—Pericles
Hiram's Monument
I grew up in the shadow of a legend—Hiram Morton, my grandfather, a robber baron from the Roaring Twenties who built the tenement I now have inherited.
As with all legendary figures, it's hard to separate fiction from reality but Jillian has given me an opportunity—she figures I should finally open up his closed apartment and enter his inner sanctum—hallowed ground that's remained undisturbed for almost a hundred years.
Perhaps opening the rooms and renovating them will provide more than a new stream of revenue—it might provide some insight into our family and the kind of man I really am.
I fish in my pocket for my ring of keys, and open a door that’s been closed a long time.
My jaw drops when I peek inside. I sure as hell didn’t know what to expect, but I’m sure it wasn’t a mattress on a bare floor.
I tentatively poke my head in further, half-expecting a blast from Hiram for invading his premises, but he and Dad are both long gone and there’s nothing but dusty, half-empty rooms and a sterile wasteland of unfurnished gloom.
Jillian’s eyes are huge as we enter.
The oak door swings shut behind us and its echo reverberates down a desolate labyrinth of eremitical cells.
I’m dumbfounded as we slowly explore a warren of deserted rooms.
“This isn’t exactly the abode of a high-rolling capitalist,” she whispers.
I nod distractedly, letting my gaze wander over dust-laden rooms, our footsteps echoing hollowly through the emptiness.
“Why did Hiram lead such an ascetic life?” I think aloud, and the words seem to boom back at me from bare walls and oak floors.
“Oh look, Jess!” Jillian spots a slant front desk with ball and claw feet. “Maybe you can find some answers here.”
I open the fold-down top and find a ledger.
“Look at this, Jill,” I shout excitedly, “Back in his day, Hiram had been allowing his tenants to make only partial payments and was covering the balance of the rent from his own funds.”
I stare at the ledger perplexed. Here was the man my father held up as a model of good business sense, who was in fact a philanthropist posing as a capitalist.
There are no records past 1970 but I know my father continued to respect the lease terms for original tenants—I simply didn’t know most of them paid little or no rent.
Suddenly, it all began to make sense—my father pushing me to get an education, and refusing to encourage me to follow in his steps.
“Do something practical with your life,” he’d say. I thought he lacked confidence in me, but all the while he wanted something better for me than being a custodian.
I continue to rummage through desk drawers until my hand stumbles across a small hard-covered notebook. It’s what the French call a carnet—a writer’s notebook.
Inside, are letters my grandfather wrote to a young woman named Claire Winthrop—along with an entire cycle of what he called Star Poems—apparently written from his rooftop.
It seems poor Claire was stricken with respiratory paralysis in the mid 1930’s that was diagnosed as Polio. There were only four iron lungs available in Toronto hospitals at that time.
According to his journal, Hiram spent over three thousand dollars on an iron lung and set her up in one of his apartments with a continuous on-duty nurse and private doctor care. She rallied for a while but eventually died a few months later.
Jillian comes over and reads with me over my shoulder.
“Oh my God, Jess—look at this entry.” She reads aloud:
I was inconsolable at her loss, to the point considering suicide—but one night, while at my desk, I distinctly heard Claire’s voice speaking to me through the ventilator opening.
“That’s bizarre,” I say, shaking my head in wonderment.
Jillian’s eyes are glistening. “It’s spooky, but kind of romantic.”
“In a way it is,” I sigh, “but it looks like the rest of the journal entries are filled with communications he thought he received from Claire.”
“Just imagine, Jess—he gave up his dreams of wealth to commune with his lost love. I never really admired your grandfather before, but this is really romantic—even heroic!”
“It is,” I conceded.
As I stood there with my arm around Jillian, staring down at a privileged disclosure from the past, I realized old Hiram and I were not so different. We both found something that really mattered—more than bronze monuments, or money—something that would really last.
The art deco building is really haunted—souls are trapped there—along with whispers from the past.
But Hiram’s real monument is not made of stone or glass—it’s a book of Star Poems written to the love of his life.
loftier than the royal site of the pyramids,
and neither devouring rain, nor the unrestrained North Wind
will be able to destroy, nor the immeasurable
succession of years or the flight of time.
I shall not wholly die and a greater part of me
will evade Death.
—Horace