Chapter Text
The body floated listlessly in the water.
Eyes dead. Limp. Colder with each passing minute.
Nick Carraway looked at the body with irises so dimly green it was like a forest had been snuffed out in his eyes. His whole world was gone.
I, a humble butler, stepped behind him. “The police will know who did this.” I did not attempt to reassure him. There were two men dead and the water was crimson with blood. I did not love Gatsby the way he had, but I had no wish to see the chlorine wrinkle his smooth skin, “You can take his body out of the water. Carry it to the sitting room. I’ll gather the other men.”
He did not respond.
I stayed with him for a little while. To make sure he wouldn't drown.
Sprung from the rag of that blue, wild lawn, flowers had ceased to bloom. Wilted roses had fallen back like shades who—at last—clawed their way up from the Hadean undertow only to be swept back down by the deathless tide that governs life. I frowned. This phenomena, dramatic as it were, ended where my footsteps did and gave way again to a lush Italian garden.
My Italian garden. It was breath-taking. And I was man. No air passed my lips. The life seemed never to end, colors vibrant and unnatural coaxed gently from exotic, fickle beasts who would swallow the sun if given chance.
I knew their greed well. It was the same indomitable greed that impassioned me every night I dreamed. Jay Gatsby… I would whisper to myself, salivating at the notion. Juliet–Alpha-Yankee, Gatz-be. Jay. Gatsby.
The life in me was so persistent; I’d always known for certain I’d keep breathing once I were dead. And yet my last breath had passed me on the street in an Everyman’s clothes and disappeared around the bend. I had no air left to chase after, so no air passed my lips, and I wondered—for that brief instant—how many men would pass around that breath, caged in their lungs, caged in their boardroom facades, never knowing it was I who swallowed a bullet?
A clamor sounded from outside the little green paradise. I found myself frozen. There was a fear in me, clinging to my feet, that if I moved, the beautiful, cultivated flora would all turn to ash and blow away with the wind.
Solemn voices spoke out only with the necessary prayers, as I identified one by one a thin procession that hauled along the bloodless husk of my worldly vessel. The butler, the maid, a party of Wolfsheim’s men, and Nick Carraway.
I squinted to get a look at him, but he was single-mindedly staring down at my body—which had been painstakingly hefted into his arms—rather than looking at me. There was no soul left in the image he was fixated on. And I found myself wishing I could somehow squirm back into that skin and smile up at him. He always seemed more at ease when I smiled.
My death wasn’t anything that serious.
Lighten up, old sport. We still have one more party left to throw.
I knew exactly the kind of thing I wanted, planned scrupulously down to the minute so the guests could shove it in a drawer and do as they liked despite it all. Despite it all I was Jay Gatsby, now. It was James left behind in Nick’s iron grip.
As they headed inside, I was whisked through the door like a puppy on a leash. I shivered, and my head spun with the whiplash. I had a passing, jealous thought of the corpse, that it might be warmer in my neighbor’s arms.
The thought did not strike me as odd until I’d regained my bearings.
I hardly noticed I’d gravitated closer to the living. They were breathing, after all. And there were no more pretty little things perishing beneath my feet. They were unhappy as well. The old sport was trembling as he laid my body down, but he did not let go. I did not understand why. My wishes post-mortem were pre-arranged. It seemed possible in that moment that his distress was for the splendor of the flowers.
I took a moment to marvel. The back entrance was designed just as magnificently as the front. Ebony marble pillars carved out a great archway to the largest room from a vestibule bathed in ornate silver greenery. My Greco-Roman fantasy: A mighty northern castle with the mirage of Venus.
“Mr. Carraway,” Cecil, the butler, began, “I have notified the police. They will be here soon. It would do you good to wash the blood off your hands.”
⸺The planet of love was not visible in the sky on that white afternoon. Nor would it be visible for the next week, clouds passing over the land with rolling shadows and the thousands of shining eyes in the sky curtain-draped with obscurity.
“It’s still raining,” he whispered.
A non-sequitur.
I turned my attention back to the French windows.
