Walt Whitman and Gabby Zook, wearing heavy coats, hunched over as they made their way down windy Portland Street in Brooklyn on the coldest day yet of the New Year 1868. They paused only briefly as Whitman bought a newspaper from a waif on the corner before crossing to their favorite little café for a warm and stout breakfast. As they hung up the coats on the rack by the door and found an empty table, Whitman said in good humor, “I’m sorry my brother disrupted your sleep this morning. Jesse is fine most of the time, but when he’s experiencing a flare-up of his syphilis, well you never know what he will do.” Whitman smiled and patted Gabby’s hand. “I don’t think he would have thrown that hot grease on you. He’s really quite fond of you. He told me so himself.”
“As long as I get my eggs. I like the middle nice and runny.” He paused as he looked out the window to see snow flurries begin. “Jesse’s just like the rest of us, isn’t he, Mr. Walt. No one is totally normal, but we all try hard to get along. At least I know I do.”
A young woman dressed in a drab brown dress with a soiled apron tied around her waist brought two mugs of hot coffee to them. Gabby smiled brightly at her. They ate there many times, and she was often their waitress. He sat there placidly as Whitman placed the breakfast order, stressing how Gabby liked his egg yolks runny. After the girl walked away, Gabby looked at his friend seriously.
“Private Christy was a really nice person too. I could tell it. Of course, he tried to kill me once.”
Whitman leaned forward, sipped his coffee and smiled. “And how did that happen?”
“Oh, I don’t think he would have tried to kill me if I hadn’t jumped on his back.” He paused to sip from his cup. “This is really good coffee.”
“And why did you jump on his back?”
“Mrs. Lincoln told me to. She said if we could get the key away from him, we could get out of there. I usually don’t like to be mean to people, but I was missing Cordie something terrible. You know to be a skinny fellow, Private Christy was pretty strong. He threw me off and was about to kill me when Mr. Lincoln came up out of his bed and picked Private Christy up by his arm pits and threw him against the wall. Now Mr. Lincoln was strongest of us all, and he could have killed Private Christy if he had had a mind to.” He looked at Whitman and wrinkled his brow. “I wonder why he didn’t?”
“You know that as well as I do. He was a man of honor.” Whitman glanced over Gabby’s shoulder to see the waitress approaching with their breakfast. “Ah, and here are your eggs, nice and runny, just the way you like them.” He watched Gabby closely as he devoured the eggs. “You don’t know how to lie, do you, Mr. Gabby?”
“No sir, I don’t.” He tried to talk while chewing the eggs. A bit of the yolk dribbled down his chin. As he wiped it with his napkin, he added, “I know I get confused real easily sometimes, so everything coming out of my mouth aren’t facts, but I don’t make things up on purpose.”
Whitman buttered his toast and munched on it as he read the newspaper headlines. He was amazed that Stanton had talked General Grant into resigning as Secretary of War. The Republican Senate reinstated Stanton over Johnson’s objections. He did not bother with explaining all this to Gabby right at this moment, because he didn’t want to interrupt his enjoyment of the eggs. This was not an unkind judgement on Gabby, Whitman decided, because he felt most of the nation could not understand the rapid changes at the War Department. When Gabby finished, he pushed his plate away and smiled.
“Mr. Stanton is in the newspaper again,” Whitman announced simply. “You don’t really care for Mr. Stanton, do you, Mr. Gabby?”
Gabby’s eyes wandered out the restaurant window. “He’s the man that put us in the basement all that time.”
“Yes, I remember you telling me that.”
“He tore a Gabby quilt right in front of me once.”
“And what is a Gabby quilt?”
“Cordie made them just for me, to keep me warm at night. That’s why she called them Gabby quilts. Somehow she got Private Christy to bring one to me, and Mr. Stanton was sure there was a message hidden in it somewhere so he ripped it up. Didn’t find anything but stuffing.”
“That was a mean thing to do.”
“Mrs. Lincoln fixed it for me the best she could. She was kind of mean and crazy sometimes, but sometimes she could be almost as sweet as Cordie.”
“The newspaper also says General Grant resigned as secretary of war so Mr. Stanton could have the job again. What do you think about that, Mr. Gabby?”
“I thought General Grant was stronger than that. I thought he could stand up to Mr. Stanton. Maybe Mr. Stanton is meaner that I thought.” He looked around, as though he were afraid someone might have heard him talk bad about Stanton.
“Well, I know you’re not mean, Mr. Gabby.” Smiling, Whitman looked intently into Gabby’s eyes. “Why, right now, I think you’re stronger than Mr. Grant ever could be. It takes a brave man to face his fears—risk his life even—to defend the very fabric of his country. Are you that brave, Mr. Gabby?”
