Chapter 2

About halfway between West Egg and New York, the road rushes to join the railroad tracks and runs alongside them for a bit, trying to avoid this really desolate patch of land.

It's the Valley of Ashes - a weird, depressing place where ash grows like wheat, forming ridges, hills, and these messed-up gardens. Everything takes the shape of houses, chimneys, and smoke, and eventually, with a huge effort, even these grey, crumbling people who drift through the dusty air.

Sometimes, a line of grey cars crawls along, makes a creepy creak, and stops, and then these ashy guys swarm out with shovels, kicking up a huge cloud that hides what they're doing.

But above the grey land and the constant swirls of dust, you notice, after a minute, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. These eyes are blue and gigantic - the retinas are about a yard high.

They don’t come from a face, but from a pair of huge yellow glasses that sit over a nose that isn't even there. Seems like some crazy optometrist put them up there to make a quick buck in Queens, and then just disappeared, forgot about them, or went blind.

But his eyes, faded a little from too many sun-baked days, watch over this dump.

The Valley of Ashes is bordered on one side by a small, gross river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, people on the trains can stare at the depressing scene for almost half an hour.

There’s always a stop there of at least a minute, and that’s how I first met Tom Buchanan’s mistress.

Everyone knew he had one - people were seriously annoyed that he showed up in popular cafes with her and then left her at a table to just wander around, chatting with whoever he knew. I was curious to see her, but I didn’t really want to meet her - still, I did.

I went to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon, and when we stopped by the ash-heaps, he jumped up and, grabbing my elbow, basically forced me off the train.

"We’re getting off," he insisted.

"I want you to meet my girl."

I think he’d had a lot to drink at lunch, and his need for my company was almost aggressive. It was like he assumed I had nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon.

I followed him over a low, whitewashed fence, and we walked back a hundred yards down the road under Doctor Eckleburg’s constant stare.

The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting right on the edge of the wasteland, kind of like a little Main Street serving it, with nothing else around.

One of the shops was for rent, another was an all-night restaurant you reached by walking through a trail of ash, and the third was a garage - Repairs. George B. Wilson. Cars bought and sold. - and I followed Tom inside.

The place was pretty run-down and bare; the only car you could see was a dust-covered wreck of a Ford that was slumped in a dark corner.

I started to think this garage was probably a front, and that fancy, romantic apartments were hidden above, when the owner himself appeared from the office, wiping his hands on a scrap of paper. He was a blond, lifeless guy, pale, and faintly good-looking.

When he saw us, a little spark of hope lit up his light blue eyes.

"Hello, Wilson, old man," said Tom, slapping him on the shoulder. "How’s business?"

"Can’t complain," Wilson said, sounding not entirely convinced. "When are you gonna sell me that car?"

"Next week; I’ve got a guy working on it now."

"He works pretty slow, doesn’t he?"

"No, he doesn’t," said Tom, sounding cold. "And if you feel that way about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all."

"I didn’t mean that," Wilson said quickly. "I just meant - "

His voice trailed off, and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later a curvy woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in her mid-thirties, a little on the heavier side, but she carried herself with confidence.

Her face, above a dark blue dress, wasn’t classically beautiful, but she had this energy about her, like she was constantly buzzing with nervous energy. She smiled slowly and walked right through her husband like he was a ghost, shook hands with Tom, locking eyes with him.

Then she licked her lips and, without turning around, spoke to her husband in a soft, husky voice:

"Why don’t you get some chairs so someone can sit down?"

"Yeah, sure," Wilson hurried to say, disappearing into the small office, blending right in with the grey walls.

A white, dusty film coated his dark suit and pale hair, covering everything around him - except his wife, who moved closer to Tom.

"I need to see you," Tom said intently. "Get on the next train."

"Okay."

"I’ll meet you by the newsstand downstairs."

She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson came out with two chairs from his office.

We waited for her down the road, out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a skinny Italian kid was setting off fireworks along the railroad tracks.

"This is a rough place, isn’t it?" Tom said, exchanging a look with Doctor Eckleburg.

"Seriously."

"It’s good for her to get away."

"Doesn’t her husband mind?"

"Wilson? He thinks she’s visiting her sister in New York. He’s so clueless he doesn’t even realize he’s alive."

So Tom Buchanan, his girlfriend, and I headed up to New York - though not exactly together, because Mrs. Wilson sat quietly in another car. Tom made sure of that, considering the feelings of those East Egg folks who might be on the train.

She’d changed into a brown dress with a pattern that stretched a little tight over her hips as Tom helped her onto the platform in New York. At the newsstand, she bought a copy of a gossip magazine and a movie magazine, and at the drugstore, some cold cream and a small bottle of perfume.