The sun would rise this morning and every morning thereafter and paint the carvings and the crevices all a rich gold. It was a shame that I could not enjoy this wonder of the world much longer. Nonetheless, it had served its purpose.
Its purpose.
That was the first time since “waking” I remembered Daisy.
Daisy, Daisy, Daisy. My eyes lingered on my own spindly body, held by warm, calloused hands. (Life never seemed so futile) I thought, however, of my Daisy.
The perfect girl somewhere was weeping; an emptiness speared through her stomach. I ached for her. Her auburn eyes and the full-bodied grin that oft hid behind her dim smiles. The only nice girl of her kind in the entire world. Daisy was my diamond among the million grains of loose sand in time’s nauseating desert. Mine.
And she would go on being married to the miserable Tom Buchanan.
I felt, then, an urgency. I hared for Nick Carraway, phasing through him and rolling weightlessly on the floor. I clambered back to my feet and grasped my long fingers tight around the phone, but my grip could not move any object, nor air, nor water. I was completely disconnected. From the entire world.
So I did what I’ve always done—these five years at least—I waited for the green light. I trudged through the hazy marble maze I’d built up where there’d once been trees. Where once there were people. Fresh ideas and bright eyes. Where the early settlers were enchanted by a new and hopeful world.
I fell down in a heap on my spiral staircase and waited.
It was half an hour after that Nick arrived at the phone. So haggard was he from the belittlement of wide-shouldered policemen that the receiver had to ask if he was there. “A–yes,” He said, “A pleasure. Can I speak to Daisy?”
Daisy. My ears were perked. I found myself in a trance of imagining her there. Daisy—dancing in her lovely white dress. Klipspringer would be up on the piano playing a tune too jaunty for a funeral, and I would be dancing beside her. Somehow she would know; And I would be visible to her betwixt the coruscate panels of reality.
“Why isn’t she home?”
She isn’t home?
The receiver was momentarily mystified by his bluntness, “Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan have left for a familial vacation.” My heart sunk in my chest. I felt as if I were standing before the green light and watching it flicker out, as if the very last flame in the world was dying before me and I had no fuel left to rekindle it.
It would be winter forever, once the cold set in. No hope of summer would ever prevail. And I could already feel the chill permeating my bones.
“Where did they go?” I mouthed the words desperately. I leaned over Nick’s shoulder, prayed that a soldier was mad enough to chase after her in my stead.
The phone crackled with a sigh, “Sir, they have not informed us. They are already gone on a personal trip. That is all.” That is all. That is all. That’s all?
“Wait–!” Both sides of the line froze at the monumentality of Carraway’s raised voice, “Is there not any way to get in contact with her?”
I leaned a little closer, but the whole moment was silence. So I stood there, a fool. The waves of warmth from the living did nothing to thaw my aching heart. There were snowflakes falling all around me, and I was liable to slip on the ice. If I weren’t already dead, I might fear breaking my neck, but instead the numbness replaced that too with solitude. She was closer, closer than ever. I’d nearly had her, I’d stretched out my arms so far I could nearly envelop her completely and yet—
Guiltily, the receiver murmured, “She is gone.”
Nick was crestfallen. His shoulders lowered, and his voice took on a harsh tone, “Fine. If you are able to get a message to her, let her know that the funeral is in two days.” With that, he slammed down the phone. I flinched. His footsteps echoed with the clicking of his heels. I lifted my head again to see him pacing, fists clenched and mouth open in some silent, unutterable frustration.
I was emasculated. I no longer felt tethered to this reality. This reality where I spent the last five years of my life in steadfast commitment to our vows and Daisy did not love me enough to stay. I hovered in the grey world, watching the emerald mirage vanish like mist clearing before day.
The only kind girl in the entire world.
Maybe she’s coming back. Maybe she loved me but not too terribly. Maybe I could do something more to earn back her all-encompassing affection in the after death.
The butler coalesced from one of the rooms beyond my reach. He moved silently, as if carried on by the arching wings of an owl in flight. But his movements were rough. And I realized that comparing him to any graceful creature… would be a poor metaphor.
