"The mansion on the foot of the Long Island Sound."
When I originally had the idea to write about my time in West Egg, I had intended to capture a nostalgic view of my move here from Minnesota, allowing me to see myself getting swept up to Wall Street, to my cousin’s for dinner, and taken with the breeze of New York’s streets as I get used to living life again. But I look back on the first autumn I spent here, and a part of me aches for this idea of my life that I had believed in so strongly.
It was the end of summer, a few years after the war, and I had grown tired of walking through the same, unchanged town of St. Paul that I drifted through my whole life. It was alright for me to grow up in, but once I got back from serving, it bothered me that it didn’t change with me, that its heart hadn’t been stepped on and continued to beat anyway. I had walked every path, turned every stone, and it seemed as though the secrets of the universe dropped dead before hitting the Midwest. There was something itching at the back of my throat, making me want to try life down East. After blurting it out one particularly dreary evening, my relatives finally decided that I could stay near my cousin, Daisy. If I had been worried about being mentally dragged back to Minnesota through a relative trying to accompany me, it was quelled since me and Daisy had only been childhood friends. She hadn’t had these presumptive ideas of what I was like that would be upheld through every glance in my direction.
And so, with little more than a briefcase in hand, I caught a train to Long Island to start life over.
The next pages you will read are captured from my journal, mainly through Autumn of 1922. I hadn’t been able to write for some time, one of my many hopes for my move was that I would have some sort of spark to relight that passion for words on paper. It is perhaps the only one that came true, which makes my story sort of bleak. But, I have looked over these for so long and no word on any page has freed itself from the phantoms of New York that still cling to the air around me. I need to let these go. I need to get it all down.
Nick Carraway
September 21, 1922
Friday
“Nick! Why, I’m paralyzed with happiness,” Daisy chimed, running down the mansion’s front steps to greet me, one foot after the other like a trapeze artist. The house, if you could call it that given its behemoth stature, hung over the drawn out lawn, its shadow stretching for miles away from the Long Island sound it was sat upon. Its bright white columns reached up to the sun's rays, shining a blinding light across my eyes. I was shocked to then feel Daisy’s arms pull me in, still blinking my vision back.
“Daisy!” I squeaked out through her tight hug, giving her a squeeze back before I let go. She stumbled backwards, like a top that had finally relinquished its spinning.
“Oh, the war hasn’t changed you a stitch! Don’t you remember the last time we saw each other? I had come up to see you right before you shipped off,” Daisy blabbered out quickly, like a stream, babbling through a brook. There are innumerable choices of similes that could describe Daisy. She was one of those people whose character could not be described through simple human traits. She was just like that.
I opened my mouth to speak, but was interrupted again by another disarray of words splashing from her lips. “How adorable you looked in your uniform. It was all too big for you, but how funny it was!”
I frowned at the joke, but quickly corrected myself. “That war changed everyone. It’s not every day you see the world end over and over.” I said, with enough wit in my voice so that Daisy wouldn’t be offended. It was like she didn’t hear it, like my words were taken by the wind before they could reach her, as she grabbed my arm and started walking back towards the mansion.
“Oh come on, Nicky, I’ve been telling everyone all about you, all your ambition and brains and, oh! And your writing !” She rambled on, walking on towards the early sunset like she was alone.
“So, Nick, you’re living here for winter, right?” Tom asked, pouring a bottle of white wine into a crystalline glass for me, both items visibly more expensive than all the contents of my suitcase combined.
“That’s how long I’m planning at the moment, but I’m hoping I’ll like it and want to stay.” I said, taking a quick sip of the drink he had handed to me. It tasted bitter and metallic, like pennies. I swirled it around to see if anything changed.
“Well, you’ll definitely want to stay here once you have a go-around.” Daisy said, gesturing her arm to the close view of the bay from their porch. “Long Island is so beautiful in the Fall, right Tom? All the red leaves, and those golden sunsets that reflect across the water?”
Tom took a large swig from his glass before answering, “It definitely is, in East Egg I’m sure. I’d be surprised if there were any trees left across the water, with all the cheap properties that’ve popped up over there.” I looked out the windows where he referenced, seeing a notable amount of houses lining the shore. The exception was a palace-equivalent mansion rivaling the enormity of the Buchanan’s. I glanced at Daisy, who was staring at the floor with an undefinable expression as Tom continued, “I’m sure those eyesore houses block the sun from even reaching the shore.”
