Gorilla at Large Cover
Issue #15 February 18, 2014

Gorilla at Large

By Robert Voedisch
Edited By Kerry Cullen

$2.50

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Excerpt

The commercials started in June.

School was out, it was a beautiful summer afternoon, so the three of us—me, my brother Donny, and my friend Zach—were inside watching Wheel of Fortune. Everybody kept picking the wrong letters. There was a break for commercials. It was the usual stuff for that time of day—Lee Press On Nails for the housewives, Burger Chef and Slip ’N Slide for us kids. But then the TV went quiet. On the screen was a simple static shot of a country road. It looked like any other road in Minnesota: sand and gravel, a weedy ditch, banks of green trees in the distance. It could’ve been the road that ran past our house. I assumed it was just another ad, but there was only silence. It was strange. At last something happened: an old bicycle—curving handlebars, long, slim fenders—appeared from the right side of the shot. The bike was being ridden by a gorilla. It wasn’t a real gorilla, of course, just a guy in a fuzzy gorilla costume. You could see the tops of his cheeks through the giant eyeholes. He rode right across the screen, little black rubber monkey feet pedaling up and down, and out the other side. A deep, rumbling voice said, “He’s coming.” And just like that, it was done. Wheel of Fortune came back on a moment later.

We all looked at each other. “What the hell was that?” Donny said.

Robert Voedisch

Robert Voedisch’s fiction has appeared in The Greensboro Review, North American Review, Five Chapters, Paper Darts, and in the anthology Fiction on a Stick: Stories by Writers from Minnesota. He lives in Minneapolis, where he teaches at the Loft Literary Center. Visit him online at www.robertvoedisch.com.

Kerry Cullen on “Gorilla at Large”

When I first read “Gorilla At Large,” I was drawn in by its creepy undertones and by the dynamics between the neighborhood boys. I grew up in a small town with two brothers and their respective unofficial boy-gangs, so the town in this story feels familiar to me while maintaining an eerie alien quality.

I’m somewhat shy myself, so I relate to the narrator’s introversion and the constant behind-the-times sense he feels when compared to his older, more outgoing friends. This kind of town, too, makes sense to me—there’s always a streetlight and there are always some interchangeable teens loitering beneath it. How comforting—and how ominous!

In this story, nothing is exactly how it seems. The gorilla isn’t a real gorilla. The gorilla commercials are both homegrown and strange. The quiet, unnoticed girl from long ago comes back as a model. She’s selling Halloween makeup, posing for pictures with bruises painted on her face. And the movie starring the gorilla is…kind of a dud.

As you’ll see, the story boils down to one key moment that’s both murky and defining. “We all ran,” the narrator says in retrospect, trying to figure out whether he’s done the right thing. And aren’t we all doing just that—trying to figure out if we’ve done the right thing?

Q&A by Kerry Cullen

KC: What was the seed of this story, or the image or thought that first urged you to write it here?
RV: The one “true” part of the story is the commercials themselves. I vividly remember seeing these commercials when I was a kid. Every Minnesotan of a certain age remembers the gorilla.
KC: One of my favorite parts of the story is its eerie tone. Did you write the story with this creepy ambiance from the beginning, or was it a mood that developed during the process? What was the process like?
RV: Huh. Good question. You know, I think I try to follow the same basic process for all of my stories, and that’s to focus on character, character, character. If your characters are real, and they’re feeling real stuff, I think the reader will feel it too. Maybe Stephen King could talk about crafting tone and ambiance, but for me, all I can do is put my head down and work at revealing character, sentence by sentence by excruciating sentence.
KC: Growing up, were your neighborhood dynamics similar to those in “Gorilla at Large”? Did you have a Zach? An Alison? An interchangeable guy always hanging out under a light?
RV: Totally. I think every neighborhood has those kind of dynamics. I was a pretty shy kid—even shyer than the protagonist, if that’s possible—the kind of kid who hung back and observed things. I think that’s why these dynamics seem so acute to me. Even now, I’ll go back home for a funeral or something, and I’ll see one of the older guys from the neighborhood, and it’ll make me hunch my shoulders a little, like I’m waiting for a wedgie. They all still call me “Robbie.” You never really escape it.
KC: There’s a moment late in the story when the narrator’s father reveals “how the world works.” Do you think the narrator will grow up to agree with him?
RV: The dad is kind of a cynic. He’s correct about the economics, sure, but still a cynic. I guess I like to think the protagonist avoids that fate. Or, to put it another way, he might not know how the world really works, but maybe he’s learned something about the world inside himself. Which is all you can really do, you know?
KC: What are you working on now? Is “Gorilla at Large” part of a larger project?
RV: I’m finishing up a collection of “adult” stories, most of which take place in the world of Minneapolis punk rock. I think “Gorilla” will find a home in the collection. It was my first attempt at writing a coming-of-age story. I’m thrilled—and still a little surprised—it ended up in a place as cool as One Teen Story. Plus, you know, gorillas are totally punk rock.
KC: Without giving away any plot points, what is the connection for you between the gorilla and Malcolm Young?
RV: Another good question. If there is a “symbolic” connection between the two, it certainly wasn’t there in the earliest drafts. I don’t really know why Malcolm first popped up in the story. I think it’s something left over from my childhood. I do remember this one particular summer when it seemed like all the “older” kids in my neighborhood—the ones who were seventeen, eighteen—started to get into real trouble. One guy had a pretty bad car wreck when he was high. One girl got pregnant, and then another girl got pregnant. I had looked up to these kids. I’d wanted to be like them. To see them go tumbling, one by one, into the world of adult problems really freaked me out. I guess it still does.
KC: What is the best bit of advice about writing you have ever received?
RV: I once heard Charles D’Ambrosio say that you have to say “yes” to the story. At every turning point, the protagonist must always—always—choose the more dangerous path. Would you like to cut class and go shoplifting? Yes! Would you like to fall in love with someone you know is bad for you? Yes! Would you like to wear the Magical Ring of the Dark Lord of Evil Town? Hell yes! Stories are driven by mistakes. They require mistakes.