fact that we are relatively effective at exterminating colonies of them
and keeping their numbers manageable. Imagine what might happen if rats
were even half as smart as we are, and were able to compete on fairer
footing than they now enjoy. We’d be engaged in a desperate war with
them to prevent massive starvation.
Watching the monkeys in the street, I wondered if I was seeing our
adversaries in some future Armageddon.
Aside from their high level of intelligence, they have another quality
that makes them more formidable enemies than any rodents could be.
Though rats operate entirely on instinct and have insufficient brain
power to take anything personally, these monkeys hate us with a black,
bitter passion.
I believe they are hostile toward humanity because we created them but
did a half-assed job. We robbed them of their simple animal innocence,
in which they were content. We raised their intelligence until they
became aware of the wider world and of their true place in it, but we
didn’t give them enough intelligence to make it possible for them to
improve their lot. We made them just smart enough to be dissatisfied
with the life of a monkey, we gave them the capacity to dream but didn’t
give them the means to fulfill their dreams. They have been evicted from
their niche in the animal kingdom and cannot find a new place to fit in.
Cut loose from the fabric of creation, they are unraveling, wandering,
lost, full of a yearning that can never be mended.
I don’t blame them for hating us. If I were one of them, I’d hate us,
too.
My sympathy wouldn’t save me, however, if I walked out of the bungalow
and into the street, tenderly grasped a monkey paw in each of my hands,
declared my outrage at the arrogance of the human species, and sang a
rousing rendition of “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” In minutes, I would be
reduced to kibble.
My mother’s work led to the creation of this troop, which they appear to
understand, They have stalked me in the past. She is dead, so they can’t
take vengeance on her for the anguished, outcast lives they lead.
Because I’m her only child, the monkeys nurture a special animosity
toward me. Perhaps they should. Perhaps their hatred of every Snow is
justified. Of all people, I have no right to debate the merit of their
grievance, though this doesn’t mean I feel obliged to pay a price for
what, with the best of motivations, my mother did.
Remaining safely unkibbled at the bungalow window, I heard what seemed
to be the single reverberant toll of a large bell, followed by a
clatter. I watched as the churning troop parted around an object I
couldn’t see. A scraping of iron on stone followed, and several
individuals conspired to raise the weighty thing onto its side.
Busy monkeys prevented me from immediately getting a clear view of the
item, although it appeared to be round. They began to roll it in a
circle, from curb to curb and back again, some watching while others
scampered beside the object, keeping it balanced on edge. In the
burnishing moonlight, it initially resembled a coin so enormous that it
must have fallen out of the giant’s pocket from the top of Jack’s
beanstalk. Then I realized it was a manhole cover they had pried from
the pavement.
Suddenly they were chattering and shrieking as though they were a group
exuberant children who had made a toy out of an old tire. In my
experience such playfulness was completely out of character for them.
Of my previous encounters with the troop, only one had been
face-to-face, and throughout that confrontation, they had acted less
like children than like a pack of homicidal skinheads wired on
PCP-and-cocaine cocktails.
They quickly tired of rolling the manhole cover. Then three individuals
worked together to spin it, as if in fact it were a coin, and with
considerable coordinated effort they eventually set it in a blur of
motion.
The troop fell silent again. They gathered in a wide circle around the
whirling disc, giving it space to move but watching it with great