“I haven’t gotten to see the place for myself, yet. Is it actually that bad?” I hesitantly asked. I wasn’t usually inclined to let others' opinions affect mine, but the expectations I had for this move were sensitively high.
“Oh, it’s hard to get into how terrible it is. The parties, the noise, the drinking, and not to mention the people who live there. Wherever you go, I’d advise you to stay far away from that place.” He finished his rant, and only looked up from his dinner after he realized that everyone else had gone silent. He shook his head to the side as though to say, “What is it?”
Daisy cleared her throat. “Nick is renting a house in West Egg, dear.”
Tom looked like he wanted to laugh, as if I was going to deliver a punchline that would dissolve the rumor, but his eyes met mine and he immediately could read that it wasn’t a joke. “Oh no. If we didn’t already have one of Daisy’s friends occupying our guest rooms, I’d even let you stay here with us.
She noticed that I looked confused, and elaborated. “My friend Jordan is an amateur golfer. She does tournaments down here, and is a little tired of nights alone in stuffy hotel rooms,” Then, seeming as though she had formed a brilliant idea, Daisy launched up from the dining table seat, shaking the drinks and silverware with a soft clink . “Speaking of, let me bring her here and have her meet you!” She yelled out, “Jordan! My cousin is here. He wants to meet you!”
I covered part of my face with my hand, perhaps to hide how I was flushed with embarrassment. Footsteps started to click through the hall and the door flew open, carving out a path for her. Immediately, Jordan was a sharp, attention-grabbing woman. She might’ve gone out earlier, as she was in a pair of shining cream trousers with a matching top, and her dark auburn hair was neatly straightened out.
She walked over to the table with immeasurable confidence, as if the dinner was set up for her arrival. She grabbed an extra glass and hugged it close to her, as though it was going to be ripped from her hands. “Bringing another guest over to be bombarded with all of Tom’s theories ?” She pointed her free hand at me, meeting my eyes for a brief second before she returned to Daisy’s.
“Nick Carraway. I’m moving down here. Daisy wanted me to stop by and meet you all.” I said, getting up from my seat and reaching out a hand. She grabbed the tip of my fingers and shook my hand gently, like I was going to break at any second and she didn’t want to be blamed for it.
“Jordan Baker.” She said, as though she didn’t want to. She looked at me for a second, as though we were in a school play and I had just missed my most important line.
Daisy ran up behind Jordan, leaning onto her shoulders. “You’re sure to have heard her name in the papers. She gets in the papers all the time for her golfing.”
“I’m more of a book man than a newspaper one,” I responded slowly, wanting to ease the tension of my lack of knowledge. “Sorry, I’m… sure that’s not the general consensus among New Yorkers. I need to broaden my reading habits.” Jordan studied my face as though I was joking, and for half a second I wanted to run out the door and jump into the sea.
She then turned back towards Daisy and walked past her, going to pick up a champagne glass. “I like you, you’re funny. Daisy, why haven’t you brought him around more often?” She asked, giving me a nod. I gave her a quick smile before returning to my plate.
Daisy opened her mouth for a moment, but Tom slapped the table and called attention towards himself. “That’s what I’ve been meaning to ask. Maybe if he had been around more, he’d develop a taste for the nice parts of Long Island. Did you hear he’s living in West Egg, Jordan?”
Despite not liking the too-rich taste of my drink, I had instinctively taken another sip to drown out the rant from Tom. It seemed Jordan had the same idea, and she tilted her glass upwards, a bubbling champagne falling to her lips. She then lifted it away and stared down at Tom.
“I think you care too much about a place that’s on the other side of the sound. They’re not hurting your mansion or your money.”
“Oh, sure,” Tom started cutting furiously into his steak, not breaking eye contact with Jordan. “They’re not hurting us until the money they lie for and steal ends up being stolen from us .” He picks up a piece of steak to eat, but stops before it reaches his mouth. His eyes light up, like the meaning of life had popped into his mind in one sudden moment. “You know what they remind me of? These folktales my parents used to tell me as a child. They’re these devilish creatures disguised as humans. They kill any human to get what they want. Those new moneyed folks remind me of that: devilish and… and leeching off of civilization!” My hand tightened around the fork as the air became the loudest sound in the room.
