Exempt From Pollination - A Short Story Response To 'The Great Gatsby'

Written in 11th grade English as a creative writing assignment - Keep in mind I was 16 years old at the time.

I never thought in my lifespan that I would ever see my cousin, Daisy Buchanan, or her husband, Tom, again, but here I am, sitting on the metro line to the new Buchanan residence. It has been nearly three years since the death of Jay Gatsby; He is long gone and laying firm in the ground, sharing his grave with fresh despondency, even after three years have passed. Myrtle Wilson resides in near ground to Gatsby, but she is covered with much more of a stiff shell than just dirt and soil. Of course, in a likely hidden, unmarked grave in the Valley of Ashes lay George Wilson, as well. He is probably the least missed man I can pity my thoughts towards. George Wilson may have gone through the head of a group of New York policemen once in a blue moon, when they investigate the case of James Gatz, with luck.

While gazing towards the area surrounding the rushing Thursday New York subway, I begin to wonder who else may have left the earth in my absence; I haven't spoken to Jordan Baker since 1922. Her face hasn't been featured in undistinguished newspapers in the last years, for what I know. My mind hasn't focused on a dishonest woman in years, and I still am not quite sure why it has now. Perhaps Meyer Wolfsheim finally bit off more than he could chew, and now his own teeth are cuffed ironically on a gangster's summer day suit. Of course, the owl-eyed, inquisitive man who had enough respect to attend a real Belasco's funeral has scanned his eyes through my imagination, as well. Death has been all too common since I drifted towards the Eggs of Long Island, and no man is free from it, poets can tell you.

At the end of Spring, 1925, it was colder than the seasonal average developed by the years that have died. The snow has disappeared, but the rain and cool mist on the upright blades of grass made itself exceptionally perceivable. At the end of Spring, 1925, I was the recipient a phone call that I was unprepared for, to say the least.

"Hello, Nick." I knew immediately that the whispering stranger on the other line was my cousin, Daisy Buchanan, once again. I could imagine her standing alongside her telephone, rigidly, like she had risen for the national anthem. My mind could picture her standing in the living area, gripping the receiver sternly to her ear, and delicately, secretly whistling her words into the mechanism. Her voice lacked enthusiasm; contrary to the exhilaration she expressed like a toddler when she met with me in the summer of 1922.

"Daisy?" I answered, subconsciously. "How did you get this number?" Was my first question, one of many I had hidden inside of me, but, for my own safety, will likely hold inside of myself for up to forever. I was not ready for whatever conversation she was ready to expand to me. My impulses demanded that moment I hear one or more of the words 'mistress', 'cheating', or the name 'Gatsby' I would at once slam this telephone down and never reach for it again.

"I know this woman, she is an operator." Her voice was peculiarly hollow, which I thought was exceptionally dangerous coming from a woman such as Daisy. "I'm having a bit of difficulty in my life, Nick. Is there anyway we could meet again, anyway at all?" I found it curious that Daisy would be so vague in a phone call, it was rare for her to restrict her problems. She whimpered silently, it was a tone that reminded me of the screeching brakes on Jay Gatsby's Rolls Royce, when, or if, he touched them, at least. It often wasn't difficult for me to say no; in fact my stubborn side had almost forced me to demand her to come to my repugnant home if she wants to bother me again. However, this was Daisy Buchanan I was on the line with. "We moved to the outskirts of New York City," I heard her whisper into the telephone before I responded. This showed me that she knew more confidently that I would he in her presence once again than I was aware myself.

"-I'll visit in a few days. Chances are by next Thursday." I'm not sure why I said yes. I wanted to avoid the Buchanans, the Wilsons, and the Gatsbys, but I said yes. I abandoned the city of Long Island-- hopefully forever--and now I find my residence in Idaho; Boise, the capital of Idaho. I never felt an urge to ever see Long Island again, I would say have a distaste for New York as a general. In Augusta I owned yet another eyesore dwelling where I sold and traded bonds, this time under the name Midas, a name Tom Buchanan would recognize. Daisy told me that the Buchanans bought an Outskirt New York mansion and sold a Long Island mansion like they were playing a trading card game. Tom Buchanan did not have to worry about work. It is more than likely that he is riding horseback on beaches outside of mansions, or playing polo while the servants supervise. He may even be in another city with another woman; a run-of-the-mill- Myrtle Wilson. Daisy did not need to worry about work, either. She is still the woman who refers to her daughter as a beautiful little fool, even with the potential, and foolish hope, of a six year old child.

