Chapter 5
The memory of that night lingered long after I returned home. The image of Daisy moving goods from car to car played like
a silent film, raising questions about the secret life she led. But when her bedroom door stayed shut the following nights,
I got calmer, thinking her nighttime jaunt was a onetime deal and there was nothing to worry about.
I didn’t have time to go chasing after shadows, anyway. I had my own affairs to focus on! I was about to step into something
I’d wanted but also feared—a fresh start at a new school.
Come Monday, I took a cab to West Egg Academy, armed with a satchel of notebooks and pens, and a suitcase with enough clothing
and toiletries to be situated for my first week.
The school rested on the cusp of Harlem and the Upper East Side, in this no-man’s-land between the poor and the upscale, where
tons of empty lots were just waiting for builders to lay new foundations. One of these foundations was this school.
The cab let me out on a quiet road framed by towering maple trees, their leaves ablaze in yellows and reds.
I lugged my suitcase from the back of the trunk and looked up at the entrance.
An iron sign arched elegantly between two weathered stone pillars, the words West Egg Academy etched in old cursive within it.
Beneath the arch, a brick walkway flecked with leaves stretched toward the grounds.
Campus was as clean and regal as I’d ever seen a school, with a manicured field encircled by four massive brick buildings
that seemed to belong to a bygone era. Bordering the field were outdoor hallways, with open sides supported by stone columns,
which featured signs that read Afternoon Welcome Events This Way.
I followed the signs to a main office, where four other Negro boys were waiting in the hallway. They looked up at me and then
back down without speaking. We were all new and kept to ourselves. I took a fifth chair, folded my hands over my bag, and
waited for the principal, Mr. Dennis.
When Mr. Dennis came out, I was relieved to see a tall and dignified Negro man. He wore an oversize suit and was holding a
stack of papers.
“This way,” he said, in the aloof manner of someone who’d been doing this far too long. He led us all to a classroom, nodding
to some of the teachers that passed on our way there.
Once we were seated, he passed each of us an IQ test, explaining that we’d be sorted into the “Blue House” or the “White House”
and this distinction would chart our destiny at the school.
I was last to finish the test. Alone in the room, I pondered an algebraic equation that felt especially useless. When I finally finished, Mr. Dennis assessed my results on the spot and escorted me into the hallway.
“You’ll be on the Blue House track,” he said. “Here at West Egg, we sort our pupils into trades of manual labor or intellectual.”
I took this to mean that depending on your aptitude, you’d end up washing the fine porcelain of New York’s elites or eating
off it yourself.
“You’ll train to be an elevator operator,” Mr. Dennis said as he walked me from the beautiful main office to an old, gray-walled
dorm behind the other buildings. “Don’t worry—it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds, and there will be many opportunities to
move up should your performance reflect discipline and hard work.”
Elevator operators closed doors and pushed buttons for a living. Your common alley cat could do it with the right intonations
of meow.
I had to say something. “I’m sorry but how did the quiz determine I’d be an elevator operator, sir? I don’t believe that’s
right for me. I’ve never even been inside of an elevator.”
Mr. Dennis frowned sympathetically. “What you study here is not about what you want to do, but what you’d be good at.”
“Only thing is I’m a writer, sir. My pa was a writer, and his pa before that. Everyone in my family’s been writers for generations.
It’s what I was supposed to do before I had to flee home.”
“A writer?” Mr. Dennis looked confused and then laughed. “Aren’t we all?” He jingled the keys around a massive ring. “Don’t
let anyone shame you about being an elevator man, Mr. Carrington. Now, where did I put that . . . ah, Room 17! There you are!”
He handed me my key and I reluctantly took it.
When I arrived at Room 17, I discovered a grunting door, and behind it, a dusty little cell of a place. Ashy dead bugs cluttered
the windowsill and there were more bugs in the wardrobe. Thankfully, the two beds pressed against the opposite sides of the
walls appeared clean, even if the frames were squeaky.
I laid down to sleep early because there was nothing else to do. But before fully dozing off, I heard in the dark someone
else come in and settle into the bed across from me.
I didn’t budge. A pianist with a soulful voice from somewhere else in the building lulled me into a restful state. I soon
heard my roommate snoring, and I joined him, in hopes of better days ahead.
