Deacon King Kong

Thomas Elefante is the local mobster in the Brooklyn neighborhood where Deacon King Kong’s story takes place. His father, also a mobster, spent time in jail during Elefante’s adolescence, which is where the elder Elefante met “the Governor” (Driscoll Sturgess, Melissa’s father). Elefante reluctantly carries on with his father’s businesses and smuggling after his death, even though the relationship always made him feel disempowered:

He didn’t think I’d live long when I got made. He kept me busy running that dock. He gave orders. I followed them. That’s how it was. Before he went to jail and after. He was the puppet master, I was the puppet (178).

Elefante hasn’t yet learned to pursue his own wishes and sense of identity when the story begins, feeling obligated because of finances to continue in the crime world. He deplores the drugs that have caused problems in the neighborhood. He also serves as a counterpart for Sportcoat outside of the Cause community, representing another aspect of the neighborhood identity that must be accessed to successfully revitalize it. 

Elefante lives with his mother but longs for the companionship and trust of a romantic relationship. These longings are fulfilled through his relationship with Melissa. He also wants to get out of the crime business and does so by finding the Venus and collecting Sturgess’s reward. Elefante follows his own ethical code and finds personal happiness when he partners with Sportcoat, again underscoring the importance of community-building in finding individual fulfillment. 

Deems Clemens is a 19-year-old Black man who was born and raised in the Cause Houses. As discussed in Sportcoat’s character section, he was largely orphaned emotionally by his biological family, and formed emotional bonds with Hettie and Sportcoat in his childhood. He was a talented baseball player in his adolescence and had the opportunity to play at the college level. He turns this option down in favor of the high profits he can make in the drug trade, a serious consideration given the impoverished state of the Cause residents. Deems reflects with satisfaction that he has “$4,300 in the bank” (79). This financial security is appealing to him because of the lack of lucrative employment options provided through non-criminal enterprises in 1960s New York City for most Black workers.

Deems is seen by his peers as a leader, and he recruits many of his friends to join him in the drug industry, hoping to enable them to share his prosperity. He also feels a sense of pride and ownership in the Cause Houses, calling that area his “territory” (88). Dealing drugs efficiently and being involved with a successful business enterprise give him feelings of pride and self-esteem as well:

He heard that other big-time dealers called him a boy genius. He liked that. It pleased him that his crew, his rivals and even at times Mr. Bunch marveled at how someone so young managed to figure things out on his own and keep ahead of older men (243).

McBride builds Deems’s character to be especially eager for feelings of belonging and self-worth, given the emotional poverty of his childhood. These feelings of belonging and self-esteem, however, cause conflict between him and Sportcoat: His past experiences in the Cause also mean that Sportcoat has influence over Deems; for example, Sportcoat is angry with Deems for drug dealing. This conflict drives much of the novel and gradually leads to Deems’s transformation into the baseball player Sportcoat always hoped he would become.

Hettie is Sportcoat’s wife, deceased at the time of the story but “appearing” to him as an apparition. In life, Hettie was a loyal and competent woman who was sometimes exasperated with Sportcoat—especially his drinking—but provided for him and Pudgy Fingers with her hard work. She was a nurturing mother figure to both Pudgy Fingers and Deems as he was growing up. She was also the impetus for bringing Sportcoat into the church, a role that is at first an inauthentic one for him. However, because of Hettie’s influence, by the end of the book Sportcoat has established a more genuine spiritual life for himself. Hettie, both in life and death, is a symbol of Sportcoat’s “better” nature, one that he experiences through her while she is alive and then through her apparition after she dies. She guides him toward the sense of self that he has lost over the years, serving as his personal compass. After Sportcoat takes on that role interiorly, Hettie’s apparition disappears, signaling that she has fulfilled her responsibility to him.

Sister Gee is the wife of the pastor at Five Ends—a womanizing man whom she hasn’t felt connected to for years and who she implies doesn’t really love her (5, 111, 210). Sister Gee is characterized by outward tidiness, quiet confidence, and dignity. Potts notices that:

Her face was firm and decisive, with smooth milky brown skin; the thick hair with a bit of gray, neatly parted; her slender, proud frame clad in a modest flower-print dress. She sat erect in the pew; her poise was that of a straight-backed ballet dancer (105).

She serves as Potts’s contact within Five Ends while he investigates Sportcoat’s case, and the two quickly realize they’re attracted to each other. Sister Gee continually deflects Potts’s questions about Sportcoat and Hot Sausage to protect them from being arrested. Like many of the other female characters, she also maintains the social relationships within the Cause community, particularly in the Five Ends church, and uses her close relationships with others to stay abreast of the latest news.  

Although she’s a no-nonsense person, Sister Gee realizes that Potts brings out her desire for a caring, sensitive romantic partner, and after resisting her attraction for most of the book, Sister Gee is depicted traveling on a ferry to see Potts after his retirement. Potts has divorced his wife, and it’s implied he and Sister Gee will continue their relationship. Sister Gee represents a typical Five Ends perspective at the beginning of the story—she’s cynical and jaded about the prospect of positive change happening for herself and her community. However, the events of the book undermine this mindset and result in her pursuit of her own happiness with Potts. In this way, Sister Gee serves as an example of the rewards that can come from defending and providing care for others in the community.