Chapter 25
Dear Jay,
There is no reason why I should have to lose everyone close to me. I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen, just for now.
Yours,
Nick
Dear Jay,
They’re feeding me garbage. I’d kill for some fresh fruit. We don’t always get what we want though and that’s the challenge—putting
one foot in front of the other even when there’s no one else to walk alongside you.
I used to think I was too smart for jail, but jail is, in fact, a great place to do some reading and figure out who you are.
I’ve decided here that I have no specific idea in mind for how I want to be seen in society.
I don’t believe that being seen is the point for me.
That feels too outward, with so little light to shed on the soul.
I only want what makes my soul feel good, moment to moment.
You spoke to that want, in our private moments, and that’s why I feel so broken without you.
Jail is not bad, but it would be a lot better if you were here. I want to make another friend like you, but the people here
are very gruff. It’s dawned on me you’re not coming back, but it must dawn on me again and again and again before I can stop
writing to you.
I regret convincing you to get involved and I hope you will forgive me. I see your shadow dancing across the wall, getting
yanked off the sidewalk by Zihan. How clumsy! And yet, they called me Clumsy? You were always Clumsy Jay! That’s why we fit
so well together!
Yours,
Nick
Dear Jay,
Day three and these cops have gotten out of control. I had a conversation with a guard today and he kept calling me “boy”
and I don’t like that.
It makes me want to cling to you even harder because if I’m being honest this is all getting scary! If you’d like to come
back as a ghost, I’d be willing to accept that.
It hurts to think the soul stops existing when the body dies, so I will not accept that.
We should have kept it at friendship. I wouldn’t feel this pain so hard if we did! But I also think that would’ve been less fun. I’ve never wanted to be so close to someone that I stopped existing anymore, at least half of the way. I guess that means I love you.
You’re still seeing my every word and reading this over my shoulder and stretched out on the bed telling me to come nearer.
You are all of this matter around me, and I see you all the time.
Death is no ending! I can still hear your thoughts. You’re saying you love me.
I love you too, in a way that death cannot stop.
Yours,
Nick
I only just finished signing my name when the guard arrived to take me into a room for questioning. I sat at the other side
of a silver table, under an intense spotlight.
Cannon walked into the room, in his new uniform, and sat across the table. “I was sorry to hear about Jay.”
I stared at him. “Okay.”
It was as if Jay’s death was a stunt—a joke.
I couldn’t accept he was gone. He could come through the doors at any moment, cracking jokes with the cops. I would be angry
at that, and he’d grasp at justification for his light-skinned behavior, but it would all sound very privileged.
“The charges that Buchanan intends to press are for robbery and attempted murder,” Cannon said. “But there’s a way you can
get out of it. And that’s by telling us the name of your boss. Who put you up to this, Nick?”
“Nobody.”
Cannon raised an eyebrow. “Do you not care that you may be in prison forever?”
“Why would I? I’ll have every meal I need to sustain me. I’ll have a gym too. It will be nicer than West Egg.”
Cannon seemed to shiver at the words. Then he started fidgeting. The room picked up every noise and made it echo tenfold—so
I could hear the tapping of his fingers on his pants.
Cannon had to be some kind of plant. A spy sent by that new government bureau to shut down movements for Colored people. Only
problem was he was Colored himself. Was this the point of the white man’s violence? To make us just like them? This would
never do.
“Wasn’t starting the fire enough for you?” I asked.
Cannon took a deep breath and looked at me, poker-faced, but said nothing.
I leaned in closer, just in case they were listening. “Why are you destroying UNIA rallies? Burning down our housing?”
“The UNIA’s ideas are nonsensical,” Cannon said, rolling his eyes. “And dangerous. It’s much more sensible to just get a job
and fix it from the inside than boycotting the entire system.”
“People who try to change the system from the inside end up turning into agents of the system themselves.”
“We’re fourth generation removed from Africa—you really think they’d want you frolicking around their countries dressed up
like a lady? You’re an American.”
“I know I’m an American. I can make no claim to anything else.”
“Then start appreciating it.” Cannon looked at me with pity. “I wanted to help you. Maybe even right my wrong.” He sighed. “But you won’t take it. Keep seeing how all this protesting works out for you.” He gave me an ugly look and left the room.
I watched him go, and it made me happy for a moment, but then a white cop with a square head came in to take his place and
he instantly punched me in the face. “Who do you work for?” he grunted.
Stars swam through my eyes. My jaw felt like it had been broken into three.
The cop said, in a calmer voice, “Just tell us and we’ll let you go.”
But I still couldn’t answer that. The hit made me too dizzy to even remember things.
“You don’t want to be free?” he asked.
“I am free,” I mumbled, drool coming out my mouth.
That’s what they didn’t see. I was free in a mansion. I was free in a cell. I would be free in Hell, if there really was a
Hell. The only way I’d not be free is if I couldn’t see beyond the walls of their silly prisons, but my spirit itself could
not be captured or chained. So, anywhere I went, I would be free.
The cop gave up on questioning me, eventually. He let me out of the interrogation room and shut me back in my cell.
I fell to my knees at my bedside and closed my eyes. God, I whispered. If I have to starve in jail, please let this be worth something to keep going, even with grief rearing through my throat.
Show me how to stand up from a puddle of tears and keep going.
The next morning, I woke to a guard banging on the bars of my cell, screaming, “You have a visitor.”
I took another dreary walk through the hallway to the phone, which was on the wall inside a little booth. There was a glass
panel, and on the other side was my visitor with another phone already pressed to her ear—Daisy.
I sat down and picked up the phone.
“How are you holding up?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” I answered. “I don’t know if they’ll lynch me, but for now, I am okay.”
“Don’t say that.” Daisy’s face, for a moment, looked fragile with emotion.
“I’m joking,” I said. “Dark, I know, but it helps sometimes.”
“I’m sorry, Nick. I should’ve never gotten you into this. I should be in there with you.”
“No,” I said. “You have to hand over the evidence we have for some journalist to publish an exposé about Buchanan and Gatsby,”
I told her. “We have to expose him, and them, and only you can do that.”
“Nick, I don’t care about that anymore,” she said.
“I care about getting you out of here right away.” She whispered the next bit into the phone, so her voice came in muffled.
“There was a showdown between Jordan and another crew—they blame her for what happened with Pierre—and it attracted police attention. They found her hideout, took some of the money she had stashed, and now, she’s on the run.
If they connect you to that, I don’t know what will happen. ”
“I’ll get out of here,” I said, but the words felt more like hope than sureness. “But we have to finish the mission. The public
has to know exactly what Buchanan has been doing so that all of the tension in the city can be put to rest. And when the day
comes for my freedom, I’ll meet you and we’ll leave the city together.”
“We’ll get you out of here.” Daisy held the phone tight. “Whatever we have to do.”
The guard screamed, “Time’s up!” as he came to hang up my phone and escort me away.