Chapter 26
Each day, I did push-ups and sit-ups on the floor of my cell until my body screamed for mercy. I kept going anyway, stopping
only when my muscles gave out.
I was midway through my evening sets when the guard appeared again, his boots heavy against the cement floor. “You’ve got
another visitor.”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, stomach churning. I wasn’t sure I could endure another lecture or thinly veiled threat.
But when I stepped into the visiting area, I froze.
Jay Gatsby Sr. sat on the other side of the glass, his face exhausted, his features crumbling under the weight of grief. I
didn’t expect any sympathy—I braced myself for the most verbally abusive encounter of my life. Yet when I picked up the receiver,
he said nothing cruel.
“How you holding up in there?” he asked softly, his voice devoid of its usual bravado.
“I’m fine,” I said, though it wasn’t true. “As fine as I can be.”
Was he here to bail me out? To adopt me, even? My heart rebelled at the thought, but I couldn’t deny it—I wanted a father. Even a flawed one.
“Jay really loved you,” Gatsby said after a long pause. He winced, like saying it aloud brought him pain.
The feeling was mutual. “Jay is . . . Jay was an amazing person. I’m happy I knew him.”
“I wish I could have been there more,” Gatsby murmured, his voice heavy with regret. “I wish I could have made him feel safer.”
I didn’t know what to say. How to comfort the man who’d helped orchestrate a fire that destroyed so many lives? He was guilty.
A monster. I would not comfort him.
But I brought Jay into it all myself. Jay was gone because of the choices we made together—because I’d convinced him to take
that final risk.
“I just hope he comes back,” Gatsby said, his tone distant, almost wistful.
“Comes back?” I asked, confused. “From the dead?”
“They haven’t told you.” Gatsby’s eyes met mine, startled. “Jay disappeared from his hospital bed.”
My chest rose with hope. “He’s alive?”
“It’s my hope that he is.” Gatsby sighed. “The doctor said his wounds were severe. It’s dangerous for him to have left. But
this is all we have.” He slid an envelope under the glass. “It was hidden in his vest pocket. Says it’s for your eyes only.”
I stared at the envelope, my name scrawled in Jay’s handwriting across the front. My hands trembled as I reached for it.
“Wait to open it,” Gatsby said quickly, his eyes darting toward the guards behind him. “Out of respect for your relationship, I left it sealed. And Nick . . . thank you for being there for him. He was happier after meeting you.”
He focused intently on the table between us, refusing to meet my eyes. “You know, when I was young, my father taught me the
only thing a man needed was the will to succeed.” His voice cracked slightly before he forced it back under control. “Said
if you looked the part, and spoke the part, you were the part. People would believe in you . . . even if you didn’t believe in you. All that mattered was what people saw.” His mouth twisted into a wince, his eyes reddening. “But I
see now, that wearing the mask isn’t enough.
“I wore it too tightly and forgot to uncover what was underneath.” He shook his head, his hands gripping the counter as he
took a breath. “Jay saw through me better than anyone ever could. He tried to better me, to be better than me, and I am so proud. I thought I could build something lasting. Something my son could be proud of me for. But
all I did in the end was destroy it.” He met my gaze then, intensely, suddenly. “Do me a favor, when you see him again? Don’t
hold me against him.”
Gatsby hung up the phone before I could respond, his stately facade crumbling the moment he broke my gaze.
But I didn’t know what I’d possibly say to this version of him.
Gatsby? The Great Gatsby? Vulnerable and laid bare?
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. As he turned to leave, I watched Gatsby, observing him as if he were some animal that had escaped his enclosure and didn’t know how to weather the civilized world.
He stood stiff and straight-backed, stilling the emotions on his face, being sure to carry himself with the posture of a man
who believed he should look strong, even if inside, he was dying.
He walked off, his composure still intact, nodding at the guard as if sadness could never bend him entirely—as if nothing
could.
So, that’s where Jay got it from.
I returned to my cell, my fingers clenching the envelope as if it might vanish from my hand. Sitting on the thin mattress,
heart climbing up my windpipe, I slid my thumb under the flap and opened the letter.
Dear Nick,
I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it. I instantly regretted it. I was too afraid to tell you the truth of what I had known and for
you to never forgive me. It would have destroyed me—it still may.
