I kept on running, at a speed that I didn't know I could possibly achieve. My heart was sprinting, hammering against my ribcage, and my breathing was irregular and slobbish. Why was I so afraid? So startled? Scared for god knows what- for my neighbor?
I overheard gunshots coming from his house. Of course any common man or woman would be upset about the possibilities of danger.
But this was unalike anything else. An average person would be startled of course, but would also be expected to stay far away from said danger. I on the other hand was running straight to it and later on as I've realized, I did in fact run right into it and ran everyone else into it as well.
I could have been a normal person and stayed away from the sounds of gunfire. I could have waited out a few more shots and then called the police for them to deal with it. If I had done that, then this story would have ended an immense bit quicker. I don't care what Daisy says, or what Jordan had to laugh at and lie about or what Tom says to me- He for the most part pinned it all on me, said everything was my fault from the very beginning. I never said it wasn't true or that I denied it, maybe it all was my fault in some way.
Gatsby always told me not to listen to the man, him being a polo player and all. Jay told me that he had always had a slight distrust for them, this leading back to an old green jersey he kept hidden deep within his closet, the one he told me about on that night of the hit and run when he told me all about the life he dreamt of for himself since he was just a boy, before and after Daisy had corrupted it for him.
If greed was a sin then Tom Buchanan was a devil, selling me out to various news articles and papers for insane amounts of money. As I've said before, he tried to pin it all on me. The affair, the hit and run, the murder and even child abuse for the fact that young Pammy was left with only nannies to take care of her for a few days. All the claims being ridiculous and Mrs. Wilson's sister Catherine being the kind woman she was- alright she was bribed very well, but she did help to clear my name quite a bit.
Really I let myself take the fall, it didn't really matter to me if she cleared my name or not at the time. I even said it was better if my own name was slandered than anyone else's but a friend of mine just wouldn't have that.
So I didn't completely lose my freedom that summer, but I lost something else that couldn't ever be replaced. Being here, locked up in this sanitarium, I've had a lot of time to think things through and clip little pieces together to make sense. I've come to the understandable and undeniable fact that all of it was true. Tom was right and Jay's last words to me were wrong. All of this, everything that has happened was in fact my entire fault. I tried to stop something I started but I couldn't and those ninety-six hours would forever be remember as the most worrisome, restless, and frightening few days of my entire life.
I felt like any failure would have at this moment. I felt that I really did let Gatsby down because even I, as much as I tried, couldn't save him from his fate.
We're getting ahead of ourselves here so now it's up to me to go back to that fateful summer morning we all ran like moth's to a flame to the palace next door like so many other men and women did and will continue to do before and after us.
It had rained last night and the grass along with the rocks was slippery under my shoes. I slipped a few times but didn't fall, my only goal was to get to Jay even faster. The rock path made noises under my feet and the sopping grass squished with mud, I ran farther until I reached the bushes and cut through his garden. I ran past an angry gardener but I couldn't stop. Nothing could have ever really stopped me then.
I remembered that he said he was going to use the pool and I said I'd call him about noon. I called in sick to work after taking one look at an innocent yellow cab, realizing I couldn't suck it all up and head to the city. I did take a nap and was about to call him before Jordan and them barged in when they did.
Getting to the pool was quick, up the stairs and I was there. I saw fate dead in the eyes, from Gatsby's raised hands and Wilson's raised revolver, I could climb and I climbed alone over the railing.
"Nick." He said with some relief and I was glad to have supplied that much- I was already to him- my back was to the crazed man behind us.
"Out of the way!" Wilson shouted but I couldn't have cared much less did what he said.
"Are you shot?"
"He missed me, old sport. I'm alright for now."
"Yeah and you're going to be." I told him, crudely. Then I was turned with the side of a pistol to face death.
"Who the hell are you?" Wilson demanded and now the gun was pointed at my own chest.
I felt it tighten to a knot and the weight of the situation finally dawned upon me like an unwanted gaze.
"Me? Why, I'm nobody."
To this day I can't get the man's disturbed eyes out of my head. They were dark and cold, no signs of the warmth of life could be found and I feared that I was staring at the very eyes of Satan himself. Wilson muttered crazily and it occurred to me that he wasn't talking to either of us as he did. "Says he's nobody…You hear that?"
I was standing in front of Gatsby, my arms behind my back holding him just in case we both had to make a quick move or decision and my mind raced desperately to find one of the two.
Wilson waved the gun in my face with this sick and greasy slack look of satisfaction. "You're not no-body."
"If I'm not then have you ever heard of me before?" I inquired.
Feeling Jay's worried breathing on the back of my neck, I really couldn't blame him. Even I had no idea what I was doing at the time.
"Heard of ya?" Wilson asked. "Yeah I heard of you! You Gatsby? Which one of you is Gatsby?"
We didn't answer him, Gatsby nor I. We waited for- well anything to tell the truth. Neither of us made any sudden movements. I just tightened my hands around his waist from behind me and he dug into my wrists with trembling fingernails. I readied myself and let go of Gatsby who I yanked my wrists from.
He scratched my hands to get me to stop pulling away from him. Perhaps he knew what I was planning to do, but before I could grab for the gun a golden bullet zipped across the ground and into Jay's arms and Daisy pulled him close.
"Daisy." He whispered her name in blond hair with disbelief.
"Jay, I thought I lost you." Daisy said and even I couldn't believe it.
"I thought I lost you too." He told her, calmly still.
"Who the hell's that?" Wilson jabbed the gun at Daisy.
The golden girl gasped into the very expensive fabric of a shirt.
"Daisy darling, stay behind me." Gatsby instructed her and pulled her protectively behind him, holding her the way I had just been holding him behind my own back. He wasn't even standing behind me anymore. I protected no one now.
