The Great Gatsby II: The Greatest Gatsby of Them All

The Great Gatsby 2: The Greatest Gatsby of Them All

Part I

The moment had come. For years I, Nick Carraway Jr., had been laboring towards the resurrection of my father’s deceased friend, Jay Gatsby—or as I called him, the Great Gatsby.

The year was two thousand nine. In my Midwestern study, among the artifacts of Gatsby’s undoing— the pistol, Daisy’s driving gloves, a mint julep– I had accomplished the task. In my younger and more vulnerable years, when I first proposed the idea, my father had given me a piece of advice which I soon discarded.

“Time travel is impossible; this is a ridiculous waste of time. Why would you think this is a good idea, dummy?” he said with the heavy weariness of a man who has seen his best friend ‘s gunshot, distended corpse lying face down in a pool diluted with blood.

I considered this carefully, then replied, “So what? You don’t want to save Gatsby from getting shot? Then I will!” At this my father shook his head, as if he had some grand, poignant understanding of life.

But he didn’t. He didn’t know anything, and I had the evidence right here: Before me, in the confluence of metal and magic, electricity and eons, steel and unadulterated impressiveness, was the fruit of my efforts— a time machine.

My vague and inarticulate hope was to prevent the fool Wilson from enacting his holocaust, and bring the Great Gatsby into the present for posterity.

As I stepped into the chamber, which looked like a phone-booth combined with a whipped-cream pie tin, I shook my head. Look who knows more about time travel now, dad, I thought.

Setting the lever onto Roaring Twenties Hyperdrive, the world took on the transitory properties which only accompany getting into a homemade time machine and going back to the twenties

And at once, it happened. The time-chamber filled with more intoxicating smoke than the grandstands at a Raphi concert. And it was just this kind of low-down, stoner venue that I felt I was escaping from when I stumbled into the clear, paradisiacal land of Long Island in Nineteen Twenty-two. The air smelled like the fresh breath of a baby that had just suckled upon the healthful breast of its mother, and the sky was filled with the kind of thick, fluffy clouds which only hang on the stadium roof of Rafi concerts—and apparently West Egg.

Before me was the estate my father had spent his wrecked life recapitulating. I followed it inwards to the pool, the future scene of that holocaust, and found Gatsby looking like a wild west cowboy in his bright blue suit. A whipped-cream pie colored handkerchief fluffed up from his pocket.

“Who are you?” he said, mystified.

“I’ve come to save you from a horrible fate,” I told him. He peered into me, like a psychic cowboy would peer into somebody’s soul.

“Nick?” Gatsby asked.

“No,” I said, slapping on a pair of Aviators and likely causing everyone watching nearby to climax simultaneously. “I’m his son.”

“What?” Gatsby said. “I don’t understand.”

“We don’t have time for this goddamnit!” I shouted. “If you want to live we need to go!”

“Huh?” Gatsby repeated, stupefied like a cowboy who has lost his hat right before a gunfight breaks out.

“Now!” I shouted.

“What?” Gatsby repeated again.

“Now, I said!”

Reluctantly, Gatsby followed me with his large aristocratic steps. As I ran to the front of the lawn, where my time machine was parked, I saw Tom Wilson in the distance, looking like none other than one of those low-down fucking stoner attendees at the aforementioned musical showing. I flipped him off and then pulled Gatsby in with me.

“What was Tom doing here? Where are we going?” Gatsby asked, shutting the door quickly.

“To the year two thousand nine,” I yelled, and we did just that.

Part II

Having succeeded with the rescue, I watched the Great Gatsby slumber like the sweet, innocent prince he was, thinking all the while, Who’s a dreamer now, DAD?

Four days later, when he awoke, I was ready to show him the wonders of the age. Assembled before me was everything the 21st century was about: Posters of Barack Obama, the Amazon Kindle, Dippin’ Dots, Peppermint Schnapps, the Nintendo Wii, a whipped-cream pie, two eight-balls of cocaine, a vial of ether, and of course season one through five of Lost.

“Where am I?” Gatsby gasped, understandably flabbergasted. “What is all this?”

“We’re at my father’s estate,” I told him. “You’re in the third millennium, a time of wonders and goings-on. And these,” I said indicating the array of objects, “are the wonders that we’re going to party with!”

Part III

The orgy was complete. In two long days we had consumed nearly twelve pounds of Dippin’ Dots. Repercussions of the day rolled like waves over the Carraway estate. Paroxysms seized my stomach. On the ground, the Great Gatsby lay, appearing as a sort of overinflated flesh balloon. He groaned, body filled with a fluid ounce of ether, ears with the music of Coldplay, and brain with the inspiring philosophies of the Obama campaign.

“…well?” Gatsby said with all the longing melancholy of a lost, terribly fat man.

“What?” I answered.

“Aren’t you going to say something about how I’m better than everyone else or something?”

“I wasn’t really considering it,” I said.

With a look of misfortune upon his face, Gatsby produced a handgun. This he pressed under his chin.

“Fine. Blast it all,” he said like some kind of badass, morbidly obese desperado, and pulled the trigger in the single coolest moment since the end of The Dark Knight.

THE END