Based on the story by Cooper, Schoedsack, and Rose. Adapted by Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens.
Anniversary
Brad took the steps three at a time up to the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History. He was unconscionably tardy once again for a lecture and not looking forward to the earful of grief he was bound to get. His professor expected grad students to be on time all the time, no exceptions.
It was early April in New York City, unusually warm and sunny for that time of year, and the skeletal trees of Central Park were just beginning to show hints of spring. People were coming and going from the museum. Weaving through the crowds with the practised ease of a native, Brad moved like a fearless bicycle messenger through midtown traffic.
Near the top, an old woman blocked his path. Moving with the deliberate slowness of the truly aged, she paused after each step to catch her breath before commencing the struggle with the next one. Brad was about to slip past when the heel of her shoe caught on the lip of the last step. With a startled gasp, she stumbled.
Brad instantly reached forward and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her back from a broken bone, if not worse. He steadied her until she had regained balance; then, clutching her chest, she turned to look at him. Her eyes still fluttered with surprise at the close call.
"You okay there, lady?" he asked, concerned.
"Oh my," she said. "Thank you for catching me, young man. A fall like that could be very nasty for someone my age."
Brad didn't doubt it, either. From behind, she'd just looked like some old woman, wearing a black dress and white shawl and wide-brimmed hat to keep out the glare. But seeing her sallow, wrinkled face, he realized just how old was old - she had to be mid-eighties, if not more. Brad had been an All-State linebacker in high school, and even though she was two steps up from him, he still towered over her bent and arthritic frame.
"There's a bench just inside the entrance," he said. "You want to go sit down?"
"Yes, thank you, I'd probably better," the old woman replied, and eased her skinny arm in Brad's muscular one as he guided her over to the main doors. "Here I thought I was doing so good, too. These steps just get higher and higher the older I get."
Brad chuckled. "I think you do pretty good, lady. My mother would have had a hard time with those steps and she's probably half your age." Truthfully, he thought it was a miracle she'd made it to the top in the first place.
Above the entrance, a huge banner ruffled in the breeze proclaiming the American's latest exhibit. In the style of the 1930's pulps, a ferocious-looking ape of monstrous proportions had one fist raised to smash a police paddy wagon while the other one held a woman who recoiled in horror. The banner read: "King Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World!"
The lobby was filled with more promotional material for the Kong exhibit. Movie posters adroned the walls. Standees had been erected here and there. Prominent among them was a ten-foot tall cardboard Empire State Building; biplanes slowly circled the enraged beast clinging defiantly to the peak. Hanging from the second-floor rotunda were large portraits of Carl Denham, Ann Darrow, and the terrifyingly feral visage of Kong itself.
Brad helped the old woman to a bench off to the side. She looked a little flushed so he got a cup of water from a fountain. As he walked back through the crowd, he saw her looking at the gift shop across the way. The windows were festooned with suction-cup plushies of Kong. One toy had magnets on its hands and feet and was slowly climbing a metal pole.
"Terrible," she was murmurring to herself as he sat down. "Just terrible."
A pained look passed over the old woman's face; and for a worried moment Brad thought he might have been too rough stopping her fall. But when she looked over to take the cup of water, she seemed fine again.
"Thank you, young man," she said, taking a sip.
"You feeling better now?" he asked.
"Thank you, yes, I feel much better."
"So...are you here to see Kong?"
She smiled and nodded. "I come once a year around this time. I've been doing it for...well, let's just say, long before you were born. I was somewhat worried this time, what with the exhibit being down for repairs. But since they re-opened it to the public last week, I guess luck is on my side. My annual visit will remain unbroken."
Brad looked doubtful. "You do know the Kong exhibit has been moved to the fourth floor, right? Can get up there by yourself? You want a hand?"
The old woman shook her head. "It's very kind of you to offer, but I'm sure I have already inconvenienced you enough as it is. I believe I can manage from here. You probably have far more important things to do."
The clock on the wall indicated the lecture had started ten minutes before. He was already going to get chewed out by the professor for being late. Another five or ten to assist some elderly woman up to the exhibit hall wouldn't make it any worse than it was going to be.
