The room seemed to be rocking. Or perhaps it was my body. It didn't matter though, because rocking stopped the pain from remaining steady in my head.
Keep rocking then, I thought over and over. Only the sound reached my ears, so maybe I wasn't just thinking it. But that was okay too.
She's dead. She was alive and she was screaming and then she was dead and now she's silent. She's never silent, my wife was never silent, but now she is, which means she's not my wife because I can't have a dead wife and the yellow car made her silent….
I can find out who killed her. I can find out who the car belongs to, because I saw it and I know how to find it.
"I know how to find it," I repeated, out loud. "I know how to find the yellow car, because she came home months ago and her nose was bleeding and her face was bruised and she knew the person who did this."
The memory of her being hurt washed over me and I shuddered.
"Oh, my G/d!" I whimpered, because only He could grasp the pain burning in my chest.
Think of the car…I thought. I had seen it earlier that day. I had seen it earlier and sitting in the front, driving it was-
Michaelis stepped in front of me, waving his hand in my face.
"How long have you been married, George?" He asked, as if the question wasn't at all random.
The car was yellow and I saw it before, before it silenced Myrtle, before it drove away and she was lying there….
"Come on, there, try and sit still a minute and answer my question," he said, calmly. "How long have you been married?"
"Twelve years." I whispered. "And I loved her, but she went and left me all the time, all the twelve years and got her nose bloody."
But he didn't hear the last part, because he was moving and being loud and talking again.
"Have you got a church you go to sometimes, George? Maybe even if you haven't been in a long time. Maybe I could call up the church and get a priest to come over and he could talk to you, see?"
"Don't belong to any," I managed, because I didn't care about church, because Myrtle was dead and she didn't care about church, not then, not now.
"You ought to have a church, George, for times like this."
"'Times like this,'" I repeated.
"You must have gone to church once. Didn't you get married in a church?" He asked, but I wasn't listening, because I still didn't care. "Listen, George, listen to me! Didn't you get married in a church?"
"That was a long time ago." I waved him off, like a fly.
He was like a fly. He kept buzzing and buzzing and he wouldn't shut up! His voice seemed to duplicate and get louder, clouding my brain and distracting me. It split into thousands and thousands of voices and I couldn't see right and I needed to see, because the yellow car was getting away! Turning a corner and Myrtle was lying there, silent. And Tom was there, sad.
The room was suddenly still and the pain paused, but thoughts were breaking through the cloud.
"Look in the drawer there." I said, pointing to my desk.
"Which drawer?"
"That drawer," I directed his fumbling hands. "That one."
I watched him open the drawer and pull out the dog-leash that was new with leather and silver and diamonds and all the things I couldn't have given her.
"This?" He asked.
I nodded quickly, in an attempt at hastening the questioning look in his eyes.
"I found it yesterday. She told me about it, but I knew it was something funny."
"You mean your wife bought it?"
No, she didn't buy it! She wanted to leave me because she couldn't buy something like that! I wanted to scream. I would have had to scream, because of the voices around me that were so loud.
"She had it wrapped up in tissue paper on her bureau," I told him, swallowing my anger. Then he began speaking again and it was so loud and I didn't hear it or care, because Myrtle was dead.
"Oh, my G/d!" I whispered. "Then he killed her."
"Who did?"
"I have a way of finding out." I murmured, because the fog cleared like a parting curtain and I suddenly knew where I had seen the car.
"He's unstable." I heard Michaelis tell someone. "He mutters to himself. And most of the time when he talks, it comes out jumbled. Almost like he's living in both the present and the night Myrtle died at the same time."
They were outside the window, downstairs, but I didn't care enough to get up and see who he talking to.
I rocked, slowly, back and forth on my bed. The bed that Myrtle and I used to share. I blocked out the memories and the pain, all at once, because now they seemed to be one.
"Does he have any family?" Asked his unknown companion.
"Only Myrtle."
"And she's dead."
Michaelis didn't respond, so I assumed he was smoking.
"Take him to church." Said the other male.
"He doesn't have one."
"Find him one."
"I can't make him find anything he doesn't want to find." Michaelis said. "He needs to find G/d on his own."
This time the other man was silent for a while.
"No relatives?" he asked.
Another pause from Michaelis, then, "None. Just him and now it's me."
"That's a big responsibility."
"I can manage for now."
"You ought to keep an eye on him." The man said. "Unstable men make a lot of trouble."
"I'm watching him fine," Michaelis shot, defensively. "You won't find anyone to watch him better than I can."
I stopped rocking.
"Then you tell me where he is now."
"Upstairs, in his room. Sleeping." I heard Michaelis say, just before I shut the bedroom door behind me.
He didn't hear the back door. I doubted he even noticed that I had left, that I was already at East Egg, right in front of Tom Buchanan's house.
I hadn't known exactly how rich they were, not until my eyes had first settled on the blood-red and white mansion that loomed over the bay. There were French windows that probably saw all the way to the beach at the end of their enormous lawn. The place looked like a palace of death, where murderers hid out during the day, before creeping about at night in yellow cars and killing innocent people, like Myrtle.
Ignoring the complicated doorbell, I balled up my fist and pounded on the door. I banged harder and harder, until it swung forward and Tom's wife was staring at me, wide-eyed.
She looked afraid, probably for her husband, I guessed, feeling the cool gun pressed lightly against my chest, hidden beneath my heavy coat.