"Why're you doing this?" Daisy said to Wilson with tears and with her blond bob on Gatsby's shoulder.
"Daisy!" Tom yelled for her and trotted over. "Daisy! What the hell are you thinking running over to- Gatsby." He settled on the name, blandly. "What a pleasant surprise this is."
"Gatsby!" Wilson cried. "Wha's Gatsby!?"
"Wilson!" Tom said his name loudly as if the demented man was hard of hearing. "What the hell's all this? What's that gun for?" Without fear or the required hesitation to pull off such an act, he moved to take away the weapon.
"Don' move!" Wilson pointed the gun at Tom's head now. "You move, and I shoot!"
Tom put up his hands and didn't get closer to him. Tom was in front of me now and I was beside Gatsby who shielded Daisy.
"You're crazier than hell, Wilson." Tom said to him. "You always have been. Now I'm gonna collect my wife and leave. I couldn't give a damn about what you do with these other two. They'd sure as hell deserve whatever you gave them."
"Wife! You killed my wife!" Wilson shouted suddenly and the gun was pointed wildly between our heads. I feared that he would fire- angry enough- and to kill.
"Please Mr. Wilson, no one needs to get hurt over this. There can still be a happy ending here, do you understand that?" I pleaded to him.
"No, I don't!" shouted Wilson bitterly, both hands were gripping the gun in my face now. "One of you killed my wife and I'm gonna find out who done it and I'm gonna kill 'em!"
There was nothing we could do. Soon and certainly he'd get angry enough to shoot-only god help us then and when.
"You told me who did it and I'm gonna get the son-of-a-bitch like you said." informed Wilson to no one we knew particularly.
Tom assumed that it was him being referred to.
"Yes I told you who did it, and to deal with the damned thing but I never gave you the idea to blow my own wife's head off! -Daisy. We're going."
"No!" she screeched.
"Put it down." I instructed Wilson sternly.
"No!" He yelled at me.
Cursing, Jordan rustled and fought her way through the bushes near us, heels in hand and picking all the scattered leaves out of her hair also off her body.
"Damnit to hell- This is the last time I- But the woman just insisted that we go shopping and what Daisy wants, Daisy- Oh my."
She noticed us and at the same time Wilson did her.
"Get outta here! Who the hell'r you?" He backed up and spun the gun on her now.
I could have grabbed for it- I should have- but he was pointing it directly at Jordan. She could have been killed instantly if I did it now.
"Nick?" suggested Jordan.
She said my name with wide eyes like I had the answer for everything that was going on here. I wasn't sure if I did- being certain that I knew that no one else didn't- I wouldn't have ever known for sure anyhow.
"Jordan." I acknowledged her.
"Jordan." acknowledged Daisy too.
"Daisy." nodded Jordan and then, "Tom."
"Jordan." said Tom.
Gatsby blinked some. "Ms. Baker." he stated with respect.
"Mr. Gatsby." nodded back Jordan.
"Gatsby!" cried Wilson with a start, and spun his gun again at all of our heads, not seeing who Jordan had referred to.
"Mr. Wilson…" I gulped and I might've heard Jay gasp behind me.
"You!" exclaimed Wilson and raised the gun directly at my head, backing me up closer to the pool. "You done this?"
"I-" I refused to tell him that I hadn't. "Please-"
He stared at me for the longest time, the pistol straight in front of my face. He had had the chance to fire, I thought he was going to and I couldn't find it in me to say anything to convince him otherwise except for the one fact that would surely have the gun spinning away from me in seconds- that I wasn't the one he intended to kill. I couldn't say that so nothing was said from me, nothing at all.
I look back now and all I could see was me staring straight down into that dark barrel and the world disappearing so that there was nothing but me and that gun. I was terrified then but that's no matter. The world seemed much farther until one fine moment-
It was Wilson who hesitated, and drew the gun back. I breathed out hard and I didn't even know that my breath was being held at all.
He had a doubt in his eyes, Wilson. He knew that he wanted to get this right and not fail like he did with the rest of the things in his life, like his business and his marriage that he let fall to pieces. He wanted to handle this and go about this the right way, something he didn't do well at all when confronting Myrtle about the affair she was having. He loved her, but he had hurt her in trying to make her understand that he loved her. She was bleeding from her head because of him and then she ran in the road to get away from him.
Like I said, time slowed for me and the gun and gunman. I eventually broke free of the trance and my eyes darted to Jay, Tom, Daisy and Jordan who stared along silently. But Wilson was still staring at me, gun in hand except it was lowered. If he wanted to he still could have shot me if he just pulled his finger back once. It would have hit me- killed me.
Wilson stepped back, with a drastic change of tempo. He was calmer, and not wild like before. He swayed the gun still but steadier and focused as opposed to abrupt and witlessly.
"One of you, did it." Wilson nodded with certainty. "One of you killed my wife and one of you is gonna tell me who."
No one spoke or replied to him. We were rendered unresponsive by some kind of tensional shock and competition between all of us. We all knew- some of us more than others- but we did the same.
Wilson looked back, amused as he first noticed the grand house standing behind him towering over us all in the danger.
"In it," He said and moved us towards the house. "Get in it and don't make no noise, we're gonna be real quiet and we're gonna find out who."
That house held parties and conspiracies. It held secrets and affairs, some business related and filthy. This palace held promise and free booze and people and false hopes and securities- and movie stars and servants and late nights and gangsters and lights and darkness and music and oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low drums and high drums- And once enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. A "little party" went far, why, as far as anything- but this…
This house held everything, and by the looks of it, as we entered the backdoor through the main room and to the living room and by the time Wilson had fired off the gun and Herzog fell to the floor dead- by the time Gatsby's grief-stricken cry for his most trusted servant came to be an aching sound, I had realized that the house held us too.