This line avoided the Island. It didn't come close to the Valley of Ashes, or any industrial town, for that matter. I was grateful for this. I was feeling quite uneasy about meeting eyes with Dr. TJ Eckleberg again from the moment I stepped on the train. Part of me was almost certain that his spectacles still gazed upon the town, making his judgement to the entire town.

I reluctantly stepped off the train after the four hour trip in the station in the centre of Malverne, New York, which was only a twelve minute drive to the Buchanan residence in North Merrick. North Merrick roads were full of automobiles and oak trees which slowly revived healthy green leaves, after an especially hard winter. The streets were filled with paved in infinitesimal pebbles, and worn by the steps of each gentleman's loafers, each woman's flat souls, and every flapper's long, high heels that the men would be caught feasting upon with their eyes, even the married ones-especially the married ones. Eventually I could find myself in the seat of a chatty, petite, older gentleman's Chevrolet, headed himself for North Merrick. He obtained an accent I could not identify exactly, but his interest in my life, and his own, was clear.

"I've lived in ther' North Merrick for approx'metly twenty-six years, if I do say so m'self," he introduced in a tone that reminded me of a drunkenly, fast talking man with owl-eyes hidden under spectacles. This man was much shorter, had a practically clean bald head, and had given me the sense that he wasn't quite interested in libraries. "It is a terrif'c family town, I would say, great place for y'a kids." His eyes fell intensely on the road. They were not used to glance at my face. I wasn't sure if he had even seen my nose yet. "Of course, one day they build this mansion, I ask myself 'why the hell they got t' do that? This here is a suburb town with a primary school and a playground for the chil'en, who are ya gonna attract with a mansion right at th' end o' town?"

"I'm sure that is where my cousin lives." The definition was eerily accurate to a home that would attract the Buchanan name.

"Your cousin a man or w'man? All I knows is there' this one man with a face that always seems more dismay'd than anythin' else. He looks at the chil'ren on his lawn like a gargoyle on the Bran Castle, I also see's him throwin' his trash carelessly out his gate like he' throwing dirty laundry down the stairs-"

"I'm quite sure that is where my cousin lives. My cousin is a woman, but you've described her husband, Tom, in better light than any true Twain."

"Tom, hey?" He rehearsed to himself. We were about seven minutes into the twelve-minute journey when he brought fresh eyes on Tom Buchanan. I could imagine classic Tom Buchanan on a horseback with a polo club, trotting through his lawn, like a fork in unsettling woods. When the twelve minutes have passed, the mysteriously intrigued man pulled his vehicle towards the front of the mansion, with secure gates refraining a marble condominium with three dozen windows and two balconies opposite of New York cement streets and brick sidewalks. I was immediately sure it belonged to the Buchanans. "Y'See, this her' the one I've been talkin' 'bout," the man turned his head to view the black iron gates and green grass on two sides of the lawn, segregated by a gliding stone pathway headed to beige, durable the front door. Half way across the lawn I saw a dark haired man with a wide body in a navy blue polo shirt and white trousers, bent towards and concentrating intensely on the grass like he was inspecting and scraping dirt off an ocular lense. I knew immediately that man was Tom Buchanan.

"This is certainly the place," I stated and squirmed through the door of his convertible. I reached through the nonexistent roof to receive the bags I packed absolutely absentmindedly for this trip. I thanked the man and requested luck for my journey and his own.

"Nice to meet y'a sir, I h'pe I'll see ya'round," he greeted assertively, holding his hand genuinely out of the side of his vehicle. "What was y'r name, there, anyhow?"

"Nick Carraway," I answered casually. My hand made contact with his and shook traditionally. He had a firm grip that gave a trustworthy feel from him. Behind my back I could feel Tom Buchanan turn and walk with fragmented steps towards his iron gates.

"Len Mackay. I'll see you aro'nd, Mr. Carraway," he withdrew politely. As his vehicle accelerated and abandoned me, the jiggs and splat sounds of his engine gradually diminished.

"I'll see you right now, Mr. Carraway," Tom spoke sternly. He strolled towards me with his thumbs in the belt loops of his white jeans. He gave a welcoming chuckle and opened his arms like wings. His hands dropped upon the iron slats of his gate. He moved the substantial gate without any restriction, like he was moving furniture found in the New York apartment he shared with Myrtle Wilson. "You still in the business, old man?"

