So Gatsby was a fabulously wealthy man with a harmless affectation, or perhaps he actually was the one in a million who had sold his soul. No one knew, and that summer, absolutely no one cared when it seemed as if the legendary Canadian pipeline poured good whiskey straight from the solid gold taps of his French facsimile mansion. I was sick of the trend even before it showed up in McClure’s Magazine, a sure sign that its time was done, but Gatsby wore it well.
At Gatsby’s, the clock stood at just five shy of midnight the moment you arrived. Crossing from the main road through the gates of his world, a chill swirled around you, the stars came out, and a moon rose up out of the Sound. It was as round as a golden coin, and so close you could bite it. I had never seen a moon like that before. It was no Mercury dime New York moon, but a harvest moon brought all the way from the wheat fields of North Dakota to shine with sweet benevolence down on the chosen and the beautiful.
Everything was dripping with money and magic, to the point where no one questioned the light that flooded the house from the ballroom and dining rooms to the halls and secluded parlors. The light had a particularly honey-like quality, something like summer in a half-remembered garden, illuminating without glaring and so abundant that you always knew who you were kissing. Some of the guests exclaimed at the magic on display, but I heard the servants marveling at it as well and learned that it was all electricity, the entire house wired at enormous expense to come alive with the flick of a switch.
The lights may have been money, but there was no lack of magic either. In the main hall was a mahogany bar stretching longer than a Ziegfeld Follies kick line, and guests crowded around four and five deep before the brass rail for a taste of … well, what was your pleasure? Once I got a tiny scarlet glass filled with something murky white that tasted of cardamom, poppy seed, and honey, the last wine Cleopatra drank before her date with the asp, and Paul Townsend of the Boston Townsends got stinking drunk on something from the nomadic party of great Ubar. These were no dusty bottles salvaged from desert digs; they were fresh from the vintners and brewers themselves, for all that they were long gone dust.
The sky above Gatsby’s parties was a deep blue, always clear and just barely garlanded with silky clouds to give it an air of mystery. Once, he had produced a troupe of aerial artistes who did their acts on invisible ladders far above our heads, giving them the appearance of true flight, their sequined costumes flashing tangerine, lemon, and lime from the lights beneath. As we watched, one young woman in chartreuse missed her grip and fell, plummeting towards the flagstones below. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my friends cover their faces, but I couldn’t look away. There was a flash of light the instant she would have struck the ground, and instead of a broken little body, a still-faced man in black held her safe in his arms. There was a stunned look on her face. Her eyes were studded with rhinestone-like tears, and I saw a dark pink mark, mottled blackberry, crawling to cover the side of her neck like a port-wine stain.
He set her down gravely on the ground, and her hand flew to the mark, feeling gingerly for the bones that assuredly had been broken and mended. He took her other hand, and they both bowed to rapturous applause.
“Death doesn’t come to Gatsby’s” went the rumor, and it might even have been true. Certainly ugliness didn’t, and neither did morning or hangovers or hungers that could not be sated. Those things waited for us outside the gates, so whoever wanted to go home?
The first time I ever went to Gatsby’s house, I went with Henry Conway’s set. I knew his sister from the golfing club where we were both members, and after a match early in May, dinner at L’Aiglon, and drinks at Tatsby, the cry went up that of course we must go to Gatsby’s in West Egg.
One girl, some cousin from Atlanta, squeaked that she didn’t have an invitation, and Henry Conway gave her an affably sharp look.
“Look, darling, no one needs an invitation to go to one of Gatsby’s parties. I don’t think he’s ever sent a single one out.”
The girl from Atlanta bit her lip, getting a smudge of inexpertly applied lipstick on her small teeth.