I’m jumping the gun on my usual Monday posting day to announce that my new book is available for public consumption! THE MAGIC OF THE BIKE PATH (A Jack Miller Senior Moment: Book Six) is live on Amazon in paperback and eBook!
THE ULTIMATE BIKE PATH IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS!
Jack Miller returns to the “new and improved” cosmic tunnel for more wild adventures. Join him as: he visits a strange museum that has only one exhibit—famous and infamous men, both real and fictional, whose first name is Jack; he lands on Skull Island, where everything and everyone looks worse in black and white, including Jack himself, as well as King Kong; he navigates a deadly land of carnivorous butterflies; he has a couple of nice visits with Lizzie Borden and Bigfoot; he becomes an unwilling contestant in a dangerous game show; and he meets more ghosts than you can shake a stick at, including the ones he encounters while serving as a “ghost guide” for Ebenezer Scrooge in a twisted version of Charles Dickens’ classic story. More so than ever before, Jack will appreciate The Magic of the Bike Path.
It’s good to be the King.
JACK MEETS THE KING
Here is a sample scene, one that is indicative of the kind of craziness in which Jack winds up. He has ridden onto Skull Island, where he finds himself in an alternate version of the 1933 classic, King Kong. Everything there, including himself, is in black and white. Remember Ann Darrow, played by the beautiful Fay Wray, and her gut-wrenching scream when she sees the big ape? Her counterpart in this version, Nan Barrow, is 180° in the “good looks” department…
And speaking of the jungle, seconds after the last echoes from that blasted gong faded, a loud rustling and cracking of foliage from within could be heard. It grew louder as the natives on the wall, and the pair next to me, took up the chant of “Kong, Kong!” Over and over they chanted the name, and they were joined by most of the non-natives, who had gotten caught up in the moment. Not me, because I had a darn good idea of just what presently barreled through those trees.
The last cries of “Kong!” faded moments later, and so did the rustling and cracking, as the King himself emerged from the jungle and took one tentative step in our direction.
I had expected Kong to resemble the mechanical version from the original movie—still a remarkable feat for its time of bringing him to life via stop-action. Nope, this guy looked real and reminded me of the one in the awesome Peter Jackson version, where Andy Serkis did the motion-capture, and he went ice skating in Central Park with Naomi Watts. In any case this giant Kong cast a scary shadow over the area, and all of us unconsciously took a couple of steps backward…all save the one spread-eagled between two stone pillars.
“Wow, ain’t you a big fella!” Nan Barrow shouted. “Hey, down here!”
My Kong’s scream outdid the one from Fay Wray.
Kong took a second step—a third would’ve crushed us all—and glared at the natives on the wall, who had resumed their chanting. You won’t believe this—I’m not sure I actually saw what I thought I did—but I swear he flipped a bird in their direction. This only got them more excited, not to mention louder. He quickly shut them up with a roar that made a permanent dent in my ability to hear, and he also beat on his chest, another deterrent to auditory acuity.
“Hey you hairy putz, I said I’m down here!” the Queen of Vaudeville persisted, after the roaring and chest-beating subsided. She either had a lot of nerve, or was a total idiot…or both.
We were about to find out, because Kong looked down, and this time I’m sure he heard her. Being over fifty feet tall he first got down on his knees, then lowered his head as far as he could, until he looked squarely into the face of the ugliest woman who ever came out of Providence, Rhode Island, or wherever she came from.
The mighty Kong, ruler of Skull Island, worshipped and feared by the masses, King of all that he surveyed, let loose a scream that put to shame the classic shriek of Fay Wray. His eyes opening wide to the point of nearly bursting from their sockets, he turned and fled back into the jungle.
The one that started it all.
“Hey, come back here, ya big lug!” Nan yelled. “I ain’t gonna bite!”
Well, that was debatable. In any case, she pulled free from the loosely tied bonds, and you will not believe what she did next. She leaped from the platform, and without even a glance back at any of us she raced into the jungle, the foliage quickly swallowing her.
Nan Barrow, the Queen of Vaudeville, Earl Denny’s leading lady, was in pursuit of a fifty-foot-tall, two-million-pound gorilla. Was that flipping the script on the King Kong legend, or what?
I hope you enjoy this latest entry in the adventures of Jack Miller along the Ultimate Bike Path.