Denny Kristlopher's break from his family was all King Kong's fault. Of course, the family wasn't aware that he'd made this break, because Denny was no fool.
If there's anything you want to know about King Kong here in Mount Revere, the one to ask is Dennis Kristlopher of the Kristlopher Clan – just don't let his mother know he's the resident expert of the big ape or she'll no doubt tear his room apart to find any evidence, and even if she doesn't, he'll still probably be grounded to his bedroom for a month.
Sixteen years old now, Denny's been an expert on all things King Kong since he was seven: the monsters Kong fought and the order he fought them, beginning with Cooper's original through the ape's stint on Godzilla's bandwagon; the relationship Jessica Lange developed with the men who operated the giant ape-hands for the DeLaurentiis remake; the inside jokes in Jackson's grandiose take; the methods of Willis O'Brien's stop-motion animation; Toho Studios miniaturization techniques; and the robotics used in the 1976 remake.
But, if you can keep it on the down-low – he's your boy.
The secret break with his family didn't happen because he was spending more time studying King Kong than he was on his Bible studies. He made sure to stay on top of those.
When he was younger, Denny Kristlopher was fascinated by the potential reality of such a creature. The awe that would transpire when faced with such a being would be life-changing. Although, he played as King Kong with his buddy, Gary (always over in Gary's yard), his secret desire was to become friends with Kong, to be the only one in the world capable of effectively communicating with, and on behalf, of this ancient beast. Denny would fall asleep in his room, looking at the eyes in the knotty pine ceiling overhead and imagine being carried gently through a steamy jungle held comfortably in the warm paw of the great ape.
The secret break with his family was due to straightforward physical science. When Denny was ten he read in a new nonfiction monster book in the school library, that a gorilla the size of King Kong would be physically impossible. Kong would, as some killjoy scientist explained, collapse under his own weight.
Rather than come to terms with this reality immediately, Denny began constructing in his mind some scientifically-sounding answer to this conundrum. Obviously, King Kong's skeleton was much more powerful than a normal gorilla's; his heart was ten times stronger, his blood moved faster – the scientists were wrong! Denny carried this conviction through his sophomore year of high school.
But like the god of Skull Island meeting his doom through the advanced, scientifically-sound engineering of aviation and weaponry, Denny's hope was eventually taken down. Once Mr. Uccisione, his physics teacher, explained Galileo's square-cube law to where he actually understood it, Denny Kristlopher could no longer hold up the absurd notion that King Kong could ever, truly, exist.
The stash of old Famous Monsters magazines and books of movie monsters that he had hidden in his band locker were in his hands and being held over the Dumpster in the back parking lot when Denny realized that he didn't have to give up his love for the big gorilla just because Kong only existed in the movies! Denny loved the idea of Kong. The potency of the image remained thrilling: the dedication and powerful love this ancient, noble god had for beauty, so great that he could break his bonds and touch the highest point of civilization before being overwhelmed by an unimaginative, small-minded race – wasn't this a worthy idea?
The break happened due to the fact that it didn't take much for Denny to start examining other stories, comparing the power of their ideas against the power of their physical reality. Sunday School, he realized, was an exercise in literary analysis, after all. The stories from the Bible his mother made his father read every night to Denny and his brothers and sisters – did they really need to happen historically for them to be powerful?
But Denny's mother was a small, curly-haired force of unimaginative strength, and Denny knew there was no way for him to ever voice his thoughts without being brought down.
So the break was quiet. Denny's new beliefs were a secret he would never reveal. Well, not until the woman who would become his wife appeared before him one fated evening.
But that's another tale for another time.
No comments:
Post a Comment