He clasped Nick’s shoulder and Nick wheeled around, hand raised to strike him. The butler did not move, as calm as an observer such as he should be in the eye of the storm. He was a worldly man; he spoke only of what he knew. “If you’re going to pace, do it outside. I won’t have you wearing down the floorboards.”
“The floorboards! That’s what you’re worried about?” Nick raved, “Did you even care about Gatsby?” I looked between the two of them with a severe apprehension. I did not wish to be the witness of what my underhanded staff would say if I were not in the room.
“My late master’s highest priority was his reputation,” The butler sniffed, raising his chin not unlike Ms. Baker, but without any malice, “That is what I informed the newspapermen of when they asked. I assumed it would not be necessary to remind you, Mr. Carraway.”
“His reputation,” Nick scoffed disbelievingly, “You’re a leech.”
I gaped at him.
The butler took a step back, “Goodnight, Mr. Carraway.”
Nick, even though I’d always seen him as the epitome of good manners—a shining example for the American youth—did not respond.
The world seemed so upside-down in my absence.
Nick was beginning to seem untethered himself. He flitted about restlessly from vase to vase of delicate flowers, and only slowed when the threat of the butler’s return penetrated the hallway.
Gradually, his gaze set on the corpse; All the golden light in the room was meticulously framed about the two of us like some deliberate act of God.
“Gatsby,” He said after a long moment.
I sprang to my feet. His voice compelled me forward, so I went. His eyes stood out against his face; a mural of emerald and golden sparkles on a bone-marrow canvas. They were nothing soulless; the farthest thing from the eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleberg, but they were nothing so infused with vitality either.
His visage toyed with the veil between misery and simple exhaustion.
And then the strangest thing; he turned and looked right at me.
“I will get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don’t worry,” His tone softened, the waves of it bubbling somewhere beneath my collarbone. “Just trust me and I’ll get somebody for you—” I swallowed. He stopped. Something was egregiously funny, a scant bittersweet chuckle passed his lips as he thought to himself.
And then Nick smiled. Sadly.
My problems did not so much as tremble. It did not fix a meager part of me.
But it was there.
He quickly sobered, “I’ll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Just wait.”
So I waited. I hated waiting. I’ve always hated waiting. My father used to berate me for my impatience. Why can’t you just sit still, boy? A load of meaningless drivel. If not for my action I would be another tragedy amongst the throng of victims of war, and my father would still be housed in a ramshackle barn in North Dakota.
There was something about him, Nick Carraway. His words held a worth unbeknownst to his own mind, and I felt inclined to trust him completely. Just wait.
It struck me that I couldn’t think of anyone else in the world worth waiting for.
I ruminated on the notion for quite some time. Cody? Wolfsheim?... Klipspringer? Ms. Baker? …Daisy? Daisy, certainly. She’s my whole life. That life was a field flush with interesting flowers, but it seemed I had never been speaking to the blooms at all, only weeds beneath. But for my Daisy. A beautiful girl. A chaste girl. The only kind girl in the world. I remembered the crueler bunch. Women acrimonious for ambiguous reasons. Others that would openly rub champagne in my hair just for the laugh. A little voice took root in my mind. Kind. But was she really so?
Yes. Daisy’s pure unabashed smile beaming from where she laid on the edge of the fountain. Her grace as she wrapped her skirts round to sit for tea. Her dances, her charm. A goddess of summer; even when sweat rolled down her brow her voice would lilt over conflict and sing sweet melodies higher than the clouds.
No. The rain, the sleet, the hail, the snow. Her unfazed decorum hours after sending another woman—however promiscuous—to hell. Brushing her hair using a silver comb and washing the blood down the drain like it meant nothing. Her stupefied face as she bemoaned about how boring it was that she’d traveled the whole world.
The thought made a vein burst in my forehead.
But who was I if I didn’t love my Daisy? I must be mistaken.
The only kind girl in the whole world.
Nick Carraway. I shook my head free of the thought and drifted closer to him. There were a select few who actually knew me in life, and he was perhaps the one who knew the most. I shouldered a dreadful burden of guilt after him. He’d stayed by my side this whole time, and I hadn’t bestowed upon him any honor but trouble.