Brad shrugged. "Actually, I don't mind at all. If you want the help, that is."
She smiled and nodded and took his arm. They walked slowly over to an elevator. Inside, he pressed the button for the fourth floor and the doors closed.
"So you come here every year to see Kong, huh?" Brad said. "That's kind of neat in a way. It's been a long time for me. I was six or seven when my parents brought me here to see it for the first time."
"You've never been back?" she asked, surprised.
Brad laughed. "No, it scared the heck out of me. I don't remember much except I cried all the way home. If you don't mind me asking, ma'am, were you around when it happened?"
"I was a young woman," she replied, "probably a little older than you."
"Wow," Brad said, feeling that same thrill of discovery when he unearthed something at a dig. "So it's not just textbook history for you, is it?"
She shook her head. "Oh no. It's very real to me, young man. Very real."
Exiting on the fourth floor, they headed to the hall where the exhibit had been restaged. A group of elementary school children stood in a straight line outside the entrance, fidgiting impatiently for their teacher to finish a head count and lead them inside. The old woman's grip grew tighter upon Brad's arm with every step.
"Are you okay?" he asked, pausing before the final turn.
She took a deep breath to steady herself and nodded.
He led her inside and the immense, silent presence of Kong rose before them. Despite the years between his last visit and this one, Brad couldn't help but feel a cold distant shudder of the awe and fear he'd felt as a child, seeing it for the first time.
The stuffed and mounted beast standing on all fours rose 25 feet into the air from knuckle to head. Its fangs were bared in a ferocious snarl, forever silent now; but like the sound of the ocean heard through a seashell, Brad thought that if he stared long enough at that dark, expressive face he might be able to hear some faint lingering echo of what it had sounded like when it was alive some seventy-odd years before.
The old woman let go of his arm and took a hesitant step forward, her escort forgotten for the moment as the past rushed in to command her thoughts. The sorrow was writ large on her face, and Brad wondered whom she had lost, long long ago, when this great beast had broken free of its "chrome-steel" chains and terrorized New York City for a night.
Brad thought she probably wanted to be alone for a while, so he left her there and went to check out the exhibit by himself. It was divided into three sections, roughly following the timeline of events from the arrival on Skull Island to the attack on top of the Empire State building.
The first section was called "The Fellowship of the King," with photos and biographies of Carl Denham and other members of the expedition to Skull Island. The second was called "The Return of the King," and this dwelled on Kong's capture and the return to New York City, along with the staging of Denham's ill-fated Broadway debut. A small off-shoot was called "The Two Towers," which offered an explanation to the question of why Kong had climbed the Empire State building by noting the simularities to his lair on Skull Mountain. There was even a display on the special freeze-dried taxidermy process that had saved the beast's remains for future generations.
The third section of the exhibit was titled "Beauty Killed the Beast," focusing exclusively on Ann Darrow, the young vaudeville actress who had somehow become the object of the giant gorilla's affections. There were photos, text, and even a monitor that when activated showed a few minutes of black and white footage of Ann Darrow shot by Denham during the voyage to the island.
Brad watched with avid interest as Denham's nasally offscreen direction illicited a slow, dawning horror to appear in Darrow's eyes; until - in that arch style of 1930's acting Brad couldn't stand - she clutched at her throat, threw an arm dramatically across her face...and screamed.
As an historical artifact, it was truly a chilling moment, an unwitting preparation for the true horror to come.
Despite what felt like a valiant attempt by the museum to play up the beauty and the beast angle, it seemed to Brad mostly speculation. The actual words of Ann Darrow, what she'd thought and felt, were missing. Apparently she had never given an interview to anyone on the subject and went to her grave in silence. The omission left the section with a hole that no amount of photos or expert opinions could fill.
"Have you had a good look around?" the old woman said suddenly by his side.
"Yeah," Brad said. "It's actually a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. The bio on Denham, though. I don't know about that."
"What about it bothers you?"