Upstairs, in the big, echoing driveway, she let four taxis drive away before choosing a new one, lavender-colored with grey seats, and in that we slid out of the station into the bright sunshine. But she immediately turned away from the window and, leaning forward, tapped on the front window.

"I want to get one of those puppies," she said earnestly. "I want one for the apartment. They’re nice to have - a dog."

We backed up to an older man who looked a lot like John D. Rockefeller. A basket slung over his neck held a dozen brand-new puppies of all kinds.

"What kind are they?" Mrs. Wilson asked eagerly, as he came to the taxi window.

"All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?"

"I’d like to get one of those police dogs, but I don’t suppose you have that kind?"

The man peered doubtfully into the basket, stuck his hand in, and pulled one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck.

"That’s no police dog," Tom said.

"No, it’s not exactly a police dog," the man said, sounding disappointed. "It’s more of an Airedale."

He ran his hand over the brown, shaggy fur on its back.

"Look at that coat. That’s a dog that’ll never bother you with catching a cold."

"I think it’s cute," Mrs. Wilson said enthusiastically. "How much is it?"

"That dog?" He looked at it admiringly.

"That dog will cost you ten bucks."

The Airedale - definitely an Airedale was involved, even though its paws were surprisingly white - changed hands and settled right into Mrs. Wilson’s lap, where she loved petting its weather-resistant fur.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked gently.

"That dog? That’s a boy."

"Nah, it’s a girl," Tom said confidently. "Here’s your money. Go buy ten more dogs with it."

We cruised down Fifth Avenue, it was warm and soft, almost like the countryside, on that summer Sunday afternoon. I wouldn’t have been shocked to see a whole flock of white sheep turn the corner.

"Hold up," I said, "I gotta leave you here."

"No way," Tom cut in quickly.

"Myrtle will be bummed if you don’t come up to the apartment. Right, Myrtle?"

"Come on," she urged.

"I’ll call my sister Catherine. People who know say she’s seriously gorgeous."

"Well, I’d like to, but - "

We kept going, heading back over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At one hundred and fifty-eighth Street, the cab stopped at one slice of a long, white block of apartment buildings. Giving a queen-like look around the neighborhood, Mrs. Wilson grabbed her dog and her other purchases and went inside, totally confident.

"I’m having the Mc Kees come up," she announced as we went up in the elevator.

"And, of course, I gotta call my sister, too."

The apartment was on the top floor - a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom, and a bathroom.

The living room was crammed with a bunch of tapestried furniture that was way too big for it, so moving around meant constantly tripping over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was a seriously blown-up photo, apparently a hen sitting on a blurry rock.

From a distance, though, the hen looked like a bonnet, and the face of a stout old lady beamed down into the room. There were a bunch of old copies of Town Tattle on the table, along with a copy of Simon Called Peter, and some of those small, juicy gossip magazines from Broadway.

Mrs. Wilson was totally focused on the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went to get a box full of straw and some milk, and he even added a tin of big, hard dog biscuits on his own - one of which just sat there, sadly dissolving in the saucer of milk all afternoon.

Meanwhile, Tom pulled out a bottle of whiskey from a locked drawer.

I’d only been drunk twice in my life, and that afternoon was the second time; so everything that happened has a kind of hazy feeling, even though until after eight o’clock the apartment was full of bright sunshine.

Sitting on Tom’s lap, Mrs. Wilson called a bunch of people on the phone; then there were no cigarettes, so I went out to buy some at the drugstore on the corner.

When I got back, they’d both disappeared, so I sat down quietly in the living room and read a chapter of Simon Called Peter - either it was awful writing or the whiskey messed things up, because it didn’t make any sense to me.

Just as Tom and Myrtle (after the first drink, Mrs. Wilson and I started calling each other by our first names) showed up again, people started arriving at the apartment door.

The sister, Catherine, was a slender, stylish girl of about thirty, with a short, choppy bob of red hair, and a complexion covered in milky-white powder.

Her eyebrows had been plucked and then redrawn at a more daring angle, but nature’s attempts to put them back in their original spot gave her face a blurry look. When she moved, there was a constant clicking as countless pottery bracelets jingled up and down her arms.

She came in with such a possessive rush, and looked around so jealously at the furniture, that I wondered if she lived there. But when I asked her, she laughed really hard, repeated my question out loud, and told me she lived with a girlfriend at a hotel.

Mr. Mc Kee was a pale, kind of girly guy from the apartment below. He’d just shaved, you could tell by the little white spot of shaving cream on his cheek, and he was super polite to everyone in the room.

He told me he was "in the art scene," and I later figured out he was a photographer and had taken that faded, weird enlargement of Mrs. Wilson’s mom that hung on the wall like a ghost. His wife was loud, laid-back, gorgeous, and totally dramatic.

