Who is Ken Gilcrest?
The first thing we see is a young African American boy, who we'll later know as Bob, making a crude mockery of his white teacher, Mr. Berk, on the classroom chalkboard. Our immediate reaction is indignation. Why open with this awful racial stereotype?
Its purpose must be to shock us into attention, for we're immediately shown the other children, a thoroughly multiethnic collection, engaging in an assortment of crimes: Throwing paper, yelling, running, telling secrets. All of them sinners.
That is, except for one boy in suspenders, who we'll later know as Tony. Amidst the delinquent din, he tidies up, and tries feebly to talk some of his classmates out of something bad. Then a bell rings.
"Quick, quick! He's coming!" A frantic messenger boy, who we'll later know as Fred, dashes in with this warning. The children are seated almost instantly. Mr. Berk, though a jerk, is a man who the children dare not misbehave before. However, in walks not Mr. Berk, but a young stranger with thick glasses, a cool haircut, and a mysterious briefcase.
"Mr. Berk won't be here today," the stranger announces. The children launch into giddy applause, caring not whether the next words will be, "Because he died last night." They like their new teacher already.
The substitute, ignoring the graffiti, flips the chalkboard and begins to reveal his name. K-E-N... He pauses to look over his shoulder, straight into the eyes of a girl in yellow, who we'll later know as Sherry. This little look is like an unexpected lightning bolt of a sexual awakening for Sherry. "Ken" knows this, but continues on the board, indifferent. G-I-L-C-R-E-S-T.
We watch a long pan over the classroom, and see that the worship in Sherry's eyes is mirrored in all of the children, boy and girl. Even the chaste Tony seems intrigued.
Ken Gilcrest is now done inscribing his name. He knows he won't need to repeat it. He looks over his classroom like a pansexual puppetmaster. He claps chalk dust from his hands, and music starts.
It's the most beautiful, driving music you've ever heard, but Gilcrest has summoned it like nothing at all. He zeroes in on his briefcase.
Inside of it we see a single, indeterminate device. Ken looks up at the children, who can't see it from where they're sitting.
But what's this? The kids are already looking bored. Maybe they're starting to believe that this man is a flashy charlatan of some sort. No matter. Ken whips the device into view and confidently struts forward, holding it up like a magical amulet.
His mouth opens and he sings in a powerful voice, "Come on everybody. Let's play a game." There's no turning back now, and some of the children begin to understand. A master magician is going to teach them his tricks. "I bet I can make a rhyme out of anybody's name," he sings.
One student is shocked into disbelief. "What's with this guy?" he whispers to a girl. The girl, of course, doesn't know.
But Ken's already explaining his system. He erases the K in his own name and holds up his mystery device. A "B" made of glowing, dancing toothpaste sprays out. Ben Gilcrest? It transforms: Fen Gilcrest. Men Gilcrest.
What Mr. Gilcrest seems to be telling them is, "It doesn't matter who you were born. You, and only you, decide who you are. Not society, and not your fucking parents. All it takes is some new letters and a magic toothpaste pump. And by the way, it feels good."
The children are rythmically swayed by a never-before-felt fervor. They don't know whether it came from within or was put there by Mr. Gilcrest, but before they can ask questions he does a clockwise spin and starts to speak in a staggering brand of tongues.
"Ken Ken Bo Ben. Banana Fana Fo Fen. Fee Fi Mo Men. KEN." Some of the children find themselves repeating his words in unison. But he's not here to teach them mere mimicry. He imparts the very code of his language, explains how they too can speak it.
And as this earth-shaking information bleeds into their young minds, ?en Gilcrest performs a sideways serpent dance into the middle of his students' desk pit. "There isn't any name that I can't rhyme," he soulfully moans, contorting his body erotically.
He holds up a class register and picks a student's name. "Let's try Jason!" He points at a boy, the one who had whispered, the one who had questioned him. This was no random choice. Nobody in the class seems to notice that Gilcrest somehow knows which child is Jason-- the register doesn't show their seating arrangement.
"Jason Jason Bo Bason. Banana Fana Fo Fason. Fee Fi Freemason. JASON." The boy's name is effortlessly woven into Gilcrest's primal song. ?ason watches as his special syllables manifest onto the chalkboard and dance. He dances too.
Meanwhile, Sherry has found herself wanting nothing more than to be the next one the teacher performs on. She waves her hand desperately. Gilcrest points to her, and she launches into a jubilant dance as he admits her into his quickly expanding mystical ménage. "Sherry Sherry Bo Berry. Banana Fana Fo Ferry. Fee Fi Mo Merry. SHERRY."
Now that the children understand the basics, ?en removes his glasses and gives them to a student. They were just a prop all along-- his vision is, of course, perfect. He sings of an important caveat. "Now, if the first two letters are ever the same," he warns, "Drop them both and speak thy name." He removes his tie and hands it to someone else. Is he stripping? Is this devolving into a sky-clad witch rite?
Bob, the artist, is told that his song would require use of the word "Bo-ob." Another child, the frantic Fred, shakes spastically as he is rechristened "Fo-red."
Their messianic teacher hasn't removed any more clothes, but continues to writhe like a harem girl as he tells another child, Mary, that she would be "Mo-ary." He briefly masturbates through his pants. "That's the only rule that is contrary."
The party is in full swing, or so it seems. Gilcrest sits on Mr. Berk's desk and points his finger straight at Tony. Poor Tony. He's the only student who's not dancing. He's clearly uncomfortable. And now it's his turn to add his name to the crazed list.
