Mat Johnson - Pym

It was Peters’s great fortune to happen upon Issue 34 of the Southern Literary Messenger , in which Edgar Allan Poe’s first telling of the beginning of Arthur Gordon Pym’s story was delivered. It appeared that the influence of the friendship had gone both ways, and Poe was now exploring the life of his friend who at this point was thought to have disappeared, presumably lost at sea. Poe seemed to be creating an homage †to a cherished associate, which would weigh in Peters’s favor when he attempted to retain Poe’s services. Dirk Peters, of course, was the only one who could solve the mystery of what happened to the missing Nantucketer, a bit of information Peters had never considered of much worth before that moment.

Interestingly, what remains of the letter that Dirk Peters sent Edgar Allan Poe is a heavily corrected first draft in an unknown hand. In addition to numerous basic grammar corrections, the unknown party — presumably a member of the officer class on his merchant vessel — adds into the text more elegant lines such as “it is my desire to commune with you about that most able gentleman, Arthur Gordon Pym, with whom we are both so pleasantly acquainted.” More linguistic embellishments followed, creating an altogether different impression of the letter’s author than Peters’s own literary voice was capable of. This was a particularly shrewd strategy considering Poe’s attraction to the upper classes, which Peters may have deduced from his former shipmate’s stories. Aside from his promise to share the information on the fate of the absent Mr. Pym, Dirk Peters made no further reference to the fate itself, deciding instead that it would be better to bait the storyteller. With this in mind, Dirk Peters included a segment from his manuscript along with the letter. It was a chapter he didn’t seem to think was particularly special, one he wasn’t worried about sending the sole copy through the post to a stranger who might not ever hand it back. It was “far from my good good work,” Peters lamented in the margins, but he sent it with the letter anyway. His intent was to entice Poe into ghostwriting his autobiography. ‡The segment’s sole strength in Peters’s eyes was that it contained mention of his and Poe’s mutual acquaintance. The selection began when the two met after the mutiny on the Grampus , and ended with the two of them sailing toward a chasm in Antarctica. All in all, from the opening sentence to the final letter, the piece measured three handwritten pages.

In basic substance, the tale that Dirk Peters told, in his throw-away little note, is the same as the one told in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym . Of course, there are differences in style. For instance, from Peters’s “we caught some big animal in the water, floating, not the best eating I will say,” we get Poe’s fascinating description of the misplaced polar bear. From “They got these fish down there what looks like that what comes out the buttocks,” Poe springs forth with the culinary ravings on the bêche-de-mer . And most fascinating, from Peters’s skewed, identity-denying perspective, comes the following:

Going further south, we came to an island full of niggers. Niggers just everywhere, black as night. More niggers than I could count. Coming up to the boat, making a big fuss. If I’d wanted to be around this many niggers, I would have stayed in Michigan. Acting such the fool that the white men just relaxed like they was a bunch of black babies. Don’t trust a nigger what’s acting like a nigger, any damn fool tell you that. I know that. Didn’t trust them one bit. One day, they started marching us up a mountain for no good reason. White folks just kept walking along like this made a damn bit of sense. I slowed down, just kept looking at these niggers, waiting for them to try something. Sure enough they did, let slide half a mountain on the white folks’ head. Damn near killed me. §

It is at Tsalal that we get more of the richness that is a monument to Poe’s greatness. Where Dirk Peters sees mere “smelly water all dirty and with slimy stuff in it,” Edgar Allan Poe imagines liquid of a variety of shades of purple veins, each separate like the fingers on a hand yet similarly connected, inseparable. From “The guide that chief stuck us with was clearly a dimwit, his teeth rotting dark in his head,” ‖we get Poe’s vision of a people so black that — breaking with the rest of humanity — their very smiles were denials of whiteness.

It is certain that Dirk Peters read the first and procured the second selection of Poe’s early Pym narrative. It’s clear that Peters enjoyed them both, and excitedly considered the man worthy of helping him convey his own ongoing saga. What is less clear is what Dirk Peters made of the rest of the Southern Literary Messenger . It was, as one would expect of its period and location, a somewhat pro-slavery publication. aIf in fact Dirk Peters took this fact into his assessment of Poe, he made no note of it. What, however, should be made note of here is one rather large and integral piece to the Peters puzzle: Dirk Peters was an Uncle Tom. This was a particularly impressive achievement, considering that Uncle Tom’s Cabin had not yet been written. But Peters managed it anyway.

While Peters did think Poe to be an important enough writer to sculpt his own life story, he didn’t bother to keep Poe’s corresponding letter for posterity. In Peters’s own record of the subsequent events, which like the Pym narrative alternates between first person and journal format, we are told that Poe was eager to hear more of his lost associate, giving thanks for the intriguing three pages included. Astutely, Peters also discerned that Poe might be even more interested in the chance at a paid commission. Poe was broke.

On April 17, 1837, Dirk Peters, now on the merchant ship the Armitage , landed in Philadelphia along the Delaware River. His meeting with Poe had been agreed upon months ago in their correspondence, only the exact date was uncertain. Peters found 1342 Pine Street a little more than a mile and a half from where his vessel was docking. When Peters reached the address and knocked, the door was answered by a man who declared himself landlord of the property. On mention of the name Edgar Allan Poe, the owner became immediately agitated and proceeded to lecture Peters on the lack of responsibility in the modern world and the interest that can accrue on a debt of eleven dollars and forty-three cents in a short time. From the grocer up on Spruce Street (owed $3.21 himself), Peters learned that Poe was rumored to be residing another two miles up the Delaware in a settlement known as Northern Liberties.

“How shall I know him?” Peters had the foresight to ask.

“Drunk as a bee in honey and a head like one of these melons,” the grocer said, holding up a particular round one and making bags under where the eyes would be with his fingers.

“And he’s got a mustache,” the merchant cried after Peters had turned the corner.

Once Peters made his way into Northern Liberties, it didn’t take long to locate his prey. The first public house he stopped at pointed him straight at the door in question, the bartender giving directions with the wearied confidence of a man who’d been forced on occasion to take some drunk home to that very address.

The door of 532 North Seventh Street was opened by a small, mousy young woman who seemed so frail that Peters’s immediate inclination was to step in the foyer and close the door behind him lest she be swept away by the breeze. It was a brazen move that must have alarmed the lady, for she began nervously repeating, “My husband is not on the premises, sir, and I assure you there is nothing for you here.”

Peters then did some assuring of his own, explaining he was not a creditor but a prospective business associate, but the poor Virginia kept stepping backward as if Peters was preparing to spring upon her.