“How about we visit Middlecross Island?”
I didn’t say any more, but Kay and I often communicated in a reserved way, so she understood I meant a great deal more than that. As much as I would like to open my story in such style, I did end up clarifying my motive to visit this curious island, three miles from the city centre. In other words, I was unable to keep my mouth shut because my motive involved the Great Gosnell.
Gosnell and I had exchanged letters once. Since then, his address — written in flowing fountain pen strokes on a pink manila envelope — became a site I planned to visit in order to confirm its existence. What better time to do this but close to a year after he vanished from the city. After all, no matter how near or dear someone may be, there are borders which one mustn’t cross. Although I sensed (or should I say wished) that Gosnell would be amused by an impromptu visit, I figured it was wise to set foot on his territory only after he had packed up and left. Carrying the faint hope he had not completely packed up and left. A light in the window, glass jars of unidentifiable contents propped on top a bookshelf, moss green curtains, or even his parked van: such things we, or rather I, hoped to see.
And so it was only natural for my heart to die a little when we reached Middlecross Housing Complex — to find his mailbox sealed in a fluorescent green tape. Scrawled in a permanent marker: moved out. Maybe this tape wasn’t fluorescent at all, but it radiated like a tube of neon, given that we were surrounded from all quarters by prefabricated panel apartments drained of colour. All quarters but one: across the side walls of what used to be Gosnell’s apartment was the steel picket fence that encompassed the grounds. Beyond the fence — tinted in shades of purple, scarlet and yellow — glistened the windows of a row of skyscraper mansions. The westward sun was slanting its strong rays, and it felt as though, in time, the skyscrapers would swallow us in its shadow. However, they were constructed at the tip of Mooney Island, separated from us by a large river. I later learned that the two islands were almost identical in shape and size, yet dissimilar in every other aspect. Had East Egg and West Egg been real places as Fitzgerald described, they might as well be here.
“A man of his status living in a housing complex. These places have strict tenant screenings, so it could be that he moved in decades ago.”Kay had a point. A few scenarios slid past me: fuzzy, yet credible pictures of a youthful Gosnell, like signposts in the midst of a desert sandstorm.
“He sure was unpretentious,” continued Kay. “At least we know he’s living it up in Reeds County by now.”
When Kay noticed my reddened eyes, she flashed a grin and said “One teardrop, one photo; wasn’t that your ritual?”
I handed her the camera. Five cruel clicks.
I will not delve into this particular moment, for there is nothing that bores me more than self-analysis (along with people reciting their nightmares). Instead, I shall quote the words of Kay a few hours later, over espressos and quails’ egg sablés. She spoke in a wheezing tone, as if she had just come out of a sandstorm. The first onset of hay fever on a strangely balmy last day of February —
“He lived there without inconvenience, no need for anything more.” She didn’t say any more.
I fixed my gaze on the steaming beverage before me, as our conversation shifted to egg-to-body-ratio in birds.
Lani H. Oakduck