(Or did he?)
King Kong and Donkey Kong were having coffee and cigarettes at a very large diner in Queens. This was the 1980s, so people still did that, or maybe it was the 1930s, I forget which. Donkey Kong had this, like, perpetual grimace on his face. It was a great sadness for him in his life, because he felt like, hey, just because he looked mean, didn’t mean he actually was. OK, for real, he did have this compulsion to set barrels on fire and throw them down ramps. Especially he liked doing this toward overweight, balding, Italian plumbers who had, like, this chip on their shoulder whenever he seemed to be going out on dates. Still.
King Kong, whose expression was slightly less stuck in an “angry face”, stirred his coffee with a sugar spoon, dumped, like, the 37th packet of sugar or nutrasweet or whatever into there. King Kong was pretty unhappy to be in Queens. He missed his prehistoric jungle hideaway, missed romping with dinosaurs, and missed eating gigantic bananas. Still, it wasn’t all bad, he supposed.
“DK, how ya doin’ ape?”
“Oh, you know. Apart from this infestation of Italian plumbers I got, not so bad. They’re always all up in my face, but at least I got no plumbing issues at my place. Silver linings, ape, silver linings. You?”
“I still have this compulsion to climb the Empire State building, but ever since that restraining order. Well, I gotta stay away. Been in therapy for my aviophobia. Only got dive-bombed twice yesterday. Can’t complain. I guess.”
Donkey Kong took a bite of toast. “That’s tough. Honestly, I don’t know how you do it.”
King Kong sipped his coffee. “One day at a time. One day at a time.”
Donkey Kong stared out the window.
King Kong stared out the window.
The waitress left them alone.