He whispered a myriad of secret promises under his breath, many of which were addressed to me—perhaps all of them, for those were the only ones I ever heard. The mantra of ‘I’ll get somebody for you’ was an ineffable pattern. I think at times he saw me. Other times he didn’t. I wasn’t entirely real, after all.
Just in case he did, I mimed handing him a flower and tipping a hat to his service. Then I would smile clemently at him and sing a sailor’s song to abate his tears. There was only one time he looked at me where his eyes were clear.
“I’m going to set you to rest,” His pretty welkin irises swirled with solemn determination, “You deserve it, Gatsby. More than you know.” Nick’s head tilted to the side, and it wasn’t so much with the intent to listen as it was exhaustion.
All from tireless days of unpleasant castigation on the matter of Gatsby’s will. Gatsby’s funeral. Gatsby’s legacy. It made me want to flip over a desk and yell: All of you, out! I am denouncing the name of Gatsby!
I never would, of course. Gatsby was my childhood dream, but…
I watched Nick sigh and pull the snow-white veil over my eyes.
The world suddenly was limited to a few inches in front of my nose. I yelped and pawed at the fabric that was now draped atop me, but my hands slid off like oil on water. At one point—to my stringent embarrassment—I stumbled into a table and cried, “Get it off me!” To my dismay, no desperation of mine seemed to reach anyone.
And unfortunately, by then Nick had already left the room.
There was a chattering noise that prevailed over my writhing: hushed clicks and the shrill blare of a telephone. It was left to ring for a long time. Evidently no one answered, and then the butler arrived. Not to the grandiose chamber I stood in, but to the one adjacent where I could hear Nick’s voice in low, mumbly tones.
The words were all a wash, save for two that landed and hit me straight on the nose. Meyer Wolfsheim. The name was uttered only once, but if I still held a heart in my ribs it would’ve been racing. What have you gotten yourself into, old sport?
Before I could even consider the possibilities, the world bloomed. I was dazed by the kaleidoscopal colors that flooded my vision. And when the buzzing light quieted, I was left to watch a whole fete of onlookers. A younger chap with a gold-emblazoned notepad was hovering over the corpse, amidst a throng of wild dogs. Correspondents of the press, they were. He held the shroud which Nick had so gently draped over my eyes, and let it fall softly through the air down to my chest.
Thump. A singular heartbeat in a well of silence.
He had a soft face. All too soft for the world he lived in.
The cameras immortalized me with all my defenses foregone. There was a spot of dirt on my cheek, and I was not smiling. I swiveled round reporters and benefactors and party-goers, but not a single person was interested in me.
Their faces were hungry; Certainly, nobody was watching, right? Would anyone tell on me if I just took a sample of that shimmering gold? We could all come out of this rich men, and then nobody would have to bite into a notebook for sustenance ever again.
I did not blame them. My wealth was a corruptor for even the most pious of benevolent creatures. The attention prickled under my skin. I knew they had no time to spare for me and yet their eyes and their lolling tongues picked out every inch of my skin to stretch and define and write their stories on.
These people were not paragons of the journalistic standard. They were just people. Poorer people. The coin spun to try our fates, but heads were for lies, and tails were for lies, and everything was all lies all the time.
I was convinced one of the older men was reaching for my teeth when the doors burst open. I lowered my shoulders in what might have been a huff of relief. I may have been particularly sympathetic to the plight of the common man but that did not mean I was eager to watch a pack of them defile my body.
“Get off of him!” The men groping for coveted diamonds and rubies skittered to shadowy corners. Nick’s face was red as he crossed the room in a matter of moments. The crowd cleared for him, their vulnerability more exposed for their guilt. I stepped gingerly behind him, wishing, not for the first time, that I could offer him just one more smile. He leaned over my corporeal form, breathing with the effects of labor. His shoulders were wound tight and his hair ghosted over his eyes.
I reached for his arm. I don’t know what I would’ve done.