"With the big ones now." I responded, knowing that a classic Tom Buchanan mocking was inevitable.

"Well, I knew you'd come into reality soon enough," Tom ridiculed, just as I predicted. "Called fate, the small guys can't always win. Survival of the fittest, y'know. What is it, Morgan?"

"Midas." Tom nodded in a counterfeit sophisticated manner. "I see." His interest was lost instantaneously. He rotated his body like a spinning record around to reveal his vast residence. "I've got a good place here, I would say. Very much like the Egg, about the same size, a nice lawn. Just need to find a way to get back to the docks." The building was almost exactly the same as the Long Island mansion, except it was showered with an off-white beige colour throughout, a colour lacked by the Long Island building. This new building, however, lacked a colour itself; a green coloured light.

The interior of the new building was almost completely identical to previous Buchanan residence. The same expensive chifferobes and same priceless portraits decked upon the halls. In the main kitchen, surrounded by three servants, was Daisy Buchanan, sat on a high stool, bending her chest over a polished marble kitchen island, and twirling a strand of her young woman's blonde hair. We were both in a surprisingly neutral state of mind when I met her glance. I was half expecting Jordan Baker to be absolutely stiff, laying on an opulent divan, seeking a beverage that was tantalizing her not five feet away, that she must refuse, as she would be in training.

"Hello, Nick," Daisy had called to me blandly. Daisy was not paralysed in excitement, nor did she refer to me as a rose. Her face was crafted in an insufferably melancholy way, and her voice was uncanningly hollow, I had never expected to see Daisy in such a state.

"Hello," I greeted her as well. I had brought no gifts, only insufficient luggage and a softly spinning mind.

"Are you ready to speak? We could go to a vacant room in the second floor. I am seldom crowded in many of these rooms." Daisy's urgency, mixed with her minorly miserable countenance had annoyed me. I hadn't spoken to this woman in years, and I had just completed a multi-hundred mile trip to meet with her once again. However, I did happen to consider how long she had been willing to wait to speak with me. She had guided me towards one of the most empty rooms in this mansion, it was subtly decorated with two portraits, one cabinet, and two overdressed and lacklusterly designed chairs. I took a seat in the burnt orange chair, it was closest to the door, and sat along a quiet window. There was a considerable amount of sunlight pollution, shuffling itself in and making itself comfortable through the slender windows. "I am a bit disappointed with this house. It is not a home. The people in this town are too uncivilized. The air is too dry, and there isn't enough water."

"It's drier where I live." I spoke. "I've moved to Idaho. It is a careless and foreign place. And far too cold." Daisy nodded without meeting eyes with me.

"It's been awhile, Nick. I regret missing the funeral." She began to collaborate.

"I don't want to talk about this, Daisy." I dwelled frankly and sternly

"Pardon?"

"I don't want to talk about any mistresses, or any affairs, or the one named 'Gatsby'. I don't want to talk about parties, or funerals. And I certainly, from this point on, do not want to ride in any vehicle but my own." Daisy took a long pause in her thoughts. I believe I may have shocked her with my attitude.

"I see." She covered her mouth with her palm and looked back upon the floor. "You're the only one I can speak to, Nick. Jordan is still living in Long Island, Tom would break my leg if I spoke like this to him; All the servants left their brains somewhere on the trail between Long Island and terrible, terrible North Merrick." She expressed with a disconsolate tone. I exhaled deeply before I engaged.

"Fine," I agreed in an irritated manner. "Tell me what you need to."

"Nick-" Daisy reluctantly began to draw words. Her face expressed a discomfort similar to that of a sore throat. "-Did I ever tell you about the letter Myrtle Wilson sent Tom, around Christmas, the one before you visited in 1922?" After Daisy disclosed one sentence, I already knew I did not want to have this conversation. I wanted to sit and hold my breath like a toddler until I got my way and she withheld this talk from me.

"No," I answered hollowly. "I can't say you did." Her eyes looked down to the floor until she built enough courage to continue her story that I knew I couldn't avoid.