Please know I made sure that everyone in the Blue House was safe when I knew it was happening. I’ve been determined to find
a way to make amends ever since and so I made a plan of my own when I agreed to yours. While you were absent from the party,
I was clearing my father’s safes and sending Z off with the loot. I told Z the truth, and it’s very likely he didn’t turn
on me because of the trust you had placed in me. He believed I would do the right thing, thanks to you.
Father, if you’re snooping through my things and seeing this, well—I do love you and Nick at the same time.
I can no longer deny that. It was not fair of you to get in bed with Buchanan for the sake of our vision—the deal polluted our mission with West Egg the second it was struck, and your willingness to sacrifice the Blue House boys to the streets proves it.
I was not brave enough to stop you then, but I’m brave enough to walk away from you now.
Nick: We will see each other again. Know that no plan is complete without a backup, but I will withhold my cards from this
letter in the event unauthorized eyes might come across it.
Just know that I would never leave you behind.
Yours,
Jay
So, Jay was alive? Out there somewhere, waiting? Or did he pen this letter, knowing he’d be risking his life for me? Was he
a ghost?
I lay in bed with the paper pressed close to my chest. This was all I had of him.
If Jay was not really dead, that opened numerous possibilities. Someone would be bailing me out of here, in a way that may
or may not be cryptic. It may or may not be illegal. In any case, I had to prepare for our biggest stunt yet.
I was wandering around my cell, finding small ways to occupy myself. I had nothing here, so I mostly relied on remembering good times I’d had in Mr. Wallace’s shop. Had I known I’d end up here one day, I may not have complained so much about being there.
I’d just begun to laugh at one of his old jokes when the earth shook, throwing me off balance.
BOOM! An explosion rocked the foundation of the precinct.
I froze as I sat up in bed and a burning smell filled the precinct. There was a ringing in my ears, followed by a commotion.
I heard grunts and whacks, like people were fighting. Smoke flooded the hallway outside of my cell.
The fighting noises continued as a masked man came and unlocked my cell, with the keys they’d stolen from the guard. I could
tell who it was by his skin and eyes through the mask.
“Zihan?” I said.
“Come quickly before they call for backup,” Zihan responded.
I followed him out to the front room of the precinct. It was a mess of wood, brick, and smoke, one wall completely blown off
to open it to the street. The bricks around the big opening formed stepping stairs, crumbling with flames on their tips. Two
cops lay unconscious on the floor—one of them Cannon Cleary—and another guard was tied up and blindfolded, wiggling around
in his restraints.
Across the street outside, a horse reared its legs up between a police car and streetlamp, and Daisy was pulling the reins
to bring her back down. She must have gotten it from one of the stables near the precinct. I knew this must be what Jay arranged,
and I wanted to run out and hug her.
But I had to make one stop before leaving. I lifted the key ring off Cannon’s waist and went to the evidence lockers, located at the back of the precinct.
They were big silver compartments built in the wall, and each key on the ring matched a letter in the locker. This was where
they kept evidence, which meant it was where they’d store money related to crime.
I unlocked the doors one by one until finally I found six bags filled with bands of dollar bills. I removed the bags from
the lockers.
There were sirens in the distance. More cops would be here soon for backup. If ever there was a time to flee, it would be
now.
I ran out with the bags to the main room where I met Zihan. “We have to leave New York,” I said. “It’s time!”
Zihan looked at me, his face set in a careful, unreadable expression.
The sirens were getting louder, closing in. The pressure was building.
Zihan stepped closer, and calmly, he said, “I won’t be joining you.”
“What? You have to. What about everything that’s happened?” I said, gesturing around us. “How will you get away with this?”
Zihan smiled wistfully. “New York doesn’t care. It is too big. Too busy. People come, people go. People forget who you were
and what you did, as long as you keep moving.” He grabbed my shoulders in support. “You don’t get that in places like Oklahoma.
But you go. Quickly—before they get here.”
I stood there, struck silent for a moment, feeling the weight of possibly never seeing Zihan again. It was hard to bear, but this place was right for him, even if I didn’t belong. Maybe the city still had space for him to reinvent himself even if I didn’t feel the same.
I dropped the bags and pulled him into a hug. Our bodies became like two logs on fire in contrast to the chilly night air.
“I will be okay,” Zihan whispered into my neck. “And so will you! I hope you and Jay get married.”
