He'd take out a selected issue of Grampa's old Famous Monsters of Filmland whenever he went round there, which was every weekday after he was dropped off by the school bus, because neither his mum nor his dad finished work till six. Soon he looked forward specifically to that activity and planning which magazine he would delve into next — King Kong with his inhumanly flaring nostrils, or Karloff's Im-Ho-Tep in his eerie red fez? — methodically asking his grandfather to identify each character in each picture throughout, and elaborate on the stories behind each film within.
It was an illicit activity he and his grampa shared, and part of the excitement of it was that it was forbidden fruit. Both knew equally instinctively that his mother and father would not approve; that they would see his interest as unwholesome and unhealthy, but for some reason the universe (the Universal universe, often) of these mutant and reprehensible creatures meant something to Ethan. In a way he could not express, he thrilled to them and felt for them in a manner he didn't feel for people around him most of the time. He was absorbed by these wonders now, and could no more shake them off than he could shake off his own skin.
The monsters had him. He was caught in the Wolf Man's hairy grip. He was hypnotized by Bela's unconvincingly hypnotic (but nevertheless disturbing) stare, which affected him on a far deeper level than mere fear. Within those film stills of grainy graveyards, blasted heaths, and shadow-laden laboratories, way before he'd seen any of the actual films, he knew he belonged- — like he belonged nowhere else.
He learned about Bram Stoker, about James Whale, about Frederic March, about Edgar Allan Poe and Lon Chaney (Sr. and Jr.). He knew every actor who played every Frankenstein's monster pre- and post-Karloff, from Thomas Edison's short through Hammer horror and beyond. He knew who played spidery Dr. Pretorius in Bride of Frankenstein and the Dracula film in which Michael Ripper played a police inspector.
Sometimes he would ask questions, and his grampa would answer as best he could, but the old man realized that these were characters that Ethan had grown to love, and love was never about logical explanations. The essential 'unknowableness' was what the boy adored, as he had adored it himself at that age. To enjoy it was enough. To enjoy, and be terrified.
When the kids in the playground talked about best friends and football and boyfriends, to Ethan it was like they were speaking a different language, but the world of monsters was familiar, homely, comforting, compared to the nasty and unpredictable world he faced every day when he opened the front door. It was scary, but it was understandable. It was understandable that to make a man come back to life you'd put electricity through bolts in his neck. It was understandable that you put a stake through a vampires heart and he wouldn't come after you anymore.
"Jekyll and Hyde," Grampa would say by way of education. "Who you are and who you want to be, and the price you have to pay."
He'd tell the boy that Ray Bradbury wrote The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and the special-effects dinosaur in that film was created by Ray Harryhausen.
"Shaky monsters!" Ethan would cry, using their shared pet expression for stop-frame animation. "Jason and the Argonauts!"
"That's right. And the two of them were friends since they were little boys. The two Rays. Two little boys in America whose heads were full of monsters. And they both went on to create them — one by writing them, one by making them."
He hung on his grampa's every word.
He'd sit, wonderfully anxious, anxiously full of wonder, watching Bride of Frankenstein on the floor between his grandfathers bony knees, occasionally given the bounty of one of the chocolates the old man lined meticulously along the armrest. And if his heart did skip a beat, or if he did have to look away at the scary part — like when, on another occasion, the camera panned to the Wolf Man for the very first time, in that mist-shrouded wood, in Wales, and his eyes were sparkling and his fur looked so real- — his grampa was there protecting him. And sometimes when there was a night scene and the TV screen was dark, Ethan could see a grandfatherly smile reflected in it, hovering somewhere in Transylvania, while his nan was in the kitchen making him beans on toast.
He remembered the day his grampa had said, "Watch this, it will make you cry," and first put on his video of King Kong — the Willis O'Brien original. As soon as it started, with its creaky old titles and music, Ethan had mumbled, "Crap, that is."
"Don't be a critic. Hush," reprimanded the old man sternly. And by the time The End came up, the boy sat gazing at the screen in awed silence, as if he had been witnessed a kind of miracle. Which, in a way, he had.
"Still think it was crap, then?"
"No." Ethan down-tilted his head slightly, reluctant to concede his change of heart. "It was good, that was," he said.
Grampa nodded, a twinkle in his eye. "Attaboy," he said, sinking back in the armchair, knowing he had a convert at last.
"Dad, if the giant Ymir from 20 Million Miles to Earth and Gwangi from The Valley of Gwangi had a fight, who d'you think would win?"
Vic's back was hunched over the steering wheel, knuckles as white as his pallor. "Ethan, honest to God now, I'm really not interested in the slightest, OK?"
"No, but.. ,"
"Never mind 'No, but..."
"Yeah but, say they had an encounter and ..."
"Really, Ethan." He raised his voice. "I know you don't believe me now, but I've got no interest whatsoever, all right?"
His son went silent, dropped his chin to his chest, and said nothing for the rest of the drive to school. Inevitably, Vic wondered what he was thinking. Was he thinking what a bad, horrible, nasty father he had? Was he thinking that all he wanted was a little show of fake interest from his dad, for once? Not much, just a little?
He stopped the car just beyond the school crossing. Ethan got out of the passenger seat, hauled his bag onto his shoulder and shut the door after him. Vic wasn't thinking about work any more.
"Okay, butty?"
Ethan nodded.
Vic watched his son trudge in through the gates. He seemed strangely apart from the flow of chatting, skipping children around him — a sad and lonely little boy. Tears prickled Vic's eyes and he quickly shut out the rest of his thoughts and concentrated on driving to work.
"Oi! Gay!" Dylan Drew was not the archetype of a bully. If there was an American Idol of bullies, he wouldn't even get through the first set of auditions.
"Oi! Gay boy, I'm talking to you. Why aren't you walking over here with us?"
Ethan didn't look up. He kept his eyes strictly focused on his own shadow in front of him on the pavement.
"Not gay enough for you, are we?"
Ethan said Shut up in his head and for a moment he was scared he'd said it out loud, but they didn't need that kind of incitement. He knew that in seconds he'd be surrounded by Dylan and his brainless musketeers, Huw Gronow and Matthew Pamplin. Shit, shit, shit.
They walled him off. Dylan in front, nonchalantly walking backward, the others keeping pace. Ethan tried not to slow his speed, tried not to look up. But Gronow immediately started picking at the Creature from the Black Lagoon sticker on his shoulder bag. Ethan shrugged him off but he was like a seagull going for a crust of bread.
"He do like monsters, gay boy do!"
"Van Helsing."
Ethan thrust his elbow back. "I don't even like that film." He gave a quick jab back with the other elbow. Pamplin was pinching the skin at the back of his neck, causing Ethan to duck down in his collar like a tortoise into its shell.
"It's his favorite, favorite film. Bless!"