She bragged that her husband had photographed her like, one hundred and twenty-seven times since they got married.

Mrs. Wilson had changed her outfit earlier, and now she was wearing this elaborate afternoon dress made of cream-colored chiffon that rustled every time she moved. The dress totally changed her vibe. That intense energy she had in the garage was gone, replaced with this impressive air of importance.

Her laughter, her gestures, her comments got more over-the-top every second, and as she expanded, the room felt smaller and smaller, like she was spinning around on a noisy, creaky thing in the smoky air.

"Seriously," she told her sister in a high-pitched, sassy shout, "most of these guys will rip you off every time. They only care about money. I had a woman up here last week just to look at my feet, and when she gave me the bill, you’d have thought she’d removed my appendix!"

"What was the woman’s name?" asked Mrs. Mc Kee.

"Mrs. Eberhardt. She drives around looking at people’s feet in their own houses."

"I love your dress," said Mrs. Mc Kee. "It’s so cute!"

Mrs. Wilson just raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"It’s just an old thing," she said. "I just throw it on sometimes when I don’t even care what I look like."

"But it looks amazing on you, if you know what I mean," Mrs. Mc Kee pressed.

"If Chester could just get you in that pose, I think he could do something really cool with it."

We all stared at Mrs. Wilson, who brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and gave us this bright, dazzling smile. Mr. Mc Kee looked at her intently, tilting his head, and then slowly moved his hand back and forth in front of his face.

"I’m gonna change the light," he said after a moment. "I want to highlight her features better. And I’d try to get all the hair in the back."

"I wouldn’t change the light," cried Mrs. Mc Kee. "I think it’s - "

Her husband said "Sh!" and we all looked at Mrs. Wilson again, when suddenly Tom Buchanan yawned really loud and stood up.

"You Mc Kees need something to drink," he said. "Get some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everyone falls asleep."

"I told that boy about the ice."

Myrtle raised her eyebrows in frustration at how lazy the help was.

"These people! You have to nag them constantly."

She looked at me and laughed without a real point. Then she playfully hugged the dog, kissing it with tons of excitement, and flounced into the kitchen, acting like a whole team of chefs were waiting for her orders.

"I’ve done some really cool stuff out on Long Island," asserted Mr. Mc Kee.

Tom just stared at him blankly.

"Two of them we have framed downstairs."

"Two what?" demanded Tom.

"Two studies. One I call Montauk Point - The Gulls, and the other I call Montauk Point - The Sea."

Catherine, her sister, sat down next to me on the couch.

"Do you live out on Long Island, too?" she asked.

"I live in West Egg."

"Really? I was down there at a party about a month ago. At a guy named Gatsby’s. Do you know him?"

"I live right next door to him."

"Well, they say he’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s. That’s where all his money comes from."

"Seriously?"

She nodded.

"I’m kind of scared of him. I wouldn’t want him to get anything on me."

That crazy info about my neighbor was cut off when Mrs. Mc Kee suddenly pointed at

"Chester, I think you could do something with her," she blurted out, but Mr. Mc Kee just nodded, totally bored, and turned his attention to Tom.

"I’d love to do more work on Long Island if I could land the job. All I’m asking for is a chance to get started."

"Ask Myrtle," said Tom, bursting into a short, sarcastic laugh as Mrs. Wilson walked in with a tray. "She’ll give you a letter of introduction, right, Myrtle?"

"Do what?" she asked, looking surprised.

"You’ll give Mc Kee a letter so he can do some studies of your husband."

His lips moved silently for a moment as he made it up, "‘George B. Wilson at the Gasoline Pump,’ or something like that."

Catherine leaned close and whispered in my ear:

"Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to."

"Really?"

"They can’t stand them."

She glanced at Myrtle and then at Tom.

"What I’m saying is, why keep living with them if they hate them? If I were them, I’d get a divorce and marry each other, like, right away."

"Doesn’t she like Wilson either?"

The answer to that was totally unexpected. It came from Myrtle, who had overheard, and it was harsh and rude.

"You see," cried Catherine triumphantly.

She lowered her voice again.

"It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce."

Daisy wasn’t Catholic, and I was a little shocked at how elaborate the lie was.

"When they do get married," continued Catherine, "they’re going West to live for a while until things cool down."

"It’d be way more discreet to go to Europe."

"Oh, do you like Europe?" she exclaimed, sounding surprised. "I just got back from Monte Carlo."

"Really?"

"Just last year. I went over there with another girl."

"Stay long?"

"Nah, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went through Marseilles. We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we got ripped off of it all in two days in the private rooms. We had a terrible time getting back, I can tell you. Seriously, I hated that town!"