I pulled away from him and we both laughed. “Thank you, my friend,” I said as the sirens were getting louder, closing in.
“You always remind me there is hope beneath the messes I make.”
A whistle blew through the night. I turned to find Daisy beckoning me across the street. I gave Zihan one last glance goodbye,
and we ran our separate ways—he to flee the scene at the precinct and me to meet Daisy and the horse.
They were waiting by a blue mailbox and a shop. I attached half the bags to the stirrup on the horse’s saddle, and then I
strapped the rest over my arms. I stuck my foot through the foothold and then threw my leg over the horse.
“Ready?” Daisy asked.
“Ready,” I returned.
Daisy kicked the horse off, and the urgent clatter of hooves on cobblestone beat in time with the faint echoes of the night’s
music. The cool night air brushed against our faces, and with it, the smell of chimney smoke and street vendor food.
Bags of money weighed down my wrists and arms as we rode through the streets. It was the last time I’d see these streets. The last time the lights would frame me and then escape me, as if I were a dark apparition.
These six bags of bootlegging money would need somewhere to go! Some of it chose its own destiny, blowing from the bags where
the zippers weren’t tight enough. Blowing like bark stripped by a sawmill and landing on the sidewalks of Harlem’s streets.
Some people caught it in their hands as if it were a miracle from God, jumping up and down and cheering, sharing it with the
friends they’d come out with. I laughed alongside them.
There’d be a bag for Kirby’s Diner—Mr. Kirby couldn’t be bought! He’d keep cooking those meals, hiring those wayward cooks,
and running business until he couldn’t stand up anymore!
A bag for Vivian’s salon! May the signage grow brighter and the clients come from farther when she wakes to find five hundred
dollars at her front door!
Three bags for the park! One for the basketball court, one for the clock tower, one for the crossing guard who manned that
crosswalk and kept the kids safe!
It was easy to know what to do with this money, which otherwise might have sat in the police station forever.
We’d give it to Harlem. That way, no matter who came to take it away, Central would be here to stay.
Daisy pulled on the horses’ reins outside of her house, and we dismounted. I had a bag of money saved for the Wash ’N’ Fold,
which I left just inside the house. Auntie Lorraine deserved a vacation, but after what we attempted to do, we couldn’t stop
to talk to the grown-ups. Daisy and I had to leave before someone found us.
I pulled my suitcases out of my room and as we walked down the stoop I told Daisy, “You’re crazy for that . . . but thank you.”
She winked at me. “It’s the only way I know how to be. But don’t thank me before our ride gets here.”
“Our ride?”
An Austin Twenty zoomed down the street, its engine loud, before stopping just in front of us. Driving the car was someone
who looked suspiciously like Jay. “Who . . . who is that?”
Daisy smirked knowingly as the car stopped rumbling. The person who looked like Jay limped out of the car, holding his side
as if he’d been shot.
“I could’ve sworn I watched you die,” I said in disbelief, looking from Daisy to Jay. “Am I crazy?”
“You are crazy, but I’m not dead,” he said, taking my suitcase, throwing it into the back of the car. “But I will be if we
don’t get out of here quick. Step on it!”
“I cried over you!” I told Jay, and for emphasis, I slapped him in the shoulder. “All to find out you were fine?”
He laughed. “I’m glad you’re finally comfortable hitting me! You got my letter, didn’t you?”
I hadn’t yet wrapped my head around the fact that he was still here and not a ghost. I could feel his flesh. I could see his
hair blowing in the wind. And behind him, the stoops and the dim streetlamps gave his beauty a perfect backdrop. His heart
always craved surroundings like these.
“Thank you, Nick,” Jay said. “I thought I was a goner too, but I’m afraid it’s gonna take more than one little bullet to kill
me.”
I was only half upset. There was peace in my soul as we got into the car and started to cruise down this open road, headed for the state limits. Rarely did I get back the things I lost in so satisfying a way.
We were made to be hooligans on the run! That’s what we’d become, refusing to sink to the bottom of the fountain with the
other pennies. We’d be rejected from society. But we’d land where we landed.
Life was one big caper, wasn’t it? I was still so young, with so much to take from it. I still wanted a seat in the nice train
car! I wanted the full car, the full train, the railroads, all the land that the railroads touched. This land was my land
too! I would set justice upon it even if people didn’t recognize it as justice. That was a promise I could make to myself.