Vinny and I met on our second day as roommates. He was lying on his bed when I came in from meeting with my guidance counselor,
his hair picked out and a pair of loose overalls hanging from his shoulders, his outfit showing he cared little about blending
in with New York fashion. I liked that about him already.
“Hey,” I said, as I went to sit on my own bed.
“Hey,” he returned. “Vinny. Calvin, but they call me Vinny.”
“Nick.”
“So, what brought you here?”
I paused, not sure how much to say. A part of me wanted to tell him everything, but then I felt my throat tighten up, as I
tried to find the words. “Just moved up here for better work opportunities,” I managed.
“Got you,” he said, his tone understanding. “The Klan got my uncle and my cousin. Mom was scared they’d get me too, so she sent me up here to boarding school.”
“Oh.” I didn’t have a good answer. Didn’t have the courage to tell him what I’d seen myself. How my father’s body seized up,
the way the bullet shattered our window and my life with it.
Vinny’s story hit too close, and in his honesty, I found myself clinging to the words he hadn’t said, wondering if he’d felt
the same loss, the same fear.
He pressed on, unafraid of silence. “Never been to a white school before,” he admitted.
“Me neither.” I tried to smile. “Are you doing elevator training too?”
“Sure am,” he said.
“We’ll see each other tomorrow then,” I said softly.
After the small talk, there was more silence, but it was a warmer one. Someone was in this with me, at the bottom of the West
Egg ranking system. And that made me feel less alone, less miserable about being so disrespected by this place. As a bonus,
Vinny knew what it was to carry wounds like mine. Perhaps he’d be able to help me shoulder them.
I held on to this thought until the next morning, when I walked among other students crossing the big yard between the dorms
and dining hall. The sound of the marching band playing West Egg’s patriotic theme song underscored our third day. In the
main yard, the mascot—a walking eagle—did a hip-thrusting dance and sang into a cone:
We are the next wave, bold and free!
Rising high for all to see!
Hand in hand, we take our stand,
Side by side, we shape this land!
The song had no soul, but I appreciated its sentiment.
I was surprised to find, however, that for all the chanting about justice, the white boys and Negroes sure divided themselves
in the cafeteria.
I walked past tables while flipping through the Bill of Fare in the West Egg pamphlet—it provided a list of meals, which were
served the same way each week. Today’s options sat in four silver tins—split pea soup, brown beans, corned beef hash, and
white bread.
As I moved down the line, my shoe slipped in something wet, and I caught myself on the tray line, elbow bent awkwardly toward
the person behind me.
“Careful!” said the white boy, who had wavy red hair and a pointy nose. “Try not to bite the dust.” He smiled as I recovered.
Then he held out a bowl to a server behind the counter. The server returned to him a ladleful of soup. He looked at it and
then recoiled. “This looks like a cat threw it up. Is there something else?”
“We got the pea soup and the corned beef hash,” said the server.
“Of course,” the boy said, placing the bowl on my tray. “Here—you have it. Clearly the campus-sponsored cuisine is more suited
to an . . . erm . . . outdoor worker’s palate. That’s polite, isn’t it?” He looked back at a friend who was with him—a dark-skinned boy with a similar pompous air.
“Sounds fine to me!” said the other boy, his voice strong and silly.
What? So I could eat the odd food, but he couldn’t? An anger rose in me, but I pushed it down, assuming I must have been missing
something. West Egg Academy couldn’t be this unfair, could it? Unfair enough to turn Negroes against the interests of other
Negroes to blend in?
“I don’t know why Gatsby won’t just hire better caterers,” the white boy said. “We spend a thousand per month on this ridiculous
food—can’t we get it cooked, at least? Tell you what, Cannon—we’ll get catering. Wouldn’t want to get tuberculosis in our
first week.” He moved to walk around me and then paused as if remembering I was there. “Oh! Bon appétit. What’s your name again?”
“N-Nick,” I said.
“Charlie Buchanan. Pleasure.”
Charlie Buchanan. In the hallway after breakfast, I flipped through the student directory and learned that Charlie’s father was the other owner
of West Egg.
Yes, I remembered now. Tom Buchanan—West Egg’s cofounder—had also released a statement for the pamphlet, in the opening write-up.
“Jay Gatsby’s got the right idea,” says Tom Buchanan, West Egg’s cofounder. “We’ve got empty land in New York—why not use
it to bring all sorts of people in. New York is at its strongest when it works for everyone.”