The Monkey Bites
So read the stained hand-lettered sign on the front door. Ace sat with his back to the room and appeared to be reading a small prayer book. Actually, he was tearing out the pages one by one and eating them, chewing slowly, and looking up at the ceiling of his cage as if he was memorizing the text. Billy, the Winsock's owner and bartender, said he only ate one or two pages a day – it was not as if he was hungry. Billy fed Ace every time he fed himself. In fact, he fed Ace first like he was worried about being poisoned; a fair concern because he treated the cook like dirt. It was obvious that he was constantly pissed off, unlike most captive monkeys who sank into apathy after a while. If anyone but Billy approached the cage Ace screamed and flung himself around inside. If you put your hands anywhere near his reach or grasp there would be blood. He once bit off and ate a drunk's little finger. The day he escaped a little girl was the only one who watched him slip