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Rich People Just Fuck Things Up

David J. Thompson

Oh, shit. Myrtle Wilson is dead,
hit by a car that didn’t even stop.
Apparently, it was a big fancy car,
like all the ones we see through here
driven by the rich folks on their way
to or from the City who live out
in East or West Egg (don’t ask me
what the fucking difference is –
I never go out there) in their mansions
on the water. Weekends, especially,
it seems like all of Manhattan drives by
on their way out to these huge parties
at some guy named Gatsby’s estate.
I can’t even imagine what goes on
at those things.

The only witness was Michaelis,
the Greek who runs the diner here,
but even he didn’t get a good look,
wasn’t sure what color the car was,
yellow maybe. He was too busy frying up
hamburgers for some tired guys
just off work driving delivery trucks
at the ash heaps here. God only knows
what the hell he told the motorcycle cop
who showed up to investigate. You know
how emotional those foreigners can be.

At least now they’ve got Myrtle wrapped up
in a blanket, and I see that hulking rich guy
Tom Buchanan (he’s often dressed for polo
when he stops for gas, for Christ’s sake)
is trying to console poor George Wilson
who’s always kind of gloomy anyway,
but with his wife killed he’s just one
huge sobbing, fucking wreck right now.
I have no idea what Buchanan is telling him,
or why he was driving by right now, but
they say he had been stringing him along,
promising him a ritzy car to fix up and sell,
and Wilson was going to use the money
to take Myrtle and get the hell out of here.
Well, it’s too fucking late now and God knows
what Wilson might do if they find out
who was driving that car. Sometimes
I think rich people just fuck things up
for everybody. Somebody ought to write
a book about those careless bastards.
They really should.

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