"It seems a bit self-aggrandizing. It makes him out to be some big adventurer, but when I look at his photo all I see is a carnival barker."
The old woman smiled. "Oh, really?"
Brad leaned in and whispered, "He looks like a big schmuck."
She started laughing at that, quite a pleasant sound, and Brad thought he could almost see past her age to what she had looked like when she was younger. She had been very pretty, he felt certain, and in a way she still was. Age had not diminished her spirit.
"So what about Kong?" Brad asked. "How's he looking?"
"Much better than he did last time. Honestly, he was starting to get a bit ragged. But then, after seventy years, we all do, don't we? They still haven't gotten the eyes right, though. I suppose they never will."
"What's wrong with the eyes?" Brad asked.
"You know that old saying about the eyes being the windows of the soul? Kong had a big soul. When I look at his eyes now, I see nothing. No soul. That's something no amount of repairing can recapture. It's gone forever."
Brad looked at her strangely. "When you say that, it's like you were there. Like you really looked into his eyes up close."
The old woman smiled coquettishly at him; and once again Brad thought he could see the young woman she had been still shining beautifully under all the accumulated years.
"May I tell you a secret?" the old woman asked. "The reason I know what his eyes looked like is because...I am Ann Darrow."
It took Brad a moment to process what she had said. "What? The Ann Darrow? That Ann Darrow?"
She nodded and smiled again.
"Okay," Brad said slowly. "Look, ma'am..."
The old woman smiled. "Ann."
Brad sighed. "Okay...Ann...not to be disrespectful or anything, but Ann Darrow sightings are about as common as Elvis sightings."
She made a tsk-tsk sound. "Isn't that terrible? I wonder what the real Elvis thinks of those imposters? Perhaps I should ask him the next time he's over for tea."
At first she sounded serious and Brad didn't know what to think. But then a demure smile rose from her lips to touch her eyes, twinkling now with childlike delight. He snorted and burst out laughing until his chest hurt.
When he finally caught his breath, he smiled. "Lady, has anyone ever told you you have a great sense of humor?"
"Ann," she said again.
Brad nodded. "Okay...Ann..."
"But you still don't believe me, do you?"
Brad shook his head. "Sorry. I mean, you're really nice and all, but..."
"Do you believe I believe?"
Brad stared into her blue eyes, still unfaded despite her advanced age, and could not deny that, for whatever it was worth, she did. He sighed again.
"According to this," Brad said, pointing at the display, "Ann Darrow disappeared in 1935. Carl Denham said she was living in Malaysia under an assumed name and passed away in 1942."
"I know," she nodded and her thoughts seemed to drift for a moment. "He maintained that story right up to the day he died. He finally kept his word about something. I guess he did feel a little guilty after all."
Brad looked at her, confused. "Kept his word? Are you saying you two planned it?"
She nodded. "You can't imagine what it was like, young man. After Kong, I was hounded relentlessly by the press. They wanted my side of the story, but I had nothing to say. I had left everything up there on that building. But the press wouldn't let me alone...wouldn't let me sleep...wouldn't let me gr..."
She was getting upset and paused a moment to compose herself.
"They wouldn't let me alone," she continued eventually. "It was Mr. Denham's idea to say I had left the country. He said they would gravitate to him without me to focus on, and he was right. They did. He didn't mind, though. He liked the attention, especially after he got out of jail, and I liked not being pestered by impertinent reporters. So I changed my name and moved to another state, and it all worked out for the best."
"If you truly are Ann Darrow," Brad said, "and I'm not saying I believe you, then why are you telling me?"
"It wasn't really you," she said. "It's just you helped me outside and you happen to be here now. I want to ask a favor of you. I need your help with something."
"I'm listening," Brad said, half of him waiting for the scam to reveal itself.
"I'm old and I don't have many years left," she said. "But before I go there's one last thing I want to do. I want to touch him one last time."
"You what a what?" Brad couldn't keep the surprise off his face; that was the last thing he had expected to hear.
"I know it's a lot to ask," she added quickly, "and we'll probably get in trouble..."
