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’spalate. 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.”
No wonder Charlie treated the cafeteria like he owned it. He had parents who could afford tuition. He probably ate pineappleupside-down cakes and pimento-stuffed celery for meals. He never worried about taking loans from lenders or working to make ends meet.
I couldn’t relate, and it became clear quite quickly that West Egg was no haven of equality, at least not yet. Perhaps my expectations had been a bit too high.
My weekly schedule was about as standard as they come—six hours of mathematics, twelve of practical machine-tool training, and eighteen hours of field training, manning elevators in the Upper East Side.
Field training started at the end of my core classes. A bus would take us into the city for the last quarter of the workday. To get there, I’d have to cross the main quad, where my new friends, Charlie and Cannon, were hanging around by a table of donuts and coffee. It was clear these were the champions of campus. They were inspecting every new Negro boy who walked by, pointing and laughing—Who reeked of poor confidence? Who’d make a good target?
They would jeer at the fear in my eyes—I knew it. But despite every bone in my body wanting to slump, I continued looking up and trekking across the grass. When Charlie noticed me, he gave his auburn waves a pompous shake, tapped his friend, and pointed me out.
Cannon picked up a megaphone, smiled with glee, and said, “Steer clear of the falling balls, Clumsy Nick.”
Charlie placed a golf ball on a tee and pulled a club out of abag I didn’t see. He hit it so it flew at my head at fast speed, with torque.
I ducked and my books spilled across the grass, which made them laugh.
I quickly packed them back in and stood up, but a moment after I was on my feet, something else smacked me in the forehead. There it was on the grass—a Boston cream donut leaking a sad spot of goo.
Cannon reared his arm to throw another donut, but someone emerged from between the two menaces and grabbed his arm to stop him.
Jay.
