It was a miracle his jaw hadn’t shattered on the jagged brick. Edgar lie in the filthy Baltimore gutter unable to move; unable to focus. 
Am I dead? He gasped. It was his first breath since the hard, cold, violent impact with the cobblestones. With each labored breath came pulses of excruciating pain. Trickles of lucidity, and hazy images slowly returned. A whiskey. Or two. Or three. The yammering of Election Day politics. He had stumbled outside the pub, not there for more than a moment when three ominous figures approached. A few, unintelligible words were uttered before they dragged Edgar into the alley, slamming him against a brick wall. Next came pushing, and shoving until he had lost all sense of direction. Then one of them held him down while the others rifled through his pockets. Even more pushing and shoving. Then, the next thing Edgar remembered was the hard, cold crush of his skull to the pavement before the thugs ran away with everything. 
How long have I been here? 
It hurt to think. 
Three. There were three of them. 
His head pulsated. 
Those hats. 
He recognized the small-brimmed hats they wore as the uniform of the Plug Ugly street gang he’s read about in the newspaper. 
Damned thugs.
He shivered, freezing half naked on the cold street. 
Shit. That was my favorite jacket. 
The cold, hard stones of Fells Point began to soothe his throbbing temple. 
This can’t be death. Death isn’t this painful. 
Something tickled at his ankle, a welcome sensation until he saw what it was. A sewer rat scurried by.  Another wave of pain pounded his cranium. 
This can’t be the end. Who would write this? This is a terrible ending. 
It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not after the success of that poem. After all those years of toiling away; the financial sacrifice; the personal loss. Finally, the name Edgar Allan Poe stood for something, uttered in respected circles along with Charles Dickens and Walt Whitman. He had fans in the White House, for God’s sake. Even in this half-comatose state the irony wasn’t lost on him.
Those thugs have no clue who they just mugged. 
A tranquilizing calm came over him. Then he closed his eyes, and focused on a happier time. A time when things were simpler. A time when life wasn’t so complicated. A time when he was known simply as Eddy. 

Evermore Poe is the historical account of a teenaged Edgar Allan Poe. If you’d like to learn more Eddys devolution to become the master of the macabre, please don’t forget to follow and share this podcast. 
Evermore Poe was researched, written produced and edited by yours truly, journalist Kris Kosach. I began my research more than a decade ago using vetted journalistic methods with corroborated fact checking from respected sources incl the Library of Congress, periodicals obtained from multiple Poe museums notable scholars & the National Archives among other collections, strung together into a narrative style. In other words, my story is mostly true. Our Music today by MK2, QUINCAS MORERA ANBD Esther ABRAMI, It should be noted that some of the characters in Evermore Poe are composites of real people, including servants and slaves who lived in the Allan home at the time of our story. Please note- while Evermore Poe is based on fact, it should not be confused with the historic record. For that, I hope you will go down your own rabbit hole to research one of the most thrilling American’s authors of all time. 

Our story continues next time on evermore poe … I'm Kris Kosach. Thank you for listening.