He paused as his finger wiped around the plate, picking up the last of the eggs. “Yes, I think I am strong now. My friend Joe would be proud of me.”
***
To anyone passing by on this particular Philadelphia street on Valentine’s Day in 1868, would have seen an elderly Roman Catholic priest standing on the steps of the elegant home of comic actor John Sleeper Clarke. If that person continued to look in that direction, he would have seen the actor’s wife Asia open the door and smile in an obligatory way. Nothing unusual about the situation because it was common knowledge that Mrs. Clarke, the sister of John Wilkes Booth, had been raised in the Catholic church, even though she now attended her husband’s Episcopal church. The passerby would have continued on his way.
“May I help you, Father?” Asia inquired politely.
“A very close friend of mine told me you were in need of spiritual counseling.” The voice seemed to be a bit strained, a high pitch with a force vibrato.
She smiled and shook her head. “I have no needs that my own Episcopal minister cannot resolve. Nevertheless, thank you for dropping by and forgive me for not inviting you in. My family is in the middle of packing. We move to London, England, in about a month.”
The priest spoke again, this time in a softer, deeper, more natural tone. “Asia.”
Her eyes widened, and his lips quivered. “Wilkes?” She looked deeply into the man’s face, now discerning heavy grayish stage makeup. “Oh my God, Wilkes, is that really you?”
He smiled, raising a finger to his lips.
“Please come in, quickly.” She grabbed his elbow and dragged him into the foyer. First she turned to her parlor, which was cluttered with open storage boxes. “No, not here. John is due back from running errands for me. He would surely recognize you immediately, and that would not do.” She turned to go down a dark hallway, which disappeared behind the large oaken staircase. “We have a pantry room in the back. If John comes in the front door, you’ll be able to escape out back without being seen.” She opened the pantry door and pushed him in. As she lit a kerosene lantern, her brother chuckled.
“So it is confirmed,” Booth said. “I always thought John resented me. He never got over the fact he gave me my first job on the stage and I quickly overshadowed his star.”
“That’s nonsense,” she replied in a clipped tone. “He hates you because he was arrested in those first days after the assassination. He thought he would have the same fate as Dr. Mudd and the others, merely for being the assassin’s brother-in-law.”
Booth sobered a moment. “Do you hate me too, Asia?”
She choked back tears as she threw her arms around his shoulders. “Of course not. I’ve always loved you above all my brothers and sisters. The two worst moments of my life were when they said you killed the President and when they said they killed you.”
She pulled back so she could see his chiseled features in the flickering light. Her fingers lightly touched his cheek. “You are as handsome as ever.” The tender moment did not last as Asia’s eyes clouded with curiosity and more than a bit of irritation. “What are you doing here? If anyone recognized you on the street and reported it to the authorities, my husband would surely be taken into custody again and this time they might hang him.”
“I don’t know why I came here,” he confessed, “except that I did want to see you once more and inquire about Mother.”
“How do you expect her to be? Mortified that her favorite son killed the president and mournful because she thinks he’s dead.”
He shook his head. “She cannot think otherwise. Mother can never know I still live. No one must know.” Booth smiled cynically. “Now I doubt I that I told you.”
“How did you escape the barn? They were so positive when they identified your body.”
“If I told you the truth you would not believe me. Just have faith in me. There were many important men behind the assassination of Lincoln, a conspiracy that continues today with the efforts to impeach and remove Andrew Johnson.”
Her eyes filled with hope. “Then you didn’t kill the president?”
“No, I did it. I planned it. I wanted him dead. Only later that I learned other, darker forces were at work. You see, I truly loved the Confederacy. These men only love themselves, and they will pay for their sins.”
“Wilkes, you’re scaring me. What does all this mean?”
“I will only say this. Have you been keeping up with the news from Washington City about the attempts by President Johnson to fire Secretary of War Stanton?”
“Why, of course. Everyone has.”
“All I will say is that I find it highly ironic that Mr. Stanton has now locked himself into his office to keep from being officially removed.”
“But I thought General Grant was Secretary of War,” Asia interrupted her brother. “Why is Stanton back in office?”
“I think it is part of their strategy. If they can keep the public guessing about who Secretary of War is and who isn’t, they can keep the public from learning the deeper, darker secrets.”
“Who are they?” she asked. “And what secrets?”
Booth shook his head and smiled. “I can’t take time to explain everything. Just let me say that I expect an impeachment vote by the House any day now to get rid of Johnson.”
“So you’re telling me that Mr. Stanton somehow was involved in the assassination of Mr. Lincoln?”
“I cannot say. I will not say.”
A noise at the front door drew their attention.
“It’s John. You must go now.”
Booth lightly kissed her cheek. “Never forget that I love you, but I can never see you again.”