He turned around and gesticulated to the huddled masses,
“This is not your home. You are not permitted to take any part of it. You will all share the word that Gatsby was—” He stumbled. In the eyes of the reporters, all his authority was lost. He seemed to know this, for he dropped his hands and continued, dejectedly, “Gatsby was not a murderer.” I drew closer to his side, studying the expression on his face. “He was not a fraud… And his funeral is the day after tomorrow.”
With that, he swept himself up the stairs and landed near where I had watched him. His eyes were swirling with immeasurable sadness. But he kept a close eye on the scene beneath, willing the moon to illuminate my face in the white, alien glow forever. He watched me, for as long as he could keep awake. He stared unblinkingly forward. I wanted to hold his sorrow in my chest instead.
I wanted to be his lighthouse.
But he just gazed on, running straight for the shore.
I sat down next to him. Nick shifted slightly, like he sensed my presence. He curled in on himself and tucked his legs to his chest. It didn’t look comfortable. When he finally succumbed to exhaustion, I assured that he would be safe while he slept.
For five minutes, he slumbered like the dead. I hummed. It only took me so much time to study every inch of his face, and I felt a weight anchoring me to his side. He was objectively handsome, with a sharp jawline and curls tamed the same way one ‘tames’ a wild animal. It was a rare sort of man, in 1922, who did not have his hair combed back and gelled to perfection. It was as though he wasn’t posturing for anyone, like there was no one in the world he knew better than himself. There was a shyness about him that betrayed honesty. A humility.
And yet I knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t immune to the world. There was a great deal of his life I would never know. He too had lost a part of himself in the war. A part of himself he would never get back.
But despite all that I wanted to see him happy. It stunned me, with the force that I wanted, a great tidal wave that wished for nothing more than to see him smile.
The realization clicked in me. I smiled for him, even though he wouldn’t see. Then I reached for him again, pushing against the split of dead and alive to tuck the hair away from his face. Just to make him a modicum more comfortable.
My hand made contact with his forehead.
⸻
I was drowning. Consciousness pooled over me in short breaths and I was thrown to my feet. I touched the ground in a way reserved only for the living, felt my feet land on an unkempt hardwood floor. All around me were businessmen, whisking themselves to and fro in cracking disingenuous facades. They all moved at a dizzying, consistent tempo.
“Hello?” A familiar voice called out, tinily.
I barreled through the throng of negotiators. They all gave me dirty looks, but I didn’t have to note any calendar to know what day it was. My dress shoes thudded on the floor. As I got closer to the voice, the vortex of noise became unbearable.
I could just barely hear the end of, “--be glad to know you called.”
Sat there, at a generic office desk topped with a helping of legal papers, was Nick Carraway. He held the phone to his ear like it was his life support. I could tell from the fear in his eyes that he, too, was well aware of what day it was.
“Old sport?”
He clutched the device tighter, in a white-knuckled grip. I took a step closer to him. He was trembling, and he wouldn’t meet my eye, but I knew he could see me.
“This isn’t real, old sport.”
Nick’s irises darkened. His voice was bitter, “You aren’t real.”
Both of us flinched at the gunshot on the other end of the line.
I gave him a moment. “Not exactly, no. The truth of the matter is—”
“You’re dead.”
It was his world. If he took me as so, then that’s what I was. I was dead. I opened my mouth to speak, and shuddered. Once again there was no air to pass my lips.
“So I am,” I confirmed quietly. “I’m—” sorry, maybe. “I really have to thank you, old sport. You’ve done so much for me these past few months. If you… If you want anything from me, or my estate, you can have it.” The promise tumbled from my lips like a natural thing. I felt a levity. I could finally give him something he wanted.
His eyes passed me up and down, and then he laughed. He laughed. Actually, properly, laughed. But it was acrid and cynical, “The Great Gatsby, allowing himself to be dead?” His tongue passed over his lips like he was searching for the respite of cheap liquor, “I must be dreaming.” His voice was flat. An alcoholic forced into living with his sobriety.
“You are dreaming,” I acquiesced, “Look here, old sport. I’m not ever going to be alive again. I can’t tell you anything different, but I’m not a figment of your imagination.” I looked away from Nick and rubbed my neck, an awful habit, but I did it anyway, and something compelled me to smile, “Imagine my surprise when you stood by my side and defended me. No one else has ever–”
He looked at me a certain way. I gave no proof of being real, but he was listening. He understood the words that were lost in my throat. And I kept smiling. With more fondness than before.