"Well-Well, it was the holidays, as I mentioned." She gulped a shallow breath and her eyes met the floor again. "I was home alone-Well, Jordan was here, but she hadn't paid a glance of attention to me. She was in a rush to find her clubs, and a skirt for when her tournament would begin. And, I suppose all the servants were here as well, in fact they play a bit of a key to the story..." Her breath turned shallow again when she finally looked me in the eyes with a lack of dignity in hers. "I saw a... I saw a darker servant walk by, and he held a note in his hand. He rushed by me like he was waltzing away from a bee but didn't want the embarrassment by being caught with a sting. Yes, well, of course I stopped him. I asked 'what is that you've got there?', and-" She inhaled again. "-He said 'oh, this is for Mr. Buchanan, ma'am', in that dark tone of his" She paused. "I asked him 'well-who is it from?', and he hesitated. He finally told me, 'an industrial woman; a Mrs. M. Wilson.', can you believe the fool? -Well, now, of course I demanded 'give me that note at once! I have all right to see it!' He only stared cluelessly at me, light a deer's reflective eyes in treacherous headlights. I hated it. He just profoundly repeated, 'it is for Mr. Buchanan ma'am.' Oh, what a fool he was... I got upset, and I'm-I'm not exactly proud of that. I had to say to him 'I am a millionaire, and as far as I am concerned, sir, are my property. Also, your skin is ten times darker than the bay on the shortest day of the winter. You best hand me that note and continue to give me what I want, I could get rid of you with a snap of my fingers.'"

Her admission speech was one of the most intense things I've heard Daisy speak of. She ignored all the deep breaths she was neglecting herself of and continued the story, which I thought would never end. "Of course the poor man handed the letter to me faster than a bullet. The envelope was spruced up with blue ink, all specked with 'I's' dotted with hearts. And on the corner was a tiny lipstick stain that she kissed with the small lips of hers. The servant hid it with his thumb, that was what made me furious. I practically ripped the envelope in half, for what I can remember. My anger and pettiness got the hold of me- I read the first line- 'Dear Tom, you ought to come visit me soon, I've been undoubtedly lonely in the last few weeks.'- I was absolutely enraged. I threw the letter through the window, and off the balcony. I hoped it had floated in the bay and sunk deep down and dissolved, like it-like it was written on toilet paper."

An impenetrable silence fell on us for several seconds. It was like a misty fog that shielded my sight of Daisy. "Of course that was when I understood why Tom was always on the phone, sometimes even during dinner. Where I began to realize Tom wasn't always taking trains to speak to a man trading stocks, or selling the old car. Probably where he was gone when I gave birth to that little fool." She choked up slightly. I was amazed, unsure of what she would want me to say. The wicked secrets of the Buchanan family tragedies were flooding like overcast waters in the Long Island bay. "-I had to think, she must be quite the intrepid woman, to call during dinners and mail during the holidays. That was the moment I realized Tom is not my soulmate- Even the night of the wedding, when I got the letter from Gatsby, I had more faith in Tom. Good God, they may as well call my eyes a post office for awful letters. A dirty, dirty post office." Silence fell deep on us both again, it felt as it was three times heavier than air pressure. Daisy's face was pale with shame. "I have difficulty referring to my daughter as a human herself. I would say, with parents like Tom and Daisy Buchanan, she may not truly be a human at all." It was at this moment that the oak wood door carved deep into the room and the light of the halls engulfed the room, with the shadow of the furious Tom Buchanan overlapping the illumination. Tom stood with an enraged facial expression, he bent his body slightly to his knees, with his red face looking straight into our eyes.

"These doors aren't soundproof, you know," Tom roared tumultuously. I do not believe he was drunk; rage was enough intoxication for Tom Buchanan to craft a tragedy. Tom slung himself towards Daisy. His arm was raised high in the air above Daisy's vulnerable body. They both screeched a keen shriek; one of intense indignation, another of regretful terror. I caught his muscular arm before it could strike Daisy, an act that silenced a room of anxious pessimists that all blamed one another. Tom's eyes met mine, they were bloodshot in utmost pique. His face was sweaty in disbelief that I would defy him and stop a foolhardy movement of his. Daisy dashed out of the room while she saw the opportunity, to escape the marking of fate, one that likely would have made a permanent mark on her hollow face for the remainder of her feeble life. One that could have been avoided by respecting a rich man's values. Tom's gaze was struck deeply on the sweat glands of my face. He was focused intensely on the whites of my eyes. I was extremely fearful for my own feeble life at this time, because I was sure that Tom wouldn't put down a fist as quickly as he would pick it up.