"Probably? Try definitely."
"...but will you help me? Please, help me touch him one final time. I want to say goodbye to him."
Brad could not believe what he was hearing. "Even if I did help, as soon as you cross into the exhibit the sensors are going to send every security guard in the wing running. They'll hustle you out of there before you can even come close."
"I know," she said. "That's why I need someone to hold them off, even a minute. Will you do that for me? Please?"
"Lady, I don't even believe you are who you say you are! You haven't given me any proof to back up your claim. At least let me see some ID."
"I changed my name, remember?" she said. "But I do have this."
She stood before the Ann Darrow display and kept a close eye on the monitor. Brad didn't know what she was going to do. Then, just as the young Ann Darrow on the film clutched at her throat, the old woman mimicked the action on the monitor behind her. It wasn't just close. It was perfect. A perfect mirror image separated by 70 years. And she wasn't trying, she was just doing without thinking.
When Ann Darrow screamed for Denham on the monitor, the old woman screamed along with her, but silently, and it was like the sound was coming from her mouth instead.
It was an eerie thing to witness and Brad was truly shaken by it. But it still wasn't enough to convince him.
"You're going to have to do better than that," he said.
Over to the side of the exhibit was a small sit-down theater, showing vintage newsreels of the day. It was empty and they sat down. She talked. He listened. And she told him things, of the island and of Kong. Things that were too detailed to have been made up on the spot. Things that only someone who had been there could have known.
They talked for nearly an hour. Brad knew how to trip people up when they were lying to him and he did his best with the old woman, trying to see if her story changed at all, but it never did.
"How many balls did you juggle again?"
"They were rocks, and there were three of them."
And somewhere toward the end of their long talk, Brad realized he wasn't listening to her to catch her on an insignificant detail. He was listening to listen, and that's when he knew he believed her.
They sat in the darkness of the theater watching the black and white Movietone newsreels of Kong loop over again and again, until past noon when the lunch break brought a lull in the number of visitors to the exhibit. They exited and Brad had a quick look around. Save for one or two stragglers, the hall was empty. It wasn't going to get any better than that he decided, so he helped the old woman over to the ropes blocking Kong from the public.
"Okay," Brad said, a part of him still not believing he was going through with this. "Once you're past these ropes, the security guards will be here in thirty seconds or less. I can buy you maybe another minute or two. Is that going to be enough time?"
"No, but it'll have to do," she said. "How are you going to stop the guards, though?"
"Razzle Dazzle Red 42," Brad said, and when she gave him a worried look, he just waved it off. "Don't worry about that. Don't even acknowledge the guards are here. Do what you have to do and let me handle it."
When no one was looking, he lifted up the heavy velvet rope and let her slip under. Then, as she began to inch her way over the airbrushed rocks and plastic foliage of the artificial environment, he turned and waited. It took less time than he'd hoped for the first guard to arrive.
As soon as the guard saw the old woman moving slowly toward Kong, he shouted, "Hey! Lady! You can't be in there! That's off limits to the public! Get out at once!"
He moved to go under the ropes, and that's when Brad stepped up and blocked his way.
"What the name of Louis Leakey is going on here?" Brad demanded.
"Excuse me, son, we have an emergency here," the guard said. "Could you back away..."
Brad cut him off. "Sir, I'll have you know that I am an anthropology student at NYU, and I know for a fact that this Kong is a complete fake! Anyone with forensic training can tell you that the skull is much too elongated for a gorilla! And look at those jaw muscles! Are you telling me that that's the natural musculature of a gorilla? Give me a break! This is an utter travesty of science! I ought to report this obvious fakery to the New England Journal of Medicine! It's worse than the Piltdown Man! I won't let you won't get away with this! I intend to expose this fraud to the world! Where's the museum director? I want your badge number! Show me some credentials! This is an affront! Inexcusable, do you hear!"
The guard was thrown back by the incessant barrage of questions and accusations. At one point he actually started to reach for his wallet to show his ID, until another guard arrived on the scene and the martinet suddenly remembered who was supposed to be in charge of the situation. Bolstered by the presence of a back-up, the first guard started shouting right back at Brad, until they were volleying insults at each other like a tennis match.