“...Alright, Tom. I think you’ve had enough to drink.” Daisy said with a light chuckle, bringing up the dead air that he had summoned. She sat back down next to me and scooted towards the table.
“Don’t talk to me like that.” Tom said lowly.
She turned away from him quickly and rested her chin in her hands. “Sorry, Nicky. I’m sure he doesn’t mean to scare you away from Long Island with all this talk of things like gangsters and murderers ! He’s gotten very profound lately…” she trailed off, staring at her plate.
“I talk about important issues in our society. He should know about these kinds of people if he wants to have a good life on Long Island.” Tom said, gripping his knife as he stopped cutting his steak. “ Right , Nick?
“I’m sure it’ll be a rocky start, but that’s like any new place.” I responded, not looking up from my food at this point. I threw in a laugh at the end of my statement so as to not threaten Tom’s prompt.
Jordan intercepted this before Tom could respond. “You’re a writer, Nick?”
I was taken aback by this, and Daisy noticed for the first time this evening. “Oh, yes! I was telling Jordan about you, back when we first received word you were visiting. I must’ve said, ‘Oh, Jordan, I have this brilliant cousin who writes beautifully. He’s coming to Long Island to shake off the war, and I’m sure he’d love your company.’ I must’ve said that.”
“ Are you a writer?” Jordan repeated, navigating out of the maze Daisy made with her recollection.
“No, I couldn’t call myself a writer. If you asked me a few years ago, then maybe. But I believe it's a rule that you actually have to write to be considered one.”
Jordan laughed at that. “Well, you’re succinct. That’s half of writing. And you’re able to keep your words vague enough as so they don’t set people off.” Jordan had pursed her lips to do what seemed like hiding a smile, clearly proud of her reference to Tom’s garish behavior. Daisy noticed me and Jordan’s expressions, and clearly wanted to be in on whatever secret society she thought we had created between us.
“We all need to go somewhere for lunch, how about tomorrow? Both of you are such a joy. I’d imagine you’d be a wonderful pairing, too, don’t you think, Nick?” Daisy inquired, prancing over to my chair and leaning on the back. My chest tightened.
“No-can-do. I’m going to a party tomorrow. This was a fine dinner, though.” Jordan said, setting her drink down and wiping her hands clean as if she had picked it up off the ground. “Goodbye, Nick. I suppose we’ll be seeing each other again this fall.”
Before I had the chance to clear my name against Daisy’s romantic remarks, she had turned away and walked out the doors. I found myself frustrated with the inability to reject the comments; I didn’t want Jordan to think that I wanted to be set up with someone, let alone that I was interested in her in a way in which we’d go out together after one first meeting.
“Well, Jordan seems to like you quite a bit! She’s single still, but it’s not like she doesn’t catch the gazes of every man in the city. She is just very particular about those things.” Daisy started on, staring at me eagerly awaiting my input. “Tell me, are you sharing your heart with any lucky lady yet?”
I don’t know what had suddenly gotten me so irritated that evening, but I was with no more patience to humor my cousin’s small-talk. I set down my silverware with a loud clank , and Daisy stumbled back off of my chair. “No, I’m busy trying to settle in this new area. I just remembered that I need to unload some boxes that my family sent over from home. I apologize but I do need to get a start on that.” I carefully pushed out the ornate chair and stood up. “Thank you for dinner, and it was nice to meet you, Tom.” My shoes squeaked on the tiled floor as I went to take my jacket from the rack.
“You’re such a delight to have around, this dinner reminded me. Don’t be a stranger!” Daisy said, kissing me on the cheek as I wrestled with my sleeves.
All throughout the train ride and walk to my new place, I had been strangely encapsulated by my memories of the writing I used to do. I would stay up until the sun peeked out, recollecting short moments of the day and converting them into purple prose. I had been quite insecure about the flowery contents of my stories, so I had never shared how deeply I wrote, and how deeply I loved writing, letting it die in the confines of my journal. The only things I would show family were the more autobiographical contents, like essays made for school. As I trampled on down the neighborhood’s roads, I sifted through these early memories; did I still have that journal?
