The Poet

6th January, 1906

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Johnathon Williams. I am an artist. I was born in 1886, twenty one years ago, and in 1905, I was offered a job as an art consultant for an eccentric millionaire ― one of the wealthiest in the country ― Matthew McKinley. And this is my story.

I come from humble beginnings. My father passed when I was a toddler, so my mother, the fiercest of souls, was tasked with raising an only child in a house where food was a scarcity, in a country torn prior by civil strife. Working as a domestic servant, we traveled throughout the American South. She was a reserved person and spoke only of my father in the darkest of nights. My father? He was a painter. He collected only the finest brushes and colors and made only the finest of strokes. My mother spoke of how he was obsessed with one incomplete painting of his. The painting itself was of a humble size, not more than a sheet of paper. No one knew as to what he was doing. It appeared to consist of an outline of an avian, of sorts, on the road, in rush hour of, what appeared to be, downtown New York. To everyone else, it made no clear sense; therefore, many just dismissed it as a work of artistic heresy. He claimed it would have brought him riches and saved our family from our financial woes. Till his final days, he worked on it. At first, the idea of a benevolent tomorrow infatuated my mother, but she too, eventually, transpired all hope. Tuberculosis got to him, before we got the answer. I kept it. Wherever we went, I kept it framed in my luggage. In the rain and in the sun, I kept it. I assured myself that there existed something about that painting that connected me with my father, where reality had failed to.

My mother noticed my skills early on in life and sent me to New England when I was eighteen. I began work as an art renovator in the New York City Museum. It was my no means a good job, but it was a job. I found an apartment in the borough of Brooklyn and sustained myself quite easily. When I was twenty, I received a letter from Birmingham, Alabama. It was from a hospital, informing me that my mother had been diagnosed with smallpox. A year before I had left her, and a year later, she had left me, permanently. She did not have much to her name and no one to leave it to but me, but she asked that a letter be mailed to me, asking me not to come and let my dreams guide me. I recall that night quite vividly. I sat and looked at my father's painting. I shed no tears. I just pondered. It never made any sense. It had wings but possessed no body. It was on a road, but around it, no asphalt, no emotion. There were cars, but no one noticed it. Eventually, daylight broke the darkness, and I carried on with my life. I went to my job, and I came home. I stared at the painting, and then I slept. I woke up the following morning, and I went to my job.

A week later, I received another letter. It was from Matthew McKinley, the real estate developer and investor. Success was synonymous with McKinley throughout New York. He was an inspiration to many, even me. From rags to riches, and that too, by his late twenties. He offered me employment as an art consultant. I thought of it as my big break. I thought of it as my chance to prove my worth. His mansion was on Stratton Island, the wealthiest borough in the area. Stratton Island was in ways more of an island than people understood. It was itself one of the richest boroughs, but it was immediately surrounded by exceptional inequality and crime. However, fifty dollars, every week, including domicile. He made an offer that I could not refuse.

On the Monday that followed, I went to his residence. The gates were stone. Dark stone. Solid. Lofty and solid. It was like a citadel of sorts, cut off from the entire area. On the outside, the only indication that a person lived there was a small black sign that had his name engraved in what appeared to be silver. I was greeted by one of his servants; he walked out as I approached the gate. There was no bell.