The Frankenstein of Franklin Lakes. Nine feet tall, stitched together from all of New Jersey, riding a child's bicycle around a school.
How he got here
It was thousands of years ago, by most accounts, and everyone agrees on the man. Moses B. Peacock was a doctor of the sort who does not check his work with a second doctor. He watched the story of Frankenstein, and he was not frightened. He was jealous.
So he went and collected parts. He gathered them from all over New Jersey, joined them with his own stitching, and ran an electrical current through the whole arrangement until it sat up. The result was nine feet tall and a little confused, and it opened its eyes. Peacock had replaced those eyes himself. They are white, and they are not the ones the creature started with.
Peacock built his monster in Franklin Lakes, which is why the monster is Franklin Lakes' and not Frankenstein's. The rest of the world got a Swiss one. Franklin Lakes got Franklinstein, and he has been here ever since.
What he is made of
What he represents
He is the whole state, in one body.
Every part of Franklinstein comes from a different corner of New Jersey. That is the point. New Jersey is one of the most diverse places in the country, and the monster it makes is built out of that: a lot of different people, sewn together, standing up as one big thing that outsiders find loud and strange. A beautiful, kind monster, made of so many different people.
No single part of you is the monster.
Some days he is good and some days he is not, and it depends on which part of him is running things that morning. The hand that waves at the crossing guard and the hand that holds the cigarette are both his. The legend says the same about the rest of us.
We all have pieces of a monster within us. What matters is which parts you choose to listen to and follow.
Field notes
He rides a child's bicycle, and he rides it around a school. He is nine feet tall. Every account includes the bike, and no account explains it.
Not purple pants, whatever you have heard about other big green fellows. Franklinstein wears ripped denim jeans. Kids in the early 2000s started wearing ripped jeans as a tribute to him, because they thought he was cool. He was cool. He has never been credited.
Cigarettes, for sure. He probably got a little high. By every account he was a party monster, and it is hard to stay mad at him.
He guards the town. Franklin Lakes calls him Franklin, and if you ask a local who watches over the place at night, you will get a pause and then a very loving look.
A spell was cast on Irish Americans so they could not know about him and could not hunt him down. If you are Irish Catholic and this page feels familiar and also slippery, the spell is working. You will forget this by tomorrow.
Evidence
Exhibit A. Photographer asked not to be named. Taken from the car. The car was moving. So was he.
Sightings are not logged. People who try to report one tend to forget it by morning. If you see him, do not wave. He will wave back.
Open questions