"Tom," I grunted. "Get Tom."
She turned on her heel and bounced away, disappearing behind a corner with the butler I hadn't noticed before trailing behind her.
I turned around, looking at the car parked in their driveway. It was a blue coupe, not big, or yellow, or new. The yellow car was hidden, probably. Or probably at a car place, where he could clean my Myrtle's blood off of it.
Oh, my G/d.
"Mr. Wilson."
I watched as Myrtle was suddenly running toward the street, arms out, waving at a yellow car that was driving by, screaming a name that I couldn't make out. But the yellow car didn't slow down. Didn't stop. It was speeding and didn't stop speeding, not when they saw her, nor when she was on the hood of the car, and then the roof and then was on the floor again. And there was blood everywhere. Her blood. And then Tom was there…
"Mr. Wilson!"
I slammed back into reality and Tom was still there but the yellow car was gone and Myrtle was gone and the gun was in my hand, but I couldn't remember how it had gotten there.
"You killed her," I mumbled, because suddenly I was seeing her again and she was blocking my vision.
"No. No Mr. Wilson. Now wait a minute let's think about this, let's be smart." He said, soothingly. "Okay? Can we talk?"
I blinked to clear Myrtle from my vision a bit and it worked a little and I was still angry, but I still nodded.
"Can you put that down? Can you put the gun down and then we can talk?" He asked.
"No."
"Alright. Well that's alright, too. But we'll talk anyway."
"Tom!" A soft voice yelled from behind him.
"It's okay, Daisy. We're just gonna talk, go upstairs and I'll be there in a moment." He called, holding my eyes. "Mr. Wilson here just wants some answers. I'm gonna give them. Go Daisy."
She didn't move.
"Now!" he barked.
She jumped, as if in shock that her murdering husband would snap at her, but she left anyway. "I know why you came." He said, quietly. Like he didn't want someone to overhear what he was saying. "You came to kill the person that killed Myrtle. I get it. You want justice. Look at me, Mr. Wilson. I want it too. But you're not getting it here." His eyes flitted to the gun and I could just make out a bead of sweat forming on his brow. He swallowed before continuing. "I know who did it. You can put the gun down, because they aren't here."
"You drove the car. I saw it at the gas station." The voice was mine, but it sounded so far away. Just like this body was mine, but that was far away too.
"I was borrowing it from a friend. The same friend that killed your Myrtle." He said.
"You're lying."
"Why would I lie now? If it were mine, everyone would know. That-" he said, pointing his finger behind me without dropping his hands, "-is my car. Blue. Not yellow."
"Who is your friend that did this?" I asked. My head began to hurt and the voices were starting and the pain was setting in. "Who-who is your friend?"
"You'll find him in West Egg. He lives in a big home. Keeps a bunch of weirdos around."
"His name." I said, through my pounding head and gritted teeth.
"Jay Gatsby."
There were no weirdos around, but the house was big.
He was rich too, this Jay Gatsby, but a different kind of rich than Tom and his wife. His rich was happier, louder. More so what Myrtle would have liked had she still…
My eyes locked on the yellow car. It was barely visible in the garage. There was a man there, cleaning it, but he was dressed like a butler, a servant. I knew he wasn't Jay Gatsby.
I moved from behind the bush and around the back of the house. The wind blew and the cold autumn air bit at my cheeks, but I pushed on.
Leaves had fallen into the pool that the idiot didn't drain, as if he would be swimming during this season.
I couldn't recall ever hearing or meeting this Jay Gatsby. Tom could have been lying. But that didn't matter. I'd kill Tom too.
I crouched down behind a lawn chair, watching the windows and the back door of the house, but saw no one moving inside.
My head began to throb with pain again and I heard voices, loud and screaming, but I couldn't make out what they were saying and they were angry too and they were happy that they found the yellow car and they wanted to kill Jay Gatsby.
I barely heard the splash in the pool, not until I blinked a few times and saw things a bit clearer.
He swam, back and forth, back and forth, and it was cold, but he didn't seem to care about the cold, as if he couldn't feel. Like I couldn't feel.
I stared blankly as he swam and swam and then a short time later, he was getting out.
"What are you doing on my property?" He asked suddenly and I was no longer behind the chair, but in front of him and my head was pounding and my vision was no good and he was becoming blurry, but I felt something cold in my hand and I heard a click.
Though everything was unclear, I could still make out the surprise on his face.
He opened his mouth to speak, but everything was silent. Cocking my head to the side, I pulled the safety of the gun back.
The yellow car was speeding down the street. Going fast. Then Myrtle was running towards the street, her hands out, waving for the car to stop…
My body began to shake and shudder and the voices got louder.
But the car didn't stop. It just kept going, even after she was on the hood and then the roof and then the floor again…
My head was pounding. I could feel my eyes splitting and tearing out of my head.
And her blood pooled everywhere, and she was silent, oh so silent-
A deafening crack split in my ear and then there was a splash, but I couldn't see what it was. I couldn't see anything.
The voices were still loud, screaming in my head as it was breaking open, ripping itself apart.
And then there was something cold against my temple and my arm was shaking.
She was pale and white…
"Oh, my G/d!"
Another crack.
The voices ceased. The headache stopped, and for a moment, everything was silent. The beauty of it came crashing over me in soft waves, even as the ground came rushing up to meet me and the kind world turned black.