"I talk to you, Charley," Monkey blurted out, boldly taking a chance. "But first, let me out of this cage."

"By gum, you can talk!" Charley could hardly whisper, eyes bulging.
He shuffled quickly to the large desk at the lab entrance on which stood his TV and VCR. Groping desperately inside a bottom drawer, he removed a bottle and took several long swallows.

As Charley began to rub the whitish stubble on his cheeks, a look of raw cunning dimly lit his eyes. "If I tell 'em you can talk, you know what they'll think, monkey? They'll say ole Charley's going crazy again, seein' things. They'll say ole Charley's back on the booze." Charley took another long swig from the bottle. "You keep me company, mon-key, and this"ll be our little shecret."

With shaking hands, Charley opened the cage door and fastened a leash on Monkey's blue collar. Monkey followed Charley and watched closely as he hung up the key on the hook above his desk. "How 'bout watching a movie with me, mon-key?"

He plopped down on his chair and lit up a small white stick. As Charley tied the leash to the chair arm, the bitter smoke burned Monkey's eyes and made him cough.

"You'd better get used to them cigarettes, mon-key," laughed Charley. "I sure smoke a lot of 'em."

Charley carefully pressed a few buttons on a big brown box. In a moment, its dull gray face lit up with an eerie bluish glow, and little humans appeared inside the light. Although Charley continued to blab on, Monkey soon became totally engrossed in the action on the bluish screen. He watched fascinated as little humans fought each other ferociously to the accompaniment of loud music.

"You like the movie, mon-key?" asked Charley.
"Why are they killing one another?" Monkey inquired.
"Huh?" asked Charley inhaling smoke deeply. "Oh. This is a war movie, mon-key. That's the way human beings are."

From then on, Charley would wake Monkey up every night for a talk and a movie. As Monkey soon discovered, Charley loved war and horror movies. The use of the chain saw in the "mad slasher" movies particularly troubled Monkey. After viewing a nature video on undersea predators, he made up a special nickname for the chain saw. He called it the "horrid eel-tooth." Monkey watched as humans slaughtered each other in combat and in the privacy of their homes.