The Jewel Of West Egg

A Story by Billy Stark

A fan fiction of the great Gatsby, telling the story of how Gatsby began his relationship with Wolfshire and how he obtained his mansion and wealth.

The Diamond Of West Egg

It was 1917 or 1918, it was a long time ago and I am an old man now. Certainly it was before the world series of 1919, that I met a young man by the name of Jay Gatsby. I was at the restaurant on 45th avenue after the death of my beloved friend Rosy Rosenthal, to this day I do not know who killed him but my suspicions have lingered with me to this day. At this time in my life I went by the name of Meyer Wolfsheim, although I had gone by Arnold and Lucky many times before and many times since.

“Wolfsheim, these a kid here to see you”, said Slagle, who wasn’t much older than the man he had refereed to as a kid and would not refer to him as a kid every again. I motioned to him to let the kid into the restaurant. In he walked. Although I should noticed first they he was wearing a full army uniform that hadn’t been cleaned, I could have noticed that he bore medals all down his body for bravery and courage. I could have noticed a great number about this man first, but the first thing I noticed was the look he had hidden in his eyes. The same look that I saw every time I looked in the mirror, he looked as if he had killed a man.

“Hello Mr Wolfsheim, its an honor to meet you”, he said offering a hand, with a confidence of a man much richer and powerful than he was. I shook his hand,

“And what do they call you?”. I said, finally noticing the medals down the front of his uniform had been polished and seemed to shine as bright as the sun.

“Jame...”, he began to say, then faltered.

“Jay Gatsby”, he said correcting himself. We exchanged pleasantries for a moment or two and I invited him to sit down, I did this for two reasons. One, I suppose I was feeling sentimental but the young boy seemed to remind me of Rosy. And Two, the look in in his eyes. This was not a look of kill or be killed, this is not a man fighting for his country. This was a man who had killed for personal gain or for enjoyment. Either way, I wanted to speak to this young man.

“If I may old sport, I would like to get straight to the point”, old sport was an expression I had before but not often. It wasn’t said much on land, it was an expression mostly saved for men of the sea. I motioned to proceed.

“I am a poor man, but I am smart and loyal. I know that you will be needing some fresh blood since the tragedy with Rosy and I hope you don’t find it distasteful that I have asked this of you during his wake”, I admitted to him that I didn’t. Only looking back now do I realize that I and no one else had told him about Rosy. Maybe as Gatsby had done a lot in later had he just known these things and maybe of course that the look in his eye was a fresh one and he had taken the opportunity to seize what he had wanted.

“Do you know what I do?”, I said in a heightened tone, at this time in my life I had taken to being very secretive.

“I do”, he responded abruptly, I shot him a look he knew what I had meant almost instantly.

“We have met before Mr Wolfsheim, only briefly. I was the neighbor of your friend Rosy, we passed on his drive a few times. He explained he was an associate of yours and had confined in me what he had done many times before”, only then did I realize that we had in fact met before.

“You live in that little shack in west egg don’t you, the one with all the Tulips in the garden”, I said remembering the garden clearly in my mind.

“Daisies, not tulips, Daisies”, he said solemnly, although I was never sure why.

“Yes, yes daisies, they’re all plants aren’t they”, I said jokingly, although Gatsby didn’t seem to share the joke, just given a little smirk and a snicker. As if to him that Daises were the only flower.

After this me and Gatsby broke off from the rest of the wake to sit alone, I offered him a job which he hastily accepted and I offerred menu and he tentatively looked at it.

“I have no money”, Gatsby said abruptly, as if he said the rudest thing imaginable. I offered to pay and he ordered nigh on half the menu. I don’t believe for a second that he was trying to take advantage of my gesture but merely feed himself while he knew he can. He ate through most of it within an hour half, he stared out of the window for a second or two before spotting something in the distance,

“Too much advertising around here these days”, he said disgruntled, it seemed to me that whatever advertisement he was looking at was staring back at him and he was afraid it would spot a deep secret about him that only he knew. Finally he turned away and then opened up a journal on the table, he put a line through a sentence on a list. After spending much of my old age researching this man, I discovered that he had been doing things like this since he was old enough to write. Usually they were timetables though, timetables of ways he could better himself. Save $3 a week, read an enlightening book a week, things of this sort. On this day however he had made a list, a list of things he hoped to achieve. He had one line left on it, I could see that much but I could not make it out. I could see he had another question for me but he would not ask.

“What is it Gatsby?”, I said. Gatsby instantly grew red, he knew that I had seen his list and knew he wanted more from me.

“No, no I can’t. I have asked so much of you already”, he shot me a smile when he said this, a smile that you only four or five times in ones life. A smile that totally understands you in the way that at your best you hope to be understood.

“Please Gatsby I would find it rude if you didn’t ask”, I said this in a sharp tone, to show him that I meant what I said. He went on to ask about the house next to this. It was a mansion about that there was no doubt, but it was as if it had been built on sand and the tides of time were beginning to wash away the foundations of the building.

“What about it”?, I said, “It’s going to be torn I think, its a mess. Rosy never did take care of it”, but when Gatsby spoke about the building it was if the mansion was not a wreck, it was a symbol. It was a symbol of his life now and what it could be, I now remember why I had remembered Gatsby on his Daisy filled lawn. He had reached out to the building, as if he was grasping it to be his own. It took me no time at all to know what he wanted and no convincing at all to offer it to him, he was to move next door from his shack into a destroyed mansion. But of course to him that was not the case, to him it was the opening to his imagination. It was an idea that could now be fulfilled, although I offered him a more than comfortable house in the city or in the much nicer East Egg he was adamant it was this house he wanted.

I visited him in his new home only a week later, the daisies had been taken from his old lawn and moved to god knows where. I think he kept them though, in a secret corner of his grounds. When I saw him it seemed that the house was no longer a mystical object. Possibly it had occurred to him that the significance of the house had now vanished forever. Although I do not think that he had finished his list yet and that very soon he would find a new object to be in ore of, even more than the house. An impossible goal to me or you, but for Gatsby, only a fingertip away.

The years bore on and Gatsby’s rundown mansion turned into the diamond of West Egg. Not long after he sold his old house to a Mr Nick Caraway, bought himself an expensive car and the rest as they say, is history. But I will not retell that story, as you can not repeat the past.