The late afternoon sky glowed in the window for a second, like the blue honey of the Mediterranean - then Mrs. Mc Kee’s shrill voice called me back into the room.

"I almost made a mistake, too," she declared energetically.

"I almost married a little guy who’s been after me for years. I knew he was beneath me. Everyone kept saying to me: ‘Lucille, that man’s way below you!’ But if I hadn’t met Chester, he would’ve gotten me for sure."

"Yeah, but listen," said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down, "at least you didn’t marry him."

"I know I didn’t."

"Well, I married him," said Myrtle, sounding vague. "And that’s the difference between your situation and mine."

"Why did you, Myrtle?" demanded Catherine.

"Nobody forced you to."

Myrtle thought about it.

"I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said finally. "I thought he knew something about class, but he wasn’t even fit to shine my shoes."

"You were totally obsessed with him for a while," said Catherine.

"Obsessed with him!" cried Myrtle, sounding disbelieving. "Who said I was obsessed with him? I never was obsessed with him any more than I was with that guy there."

She pointed suddenly at me, and everyone looked at me accusingly. I tried to show them I wasn’t expecting any affection.

"The only mistake I made was when I married him. I knew right away I’ve messed up. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in, and never even told me about it, and the guy came after it one day when he was out: ‘Oh, is that your suit? I said. ‘This is the first I ever heard about it.’"

"But I gave it to him and then I just cried, like, all afternoon."

"She really needs to get away from him," resumed Catherine to me.

"They’ve been living over that garage for eleven years. And Tom’s the first sweetie she’s ever had."

The second bottle of whisky was practically disappearing - everyone was drinking except Catherine, who said she felt fine without it. Tom buzzed the janitor and sent him out for some amazing sandwiches, seriously a whole meal in themselves.

I really wanted to slip out and walk towards the park in the soft twilight, but every time I tried, I got pulled back into some crazy, loud argument, like ropes were holding me in my chair.

Still, our row of yellow windows way up high probably added to the secrets people were keeping down on the streets, and I could see someone looking up, wondering about it all. I felt like I was both inside and outside, totally fascinated and kind of grossed out by all the different kinds of life.

Myrtle scooted her chair closer to mine, and suddenly her warm breath told me the story of how she first met Tom.

"It was on those tiny seats facing each other, always the last ones left on the train. I was heading up to New York to see my sister and spend the night."

He was wearing a tux and shiny patent leather shoes, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him, but every time he looked at me, I pretended to be looking at the ad above his head.

When we got to the station, he was right next to me, and his white shirt pressed against my arm, so I told him I’d have to call a cop, but he knew I was lying. I was so hyped that when I got into a taxi with him, I barely noticed I wasn’t getting on a subway train.

"All I kept thinking was, ‘You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.’"

She turned to Mrs. Mc Kee, and the room filled with her fake laugh.

"Seriously," she cried, "I’m giving you this dress when I’m done with it. I need to get another one tomorrow. I’m going to make a list of everything I need."

"A massage, a new hairstyle, a collar for the dog, one of those cute ashtrays where you push a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for Mom’s grave that’ll last all summer. I gotta write it down so I don’t forget everything I have to do."

It was nine o’clock - I looked at my watch a little later and it was already ten. Mr. Mc Kee was asleep in a chair, his fists clenched in his lap, like a picture of someone who was always doing stuff.

I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped the dried shaving cream off his cheek that had been bothering me all afternoon.

The little dog was sitting on the table, staring through the smoke with its blind eyes, and groaning softly from time to time. People vanished, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searching, finding each other just a few feet away.

Later that night, Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson were facing off, talking loudly about whether Mrs. Wilson had the right to mention Daisy’s name.

"Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" yelled Mrs. Wilson. "I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai - "

With a quick, sharp move, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.

Then there were bloody towels on the bathroom floor, and women’s voices yelling, and above the chaos, a long, broken cry of pain. Mr. Mc Kee woke up from his nap and stumbled towards the door.

He got halfway there when he turned around and stared at the scene - his wife and Catherine yelling and trying to comfort each other as they moved around the crowded furniture with things to help, and the person on the couch, bleeding and trying to cover the wall hangings of Versailles with a magazine.

Then Mr. Mc Kee turned and left. I grabbed my hat from the chandelier and followed.

"Come over for lunch sometime," he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

"Keep your hands off the lever," snapped the elevator boy.

"I’m so sorry," said Mr. Mc Kee with dignity, "I didn’t realize I was touching it."

"Okay," I said, "Sounds good."

I was standing next to his bed, and he was sitting up in just his underwear, holding this huge portfolio.

"Beauty and the Beast... Loneliness... Old Grocery Horse... Brook’n Bridge..."

Then I was totally out of it, lying around in the chilly basement of Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune, waiting for the four o’clock train.