Days have been passing by like plastic airplanes on an assembly line in a toy factory. I made plastic airplanes with pilots in them and springs which came out of the pilots’ heads and attached them to the ceiling of my bedroom. I came home juiced one night and collided with 7 planes in the dark. King Kong swatted them when he was on the Empire State, I see what he meant, you knock one away, another springs back.
Now it isn’t the same. I can’t put another pilot in a cockpit and send him out into the blue knowing I have profaned the work of a dozen men and women in one unleashed act. Never again will I stand between fat Mary who takes up her space and half mine and George Maguire, old enough to call dad and who, every time the green production light flashed, would say, “Already Eddie?”
I keep one of the pilots in my bureau. Now and then I take him out, “Hello George,” I say. We talk about changing times and things. He has an orange face, bushy black eyebrows, a mustache, goggles, a pilot’s helmet, and a red suit with black gloves. No legs, he doesn’t have any legs.
—Ed Meek, “King Kong and the Pilot”
Art Credit Bruce Conner