"Don't do that," Tom uttered sternly and simply. He had laid his fist down by his body and opened his hand steadily. Tom left the room immediately after, prancing down the hall in the opposite direction of Daisy. I was alone in the room, and it was once again silent. The individuals who posed in the portraits on the walls criticized my decisions and I began to wonder, stronger than ever, how I got persuaded to see the Buchanans again.

It was eight in the evening, and the Buchanan residence was hushed and lacked momentum. Tom had only recently re-entered the house, just fifteen minutes earlier; he had spent the day roaming the streets of North Merrick since the end of the intense battle at two in the afternoon. I had noticed that Daisy had locked herself in her master bedroom connected with a joined bathroom since the end of the war six hours ago. I was not going to strike Daisy and provide her sympathy. I knew Daisy was too torn and mature to need a shoulder to cry on. Tom had told me that he was missing two bottles of champagne, and that he suspected it was a foreign servant of his stealing them. There was no doubt that Daisy has avoided alcohol since the accident involving Myrtle Wilson. Forced to keep a sober mind, Tom stomped down the hallway to his bedroom, where Daisy had kept herself locked for the last merciless hours. The pounds Tom made on the door were like earthquakes.

"You're gonna have to open up at some hour, Daisy!" Tom demanded, he was strikingly furious once again. "You can't keep me out of my own home!"

"Tom, please, calm down-" I attempted to reason. This was foolish of me. Tom's aloof knocks almost tore the wall of the chamber off the map of the mansion. Before I had realized, Tom had kicked the bedroom door swiftly into the room using with a foot of steel. As he scanned the room it was apparent that there was no area where Daisy could be found. The blue curtain suffocated the window, the bed was dressed in perfect conditions, and the gaudy furniture and portraits remained untouched. Tom noticed the dim yellow light feeding itself under the slit of the defenseless bathroom door. Tom sprinted towards the door with ferocious ambition. "I don't think it would be best to-"

"Shut your mouth!" Tom yelled, and attempted to kick in the second door of the house like he was a participant in a pie eating contest. Tom's fierce foot swung the door as wide as it has ever been liberated to open. "You must have half a mind to-" Tom began to scream, but for a curious reason he fell into silence. That was the first time I've seen Tom speechless. I stood shoulder to shoulder with Tom, and spied into the bathroom. Daisy Buchanan was planted like a log in the wide, derisive bathtub. Her slender arm hung out the side of the cauldron in an inconsequential way. Water sat just above her pale nose. Between the tub and the excessively lavish bidet laid two empty bottles of champagne. Tom Buchanan was still frighteningly silent. The image of a lifeless body in unsteady water was terrifyingly familiar to me. Although the water surrounding the body of Daisy was clear, all I could see was red. Red stained water, which was far too familiar to me. Something as simple as water has stolen life away from my morbid self. I am a omen, a man that carries a burden in his left pocket.

I was in charge of planning a second funeral in the state of New York. I planned the loss of the lives of two people who had a short life stolen by an absent love. The funeral of Daisy Buchanan was held May 29, 1925. The skies were eerily and inappropriately cloud free, and the funeral attendants were drowsy from unmerciful, brutal heat pounding upon their suffocating black veils. The funeral of Daisy Buchanan was uneasily empty and subpar. There was one man with blocky spectacles clasping an old taunting hardcover in his hands, rehearsing in a subconscious way. The men and women of whom were painted black surrounded me said nothing and weeped little. I was unfamiliar with each of these spectators, except Tom Buchanan, who, without prestige, abandoned the funeral half way through. My second trip to New York was tensely recognizable to me. I was prepared to notice an owl-eyed man pitifully dip his glance into the grave, tip his hat, and go on again, but he was not available to attend. I was almost certain I could hear Daisy whisper one more time in my ear her inevitable goodbye. This was a ridiculous thought for someone, even a man like I, to imagine. 

Reviews

[Jacob Clifford]

I'm quite impressed with how well you capture Nick's voice in this story. I love Great Gatsby, and there were many moments in this story that were worded very similarly to how they would have been worded if Fitzgerald wrote them himself, and you did a respectable job of capturing the characters' personalities. It's a shame what becomes of Daisy in your continuation, but I can't say I'm too upset; I never was much of a fan of the Buchanans.