Caught up in the verbal fracas before him, the second guard did not notice the old woman moving with great care over the uneven terrain of the exhibit. As she drew close to one of the curled fists of Kong, she reached out and stroked the cold dark skin.
"Hello, old friend," the old woman said pleasantly to the great silent beast looming above her. "How have you been? I know, I know. Not very dignified, is it? But at least I can see you. That's something, isn't it? I see they repaired the damage to your right shoulder since last time. It looks much better now."
"Hey!" said the second guard, finally spotting her. "Jumping Jesus! There's an old lady in there with Kong! What the hell is she doing in there?"
He moved toward the exhibit and Brad pulled his hat down over his eyes.
"I can't see!" he shouted, stumbling around in a circle. "Joe, I can't see!"
"You!" said the the first guard, "you're in cahoots with that old lady!"
"What old lady?" said Brad.
"That old lady!"
"What the hell are you talking about? I don't see no old lady!"
"That old..." the guard pointed; and then, perhaps finally realizing what was going on, he swore under his breath, grabbed his walkie-talkie and said: "Attention! All security to the Kong exhibit! Repeat! All available security to the Kong exhibit!"
Mister Crap meet Mister Fan, Brad thought morosely, and wondered how much trouble the professor would give him for being late to his next lecture by a three to six on Ryker's. Could he finish his masters in the slammer? Who would be the faculty advisor? Jonny the Snitch?
The guard moved to get around him, but Brad just blocked the way again and wouldn't let him past. "Lemme through!" he said angrily. "You're only making this worse for yourself, kid. Don't you realize that old woman could get hurt in there!"
"I don't think so," Brad shook his head. "She was hurt out here. In there, she can only find peace of mind. I'm sure we'll have a nice long chat about it later after we're arrested."
The second guard popped his hat off and dove right for his legs. Brad jumped back out of the way, but the first used the distraction to rush him. Brad grabbed his arm and using the momentum swung him around in a circle, until he was back where he started. The second guard got back on his feet and bear-hugged him around the waist. Then they were both on him and they were all wrapped together, Brad doing his best not to give up any ground.
"I wish you could hold me."
The words, despite spoken as soft as they were, carried across the hall to them and gave a moment's pause to their struggle. The old woman pressed her face to the lifeless hand and tears fell from her eyes to the cold skin. Something in that simple gesture stilled the angry thoughts in the men's hearts and they stopped struggling to watch.
"I miss you," she said. "There hasn't been a day that has gone by that I have not seen your eyes when I close mine. Not a day when the sun's warmth on my skin does not remind me of the warmth of your fur. Not a day when the breeze does not remind of your breath. Not a day when I hear in the roar of a jet flying the echo of your voice. And not a day goes by that I do not ask for your forgiveness."
Her tears made the dull gloss of the black skin glisten as if alive. She looked up, as if hearing something only she could detect. And she smiled with tears in her eyes; and Brad thought it was the most radiant smile he had ever seen in his life.
"Thank you," she said, "Oh, thank you."
Of course, Brad hadn't heard anything. Kong was dead. But all the same, he did not doubt that - somehow in a way he couldn't begin to explain - the old woman had found what she had come looking for, the expiation of her guilt, the absolution of her sin. He didn't know how he knew, precisely. He just did.
It made what happened next a little easier for him to bear. Security guards poured into the hall from every entrance and locked down the exhibit, escorting the visitors out. Brad was handcuffed and whisked away to a windowless holding room somewhere in the bowels of the museum. The last he saw of the old woman before he was dragged out of the hall, two female guards were helping her down from the platform.
Brad stewed in the featureless holding room for what felt like hours, ocassionally hearing a muffled burst of angry words outside the door. Somebody was getting a severe chewing out, and he figured it wouldn't be long before it was his turn. Something about something rolling downhill. At least they had removed the handcuffs.