I couldn’t place my finger on it, and continued my walk now somewhat irritated. I had started to walk faster, disturbed by how dark it was, especially with the trees that now hung over the streets and caved in on my way home. For a while, nothing but the blinks of moonlight peeking through the leaves illuminated my way. That was, until a beacon of glowing orange emitted as I turned the corner. Like a forest set aflame, in front of me were the unwavering flickers of light bursting through the windows of a humongous, brazen mansion at the end of the street. It now occurred to me that it was the house that could be seen from the Buchanan’s, recognized by its almost-flattened triangular roof and the enormous pillars running up and down it. Seeing it from across the bay didn’t do its beauty or scale justice; I hadn’t realized just how many times it lapsed my height, or just how many swirls and patterns were placed or engraved across every inch of its surface. I had been standing perfectly still admiring its design, until a rather cold breeze (colder than the others that night, anyhow) had run through the trees and been sent down my spine, nudging me to my new home, right around the corner from the behemoth of a house that had greeted me.
The house was less of a house, instead a cottage that seemed as though it was abandoned by the mansion next door. I had heard that the property was owned by one of the millionaires on Long Island, but I assumed it was just another investment, not an extension of their garden. Leading out to the road was a long-winding gravel path, lined with the unique species of bushes that had clearly been selected by my unknown neighbor. Going inside was an extremely off-putting ordeal, as I was greeted by what felt like someone else’s home, with a fully decorated, cozy yet sterile interior. The only reason I knew it was mine was the cleanness of it all. The stacked pillows and folded blanket on the couch, the pushed-in chairs around the kitchen table. New York had a way of making you feel like an intruder. Everyone was doing everything here. The only reason I wanted to move here was exactly that; I wanted to feel like I still had something to do with my life.
It was when I unpacked my suitcase, and had gotten the notion that I should unpack the boxes in the foyer, that I remembered my earlier thoughts about the journal I had held onto so closely as a boy. I looked through the boxes, Tableware, Bedding, Books …
I stuck a hand into my pocket half-mindedly and grabbed the pocketknife I had just started carrying. It wasn’t an interesting story on why it was there; I had been too scared of leaving myself without a weapon after the war, and I figured there would at least be one time I could use it in the Long Island rush. I switched out the blade and stared at its unused edges.
My hand seemed to shake as I brought it to the box. I slit the tape open and lifted up the folds, before slowly switching the blade back down and returning it to its spot beside my hip. I dug through piles of old textbooks and random writing references that hadn’t proved fruitful. That was until I had found it; a red canvas-bound book with gold engravement on the spine. I ran my finger across the indented ridges of its spine before sliding it out from under the other books, as a chill ran down my own spine. I stared at the cover grasped by both of my hands. A simple square gold border. No name, no indication of the wreckage inside. I wanted it that way. I wanted nobody to find out that I had felt this way. That I had felt at all.
I had stopped writing it after a conversation with my mother. With my family. They had seen the journal. They had seen the vulnerability in me that nobody knew I had. That nobody wanted me to have. It was then that they suggested I should join the war. It was something about not wanting me to waste myself, them having to watch as I only applied myself to tender things like similes and the way that flowers would grow across seasons. These things that made me happy and made them so, so sad.
Quickly, I flipped to the last page. I had been describing a bunching of irises.
“And the leaves stood out at a confident angle. A rigid wire for a spine. Did they put that wire there to bring themselves upright? Were they just created like that? Do you know you are strong? Teach me to be like you.”
It was amateur writing. I remember being proud of this one, but time warps, and it warps things into redundancy and a stale flavor. I hadn’t tackled one specific meaning. It was, at best, a bunch of stray thoughts which diluted any punch at a theme. At a lesson. At any sort of idea of what I had been doing. At worst, it was avoidance.
I closed the journal and threw it on top of the books’ box, weighing its flaps shut. I picked it up to carry upstairs to what was now my bedroom.
