Special thanks to the following publications that have published this story: DODOBOBO #4
Fictitious Review.
Diva Nudea’s Gatsby Paging:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Mid-November 1969, Madeline showed up at Princeton. Her hair was raven and short. She wore a sable over a long red dress and pearls to her waist. She’d lost weight but her face was as brand new as her hair color. I kissed her fist she jokingly offered.
“I knew you’d make something of yourself, Nick,” she said.
Over swordfish at the Nassau Inn, she told me my graduation gift would be a trip to Paris. “We’ll follow the Scott and Zelda trail. I’ve made reservations on the S.S. France.” I played along, went wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
After Cointreau at the Metropole, we went for a long drive. Johnny Cubes chauffeured the long yellow limo. His name was new, but people in Madeline’s circle had many names. Cubes wore a bowler, chesterfield and a white, silk scarf. A tape of Aida was playing. The best barkeep on the on the East Coast, Cubes had invented sixteen drinks, seven made a booze edition of Esquire Magazine. He’d worked most of his career at the Silk Note Club that was now Valley Auto Parts. One of his concoctions had cured Madeline’s stomach cancer. He supplied a Thermos of tequila cut with Lourdes Water every time he visited Danilo Manor Nursing Home for others in need.
I’d met Madeline and her gang in 1966, while a part time “Danny” Manor maintenance worker. I was a student at Rhode Island Junior College. When she’d seen The Great Gatsby sticking out of my pocket she’d said, “Gonna get you into Princeton, Nick!”
“Not likely with a 2.1 at Reject,” I’d said. It was the first time she’d called me Nick. Michael is my name.
Madeline called on me at Princeton regularly. Her main interest was an opera course she’d talked me into taking. She read my class notes every visit. She promised we’d see La Strada next time it hit the Met.
For a long time my classmates thought she was my grandmother. When I told them she was my friend, they couldn’t imagine a kid with a pal so old. If there was any gutter talk or snickering, it never got back to me probably because Madeline had given me so many handmade shirts I ran out of room and lent them liberally. Even though monogrammed, not many found their way back. I did learn that I was nicknamed, appropriately enough, “Cuffs” around campus.
***
After each shift at the Manor, I’d to read some Fitzgerald to Madeline. Even if it wasn’t Gatsby, say The Beautiful and Damned, Last Tycoon, Tender is the Night or one of the short stories, I was required to read the West Egg party list before I left. Johnny Cubes memorized it to woo her. Maybe that was what cured her and not the holy drink.
***
Madeline started out as a stripper at the Silk Note. She’d been a student at a Boston Conservatory, thankful for any gig she could muster. She’d always slipped in an opera piece among her Broadway tunes and that irked audiences anxious for flesh. One night she swiftly removed her costume as if on fire. From then on, it was opera in the nude without the bump and grind. There was no need for it with her Goddess body and six-foot stature. Green-eyed, she had strawberry blonde hair that teased around her nipples when she freed it. Her lips were just full enough, cheekbones, neck and complexion: inarguable art. No, she didn’t need the stripper shtick. Some eyeballs had a tough time dropping off her face. “She put the double consonants in ‘stunning’,” claimed Frank Decker, the owner of the club. He billed her as the Diva Nudea.
She was married to Decker for a year. He died when hit in the temple by a beer bottle flung at a comedian who went wholesome with his jokes. The Silk Note could get rowdy. Madeline sold off the club, three bowling alleys, and a factory that manufactured typewriter erasers and a gimmick to help poor spellers. She invested wisely. A baby was born she named Ardita after a guest at a Gatsby’s party.
Madeline had a big heart, a Gatsby shindig of a pump. One rumor had her owning the Manor. Another whispered she paid the way for six Silk Note hangers-on: two ex-strippers, a waitress, a bouncer, jockey and a saxophone player. All but the last two were senile. I loved to listen to that duo. I swept the tiles outside their room so much I thought it would disappear.
The Jockey was called Place because he’d run second twenty-two times in a row before a Saratoga spill cost him his legs. He wore a wispy handlebar mustache. He always had his whip in his hand. The sax player had emphysema. His face was angular. Madeline once said he was vaguely handsome. Place had christened him Swing. He passed the time shining his horn with an argyle sock. They debated daily whether Madeline had really been a flapper in an early film version of The Great Gatsby. Place was the doubter. After a bit of arguing, Swing’s voice got so weak that “Gatsby” sounded like “Gasby.”