I’ve just one King, and he’s Kong, silverbacked and silver screened, dazed in the big bad city. I almost saw him once in the 60s, standing by the kerbside with my black and white flag, wrapped in the scent of my mother’s coat and waving with a cheering crowd as a car drove past, slow enough to stop light in in its tracks. Some swear he was there, waving one surprisingly delicate hand at all these tiny people, his other palm light on Fay Wray’s luminous satin shoulder, benign confusion dazzling his quizzical eye; but all I saw was a military parade, wreathed in exhaust fumes and ragged pennants. And then everyone went home. For years I drank from a souvenir mug which, later, I kept in the bathroom for razors and toothbrushes. I’m not sure what happened to it, though I might have dropped it from the top of the Empire State.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
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