A full-size bed, a nightstand, and a desk made the room decent, but not decorated to a point in which I felt I was given the address to someone’s home they forgot to lock. It felt like mine, which was an outstanding achievement at this time. I shuffled the box under the nightstand, and grabbed the journal and set it uncaringly on top. Settling in.
It was getting late, more than it had been since I arrived at the house, so I finished putting dishes up into cabinets and promptly got ready for bed. I fell onto the side of my bed, squeezing the new mattress with my hands. It was so soft, so warm. I was not used to things like this. And maybe this had distracted me from a very clear objective of sleep. Maybe I had gotten nostalgic from looking through every item brought with me from Minnesota. Maybe something else, but I kept thinking about the journal. It was halfway filled, because, truthfully, it was only the last of many that had phased in and out of my desk drawers and dim lamp’s light throughout my youth. Those pages had stained my mind in blank sheets. I could’ve heard a faint sound of crumpling pages, the way it had felt like such a waste of such opportunity.
So I had picked it up, and here I am, writing this. It was an agonizing experience, writing this out. And I hope it still will be, every time I come here to write. I can’t name the feelings that lead me to write, and have led me to write in the past. They are abstracts, they are pictures instead of words. They are colors swirling around in my head until it throbs. They are the things that make me feel like the world makes no sense. They are the prevention of that dull pain in knowing that the world does make sense.
I hope to keep writing.
There was a strange scene outside my window just now, and to be honest, I’m not sure it was real. At the same time, I have a feeling it was. I had finished writing out my day. I had set the pen in between the pages and shut it around them, like I knew something would come to render this entry unfinished. A faint ringing in the air had startled me first. Not any tangible sound, but like a change in frequency, in pressure. I tried to ignore it, figuring some sort of rumble was reflecting itself across the sound and into my window. But the more I stuffed my head into the duvet, the more it spoke. The more I clouded the sound around me to let me hear my thoughts, the more my thoughts spoke. Look outside the window , or maybe, What is that noise? Yes, that one. You want to know what that noise is. Nick, Nick, what life is going on around you? What are you missing? What do you want to find out there? Nick…
Nick!
This excruciating pitter-patter in my mind wouldn’t go away. It had settled itself in my head until it was a question I was genuinely asking myself. I sat up and caught my breath. I didn’t know I was breathing so poorly. I didn’t know what was outside my window, calling to me and pulling on my every thought until it made me move. I kneeled on my pillow and looked over the headboard, sliding the curtains open.
The mansion and the water. That was the only thing I could see out this window, and the only thing I needed to see in the moment. I had never known this view, but I knew that something was there that wasn’t before. A sleek, silhouetted figure stood on the edge of the mansion’s dock. It was a man. A sharp, vivid silhouette of this man, lifting up a wine glass. I didn’t blink as I watched this man raise his glass as though toasting to some invisible guest. I don’t remember pushing the blinds of my window to the side, but my vision through the window was completely cleared by this point. I was so curious to see this, this first breath of life going on in this town. The first sign of life around me. There were still people living and doing things. Things that I didn’t know about and may never know about and things I have the possibility of learning and feeling. He was the first one I saw doing this. Living. This had soothed me from the irritability plaguing my mind moments before. He put his hand to his temple, as though he could also feel the tenderness that the world suddenly was again. I felt this frequency shift, again, suddenly. I let out a sucked-in breath that shook off the pain in my head and pushed me back from the view above the headboard. I immediately stumbled back to the window to see him. To see what he would do with that. The shadowed man held his forehead, feeling this too. He felt it, too. I felt it .
He then walked back inside, and all of a sudden this scene outside my window shifted into a different landscape. I blinked a few times. It was the same view. Maybe the lighting shifted. Maybe the moon had shone out from behind the clouds for a minute. I took deep, deep breaths. I didn’t know why my mind had been tugged by this. Why I had suddenly felt the same as this unknown man, nothing more than a shadow, and why I had, suddenly, felt.
I quickly returned to bed to avoid these thoughts. Avoid whatever trance I had been drawn into. But, perhaps I had given it a second too much thought, because at night I would not have gotten sleep. I had instead gotten a particularly interesting view of the blank ceiling above me. Colors dancing across it as I pictured the Long Island Sound. The mansion on the foot of the Long Island Sound.