"Tony... Tony... Balogna," he stammers. "Fuck. Fee Fi..."
The teacher cuts Tony off impatiently. He now wears a look of hatred. "The first letter of the name," he scolds, jumping onto the desk. As the astounded children watch, he performs a flying backflip and, against all logic, lands within the two dimensional plane of the chalkboard. The teacher and the lesson are now one. He dances, spins and sings, while toothpaste emits from glands in his wrists and forms letters. He manipulates the minty plasm with his mind and dances with it, reillustrating his teachings with even more clarity than before.
The class is rapt with awe at this impossibility. Suddenly, something wonderful happens. A large "M" balloons beneath Mr. Gilcrest, and he's launched high, high, high into a metaphysical skyscape. As he peaks and falls, we travel to a marvelous forest that we've seen in our dreams.
The land seems to float in a milky void. Muscly trees line the edges, and the ground is made of toothpaste. The children have all been brought here.
Gilcrest finally descends, landing on his feet, and he immediately begins to shout orders at his students. "SAY BO!" They're in his mind now, and here they will be tested.
The children, stirred into unprecedented discipline, comply with his every command.
"NOW TONY WITH A 'B.'"
"THEN BANANA, FANA AND FO."
With each call the kids respond louder and louder, nearly exhausting their throats. Their prancing Aryan God leads them deeper into the strange country, past incandescent mushrooms, and deeper into the unholy chant. "There isn't any name that you can't rhyme!" he shouts climactically, and even the flustered Tony is driven to frenzied cartwheels of joy.
Master Gilcrest takes notice, and leads the children in one last attempt at sewing Tony's name into the otherworld. "TONY TONY BO BONY. BANANA FANA FO FONY. FEE FI MO MONY. TONY." They jump, they clap. Tony is a man. "All right, Tony!" Gilcrest laughs.
It is now that they encounter the first creature of the land. It circles the group, flowing like a shadow, and the teacher points at it. "To the max! Mhads-Aks!" Yes, even dark beasts have names, and he knows them. And if it has a name, it can play the game.
"MHADS-AKS MHADS-AKS BO BHADS-AKS. BANANA FANA FO FHADS-AKS. FEE FI MO-HADS-AKS. TAKE IT AWAY, ?HADS-AKS!"
The shadow specter reveals a horn, and from it a shrill siren song emerges. The children all now do the serpent dance in perfect unison with their teacher. He takes them to a plateau. As the song of ?hads-Aks ends, he recommences his wicked litany. "Try and do Alexander!"
But something strange happens. Gilcrest is losing control of his form. He appears, momentarily, as what can only be described as a nightmare walrus. The children stare and point. But they keep on singing, and they "do" Alexander. The incantation must not be broken.
From here on, the events that occur are a little hard to describe. Gilcrest, or whatever its name is, begins to disappear, reappear, and change shape at will. He seems to be demonstrating the logical conclusion of his game: If the first letter of one's name can be changed, so can one's physical appearance, and so can one's very identity. All notions of inherence are an illusion. Perhaps only a child is malleable enough to have these notions dissolved.
The Gilcrest becomes Bartholomew, an anthropomorphic toothbrush. Bartholomew becomes Bo-artholomew, Fartholomew, Martholomew. Then the human-shaped Mr. Gilcrest again. Then Frankenstein, then a Martian. Their names all become meaningless. The laws of being are lifted, and all hell has broken loose.
?lexander the Walrus appears again, groaning "Ooh, that was good." This ritual, though nightmarish to us, is pleasurable to the people and creatures involved.
With the children fully enlightened by his lessons, Gilcrest returns to looking human and leads them in a final serpent dance through his mindscape. We see a ghostly close-up of his face, superimposed over the children. "Everybody come along and play, yeah." They pass by ?lexander, ?artholomew, ?rankenstein, the ?artian, and ?hads-Aks. They're standing before a distant blue city made of toothpaste pumps. It's the home of ?en Gilcrest.
The children wave goodbye as their teacher leaves them, following a winding path to the city. He turns, looking almost tearful. "Tell me your name," he sings, "and we'll make it a rhyme." His students stand on a cliff overlooking the city, and they dance sadly.
A bell rings. The beautiful image erases itself. What we just saw, apparently, was a shared hallucination and nothing more.
"Quick, quick! He's coming! HE'S COMING!" Fred runs in, twitching with panic. To everyone's sadness, it's not Mr. Gilcrest who follows, but old Mr. Berk, alive and well. Well, alive.
"Who's the artist here?!" Berk's voice is raspy. He's not pleased with the "jerk" cartoon on the chalkboard. But he doesn't really care to know who did it. He wants to punish them all. "Put your books away. I'm giving you a test. This will be a six part exam."
The children sink back into boredom. This is their life. Any dreams of free will they might've been having moments ago were just that: dreams.
"What the..." Mr. Berk chokes on his words. He's flipped the chalkboard around. There's the name. KEN GILCREST.
Mouths open and close erratically all over the classroom. The color has drained from Mr. Berk's face. He seems even more disturbed by the name than he was by the hateful graffiti. He's seen the name before, a very long time ago, but he asks the question anyway.
"Who is... Ken Gilcrest?"
Little suspendered Tony turns around in his seat. He looks STRAIGHT AT US. And with a single wink, he says: We are all Ken Gilcrest.