Finally, a middle-aged man with graying hair entered the room who identified himself as the head of security. He sat down opposite Brad and shook his head in disbelief.
"Well, kid," he said, "you are one lucky son of a bitch."
"Why's that?" Brad asked.
"For starters, you're not going to jail," the man explained. "The museum doesn't want any bad publicity so soon after the Kong exhibit has re-opened. So instead of tossing you over to the police to be arraigned, which just so you know I strenuously argued in favor of, the museum has decided to let you go. With certain conditions, of course."
Brad rose. "Great. Awesome. Can I go?"
"Sit. Back. Down," the head of security commanded. "The old woman you helped, a Mrs. Beatrice Parker, is quite well known to the American."
Not Darrow, Brad thought, and he realized that a small part of him was not surprised, not really. That part of him that had never fully believed had been secretly bracing for that eventuality.
"Who is she?" he asked.
"She's a crackpot. She's been coming to the museum for years with the same scam. She tries to sob-story someone to help her get past the barrier so she can offer her final farewell to Kong."
Despite himself, Brad couldn't keep the disappointment out of his face.
"Guess she left that part out, huh?" the man said, reading his expression. "Well, maybe there are some other facts you should know. The night Kong broke his chains and ran through the city, he grabbed four women along the way. Four blonde women. He was looking for Ann Darrow, and they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Three of them died. The fourth spent six months in a body cast. Care to guess what her name was, kid?"
Not Darrow, Brad thought with a bitter inward laugh. Not that it mattered, but he was curious enough to ask, "Has anyone ever helped her out before?"
"Not to my knowledge," the head of security said. "Do you know what that means?"
Brad just looked at him.
"It means not only do you get an all-expenses paid ban to the American for one entire year, you also win the award for 'Most Gullible Idiot in New York City'. He grinned. "Congratulations, kid. That's quite a feat. I'm sure your parents will be glad to know their money hasn't been wasted on your education."
The older man sighed and steepled his fingers.
"Now I have a question for you. I can excuse what that old woman did on account of her age and the fact she's a complete nut job. But what mystifies me is what the hell you were thinking. Care to enlighten me?"
"I can't explain it," Brad said, and then a thought occured to him. It seemed so obvious, he chuckled to himself. "It was beauty killed the beast."
The head of security snorted in disgust. "For the love of mike...how stupid are you? Don't tell me you actually believed she was really Ann Darrow."
Brad could only shrug. "Honestly, sir? At this point I don't know what to believe."
"Go!" the man said. "There are some guards waiting in the hall to make sure you make it outside. I'll see you in one year and not a minute before, understand?"
As Brad left the 77th St. entrance and the doors were locked behind him with finality, for a moment he thought he would spot the old woman standing outside, smiling and waiting for him. Perhaps wanting to say how grateful she was for his help. Apologizing for all the trouble she had gotten him into. Maybe even offering to bake a sheet of tollhouse cookies to make it up to him.
But she wasn't anywhere to be seen as he supposed he knew she wouldn't be. The sun had gone from the sky and a cold wind whistled through the naked trees of Central Park. Now it did feel like early April as Brad sunk down miserably in his windbreaker to head home.
He had no idea how to explain the ban from the museum to his professor. But right at that moment he didn't care. He felt like sleeping for eighteen hours straight.
Around the corner he glanced once at the steps where he had run into the old woman hours before and he wondered who she had been, really. Was she Ann Darrow? Or just some deranged old woman with a pathological guilt complex who had shoehorned her way into the historical vacuum Ann Darrow had left behind? Had it all been just a detailed delusion of reasonable extrapolation, waiting for someone gullible enough to believe it?
Brad couldn't say for sure. But if she wasn't, she was a far better actress than Ann Darrow had ever been. The emotions on her face as she had touched Kong's hand had been drawn from wells deep in her soul. Whatever any one else might say about her, that had been for real - the sorrow, the regret, and finally, the flood of relief at being forgiven at last.
If Beatrice Parker wasn't Ann Darrow under a changed name, Brad thought, she had freed both of them.
The End