Annette's Essay

August 15 1924

What a day. I think I finally know why New York never sleeps. People rushing, on pedestrianized streets, rushing in the traffic, in trains, in the corners of dark back alley restaurants stuffing down little pig sausages. That constant hum machinery and all the hustle and bustle are overwhelming. There is so much to fill your palette of drama, wherever excitement goes, and danger does too. There is no wonder why many feel much safer and much more satisfied fantasizing about romantic women, about other things on the streets of New York. Many things are just beyond your wildest imagination.

I had thought Tom’s cult like ideals my own affair the jersey girl my new job my relationship with golf star Jordan Baker, and getting to know the mysterious Mr. Gatsby was enough for me to juggle, my life here will last years of exciting stories to tell the others in the mid west – yet lunch today brought this all to another level.

My wealthy neighbor who owns West Egg’s version of “Hotel de Ville” whom I know refer to as Jay Gatsby invited me to lunch, somewhere expensive uptown. I was thrilled when he picked me up in his bright yellow Rolls Royce that is so well known around town. There is so much mystery surrounding him and I felt this meal might serve as some form of revelation. I haven’t had much chance dining with the upper class because I am so busy and only manage to cram time on little café’s. With high expectations, Mr. Gatsby disappointed me. He is always surrounded by and aura of excitement and curiosity, he does not need to abide to law like the rest of us which I found rather shocking and wherever we go, there are interesting people to see, south Europeans, modish Negroes and the like. On the contrary, although we are surrounded by interesting things, he pretty much has nothing to say- not to mention that he has been keeping something from me the whole morning, insisting that Ms Baker will tell me everything. I don’t like it when people taunt me, maybe I am mildly curious but much more than that, and I am annoyed. And I don’t see why it all has to come through Ms. Baker.

Another man joined us for lunch. A Jew, Meyer Wolfshiem. He looks like he stepped right out of an anti-Semites’ cartoon. I am beginning to think that they do implement some truth. He was a short, flat nosed and almost rodent like, sniffing about with his humungous nostrils in which hair proudly sprouted out of. It was not until he had left, devouring a hash, shooting his pupils all around the room and showing off his human molar cufflinks and left that I found out he was the gambler that fixed the world series back in 1919. To me and everyone else in the mid west, it was just merely something that had happened, predestined by only god himself. It was shocking that this Jew had meddled and played with the faith of so many millions of people, and I now feel a mixture of admiration and contempt. However what was most unbelievable was his attitude towards death, and the casualness in which he brings up the inevitability of money, business to death. Originally being glad that this high end speakeasy was well out of public sight, I felt no comfort sitting or even, having conversed with the man, whom after retelling the Rosy Rosenthal incident which was all over national headlines, he immediately followed by offering a business connection! Of course I declined or rather Gatsby declined for me, and it makes me wonder even more why Gatsby even dragged me up here, to eat with this fat peculiar and certainly powerful man and not have anything to do with what he originally wanted to tell me about?

However risky, Wolfshiem’s situation, and mine for that matter was, I still learned something. As a man of such abilities of tolerance, an always learn something. Even though I had found out even the elegant, mysterious and now irritating Mr. Gatsby and Wolfshiem are probably co workers as major crooks, I was drawn to them. Although guilty to the us, the people, I admire the sentimentality, the class, and the power in which they posses. Wolfshiem speaks of Rosenthal’s death with such braveness. For a man who just see’s the opportunity to fix the World Series, he speaks fondly of Gatsby even talking about introducing him to mothers and sisters, and Gatsby, for that grandeur in which he does everything. His romantic English accent picked up in his oxford days, the interesting thing that surrounds him…

Towards the end of the meal after Gatsby insisted on paying the bill, Tom interrupted. I’m glad he saw me there, at an expensive speakeasy. I’ve had enough of his superciliousness. There are people in new haven who hate his guts. He was definitely in awe and I loved the feeling of standing on equal ground with someone such as Tom Buchanan but Gatsby immaturely and impolitely disappeared looking embarrassed. It’s an image I cannot quite comprehend- confident, romantic, posh Gatsby who runs away on the sight of a large hulking Tom Buchanan. To say the truth I now anticipate what it is Jordan has to tell me.