“You’re special, Nick Carraway.”
I have always been glad I said that. It was the only time I ever called that measure of him by his name.
“I’m not special,” He lowered his head, like he couldn’t bear to face the sun, “I’m a bond salesman.” He was broken. The pair of us were. I fiddled with my lapels and, in a moment of particular bravery, grabbed his chin to lift it,
“You’re a writer.”
His eyes were glossy with the pressure building up in his soul, “Anyone can write, Gatsby.” I hummed, and tilted my head to consider this.
“Well, you’re a wonderful writer. Absolutely astonishing, I’ve been honored to gaze over your shoulder these past few months. Really, you should throw out the whole idea of selling bonds.” I gestured around at the office, that I noticed now was quieter, “I’ll give you anything you want, old sport.” I just want you to be happy.
“I don’t want your money.” Nick sighed and swept all the papers on his desk to the side, “and the only person I want to write about is you.”
“Me, old sport?”
He nodded. Tears built up in his eyes, “I love you, Jay.”
I couldn’t say it back. I was still dead.
And the one person who loved me, wasn’t who I thought it’d be.
Another gunshot rang out. This one struck me straight in the chest.
⸻
I yanked my hand back. The strand of hair that had offended me sprung back over his face. I took my palm and held it to my chest, letting my nails dig into the ceremonial fabrics I now rested in.
He… loved me?
Daisy—Daisy wasn’t crying somewhere. She was spinning her daughter around, content with her family vacation. But here was Nick Carraway. Sleeping on a staircase so that he could be closer to my body. Faithful to the end.
He was crying in his sleep. My heart shattered into a million pieces. Tears flowed in slow rivers down his face, casting sparkles from his eyes to his chin.
I reached for him again, grasping desperately at the space that had, for an instant, been tangible. My fingers went straight through.
Helplessness overtook me in a torrent. My eyes stayed wide, and my sense of reality was blurring. How had I not known?
The answer hit me with incontestable clarity.
Maybe I did.
He stopped at the edge of an acutely trimmed hedge. As though he’d suddenly remembered something of a momental importance, he spun around and looked up at me. All the stars gleamed in his eyes,
“They’re a rotten crowd!” He shouted, “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together!” The way my heart warmed then may have been indicative of something I did not wish to name.
I did not try to touch him again, but my hand hovered over his forehead, and I leaned in to whisper in his ear, “Dream of flowers, Nick.”
It was a poor gamble. Nonetheless, his jaw loosened, and his breathing slowed as he passed further into a peaceful sleep. An image flashed to mind
A beautiful, verdant field was full of blossoms. The scent of petrichor spun on the wind and a chill from the mountains met the indomitable sun of the valley. Trees as tall as the hills that surrounded them framed the little meadow. In the center of it all was Nick Carraway. He sneezed with pollen that filled up his nose, but he was smiling.
My vision re-adjusted itself to the darkness. The hint of a smile was visible even on Nick’s sleeping face, and that was enough to temporarily quell all of my unhappiness. It did not matter so much what the whole world thought of me, so long as he was willing to close his eyes and lay beside me just like this.
Of course, I was still dead. My only possessions left were the next two days.
Two more days.
Do I love him?
I coveted every hour I spent with him. He loved me, even when nobody else would. He was dedicated, and kind, and he spoke with more purpose than anyone I’d ever met. Maybe. In a way.
I had almost forgotten my impending funeral. I didn’t know what would happen when they laid me in the ground, but I got the feeling I would never come back from it.
So, I distracted myself with various things. I fussed with my nails, checked the room periodically for threats, and played guardian angel to Nick Carraway. As the hours passed, I found myself wondering what he spoke of regarding Wolfsheim, but the man never came.
I had two days. Two days to learn if I loved him, two days to remember, and at the end of it I would be gone.
I side-eyed a rose that hung listlessly over my casket.
I love him
I love him not.
I love him—
End of Chapter 1.