 |
| Poe gravesite |
Fans Await Dark Figure at Gravesite; Two-Year No-Show Is the Pits, May Usher Out a Tradition
BALTIMORE—Each year, on the anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth, several fans of the writer spend a chilly night by his grave here. They are hoping to catch a glimpse of another Poe admirer—one who wears a dark hat and coat and for several decades has left three red roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac by the tombstone. (click below to read more, if you dare)
But the mysterious figure—who, due to a masculine gait and imposing size, is presumed to be male—hasn't shown up the past two years. And if the so-called Poe Toaster doesn't pay a visit sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday, the Poe fanatics who keep vigil in the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground will declare "nevermore." The tradition will be over.
"It would be a shame," says Jeannette Marxen, a 31-year-old administrative assistant who blocks off the night every year to partake in the ritual. "There is just something special about a small group that has gotten to know each other from years spending a night in a cemetery."
Poe, author of such macabre stories as "The Tell-Tale Heart," might very well have understood. Death was a constant in his horror and detective fiction, as well as in his life—he was orphaned as a young child. Among his writings were stories about torture and burial alive.
Although Poe lived in cities across the East Coast, his family came from Baltimore, and he spent several years here off and on. Living in the city in the 1830s, Poe wrote his first horror story, "Berenice," about a man who obsesses over his sick fiancée's teeth. The story, which ends with the woman's grave violated and her teeth found in a small box, was inspired by rumors that graves in Baltimore were being pillaged for teeth.
He was interred in a family plot after dying under still-unexplained circumstances, at just 40 years of age, in 1849.
Judging by the first known published reference to the Toaster, the graveside tribute appears to have begun in 1949, roughly on the centennial of Poe's demise. Yet it's hard to say for certain when it began, who initiated it or why, since watchers have kept their distance out of deference. All the while, the Toaster has left few clues to his identity.
"I hope he returns," said Cynthia Pelayo, a 31-year-old market researcher who has traveled from her Chicago home the past two years to behold the figure, so far unsuccessfully.
But Ms. Pelayo, who writes horror stories on the side, says she doesn't mind wearing seven layers of clothing to brave the chill—a necessity, as the core devotees haven't invited her to join them inside a former church near the graveside. The Toaster, she says, is one of the few true mysteries left at a time when "there is so much you can uncover by, you know, Googling on the Internet."
Jeff Jerome has been the self-styled keeper of the tradition. A longtime Poe fan, he curates a city museum based in the home where the writer lived in the 1830s. Every year, Mr. Jerome organizes a birthday party for the author. He also heads the clubby group of Toaster spotters who meet inside the cemetery.
On occasion, says Mr. Jerome, the Toaster has left notes, including one that seemed to disparage the Baltimore Ravens, the local professional football team named after one of Poe's poems. He says another missive, left in the mid-1990s, indicated that the original Toaster was passing the torch to his sons.
This year, the silence has Mr. Jerome bracing himself.
"What bothers me—because they have left notes before—I would think they'd say, 'Jeff, it's over with.' But nothing," Mr. Jerome says.
Mr. Jerome contends that only he knows the tell-tale sign distinguishing the real McCoy from the impostors who occasionally turn up. He claims that he and the Toaster developed the secret signal over the many years that Mr. Jerome has been watching. "This is one of the things that I will just take to the grave with me," says Mr. Jerome, who declines to give his age.
He began the vigils in 1977, after discovering a reference to the Toaster in a local newspaper's archives and deciding to check its veracity. Discovering the cognac and roses was a thrill. "It's like saying, 'There's no Santa Claus,' and suddenly seeing the sled go across the sky," recalls Mr. Jerome, who says he's seen the Toaster 32 times.
A few years later, he invited several friends to join him in order to rebut suspicions that he was orchestrating a stunt. Typically, the handful of spotters gather, around 11 p.m., inside the former church on the cemetery grounds now used for wedding receptions and other events. The group makes small talk while peering out the large windows, sometimes until the morning light.
When he appears, the Toaster is typically shrouded in a long coat, his head covered with some kind of hat and a scarf that drapes across his face, the spotters say. He strides quickly along the cemetery's narrow brick pathways, darting in and out of the low light and natural shadows.
"It's kind of like Christmas," says Bethany Dinger, a 39-year-old day-care owner from Bel Air, Md., who has been part of the all-night watch for the past decade. "It's always a surprise."
As the figure has gained national and even international recognition, crowds have gathered outside the cemetery to recite Poe's poetry and steal a glimpse. In recent years, obvious impostors have also shown up. Last year, one arrived in a stretch limousine.
Carla Boccella came in a red Mini Cooper. A 40-year-old hospice nurse in Washington, D.C., she and her husband are co-authors of an audio play called "The Poe Toaster Not Cometh."
Last year, they decided that "any Poe fan could be the Poe Toaster" and her husband could hurl her 120 pounds over the cemetery gates "if need be." That turned out to be unnecessary, as Mr. Jerome, who has keys to the gates, allowed Ms. Boccella to enter the cemetery and leave her own bottle of cognac and roses.
Mr. Jerome says the moment of truth has arrived for the real Toaster. "If it's over with, if this guy doesn't show up, it is so unique, so different that imitating it would be an insult. Let it die a peaceful death," he says.
No comments:
Post a Comment