The Great Gatsby

His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew without his protective veil on.

Though I was curious to see her I had no desire to meet her but I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon it was a really hot day  and when we stopped by the ash heaps he jumped to his feet and taking hold of my elbow literally forced me from the car as if to run away from the responsibility of muzzling ourselves up

‘We’re getting off!’ he insisted. ‘I want you to meet my girl and I want to take this off, don’t you ? also there is this guy I want to meet that would give me a bunch of these masks to sell back in our city!

I think he’d tanked up a good deal at luncheon and his determination to have my company bordered on violence.

The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do. I followed him over a low white-washed railroad fence and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under the stare of the people that were strutting the streets, and that is due to the fact that he made me take my mask off.

The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the wasteland, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it and contiguous to absolutely nothing.

One of the three shops it contained was closed because of the virus and another was open but only for people wearing masks, the third was a garage. GEORGE B. WILSON. Cars Bought andSold me and Tom went inside.

The interior was bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a mustang which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me that this shadow of a garage must be a blind and that a pharmacy of some sort was concealed overhead because of the masks and gel bottles lying on the floor over one of the corners when the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, rubbing some gel on his dirty hands. He was a blonde, spiritless man, anemic, and wearing a full-on protective suit. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes that we could barely discern through his preposterous outfit, he said : “I know this is not your typical pharmacy and that I look like I am out of my mind because trust me I do not agree with this restrictive type of policies but I’m making sure that all my goods are safe because you know friend that’s how you keep‘em coming back for more“

Karim DJEMA