting dangerously sharp yet etched with fine markings, the same as on the door outside, David thought.
“It’s wonderful,” David said, reaching out to caress the object, only to have Fagin smack his hand away.
“Yes, it is, and it’s also very expensive.  It once belonged to Benjamin Franklin.”
David studied it.  “Really?  I never took him for a collector of weaponry.”
“He actually wrote a story about this axe.  It was so sharp it actually sharpened the grindstone.”  Somewhere that rang true in Poe’s mind.
“He really liked this axe then, eh?”  Poe examined every piece of it with his eyes, desperate to heft it from its placement.
“Yes, he did, and for a reason.  It’s quite old, far older than you’ll ever realize, but I was fooled, you see.  I can’t take this axe.  I can’t lift it at all.”  David surveyed it and shook his head.
“Why not?  You’re more than strong enough.”  Fagin sneered at him.
“Because it’s a special axe, you simpleton.  It took me years to find the only man capable of claiming it, the chosen, as it were.”  Poe stared at him, the realization finally donning on him.
“Me?  What would I want with an axe?  Eliza would kill me if I brought this thing home.”  Fagin shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter.  It’s yours.  You must take it, and once you take it, it’ll be with you a lifetime.”  He smiled that disgusting grin once more, his lips pulled back from the teeth wetly.
“And what do I have to give you in return?  You said it was very expensive.”  You’re too good to be taken in by his tricks, David.
“Oh, it was, and I’ll get everything I want once you touch it.  You see, there are great responsibilities that come with this axe, much more than I’m capable of handling.  Once you take it, I’ll be able to collect a great sum of money I was paid to find you and bring you here.”
“I thought you said you spent a pretty penny finding me?”
“I did, David Poe, but I’ll get it all back and more.  I’ll get all I paid for you, for the axe and for my travel, and I’ll be back home very soon to continue my collecting.  Now just grab it, damn you, and let’s be done with this farce.”  David backed a step away.  Something was wrong; something was very wrong, with this man, with the axe, with the whole evening.
“What are you?  What is this place?”  David turned to run, but Fagin’s quick hands were upon him before he could get down a single step.  He felt himself heaved into the air and thrown onto the altar.  He tried to squirm away, but he only managed to turn himself over, and then the axe was in his hands.
He woke up some time later, a minute or an hour; he wasn’t sure.  He had been given a vision of things to come and things in the past, all tied to the axe he still clutched in his fists.  He knew in that moment that he had been right along: he was destined for great things, just not marriage and not the stage.  He would try with all his being to succeed in both, but he would fail.  The only thing he would ever be good at was the axe.  He looked it up and down.  “Well, David, you’re not too good for this.”