i am sorry.
i am sorry, gentlemen, sorry for all of us. your's is a complicated, sad world.
and i never knew that. i was living a life of simplicity, of purity, when i was ripped out of my eden and immersed in this harshness. some would argue that the life i was living was not a human life at all. and, gentlemen, i don't have any clever retort. i am not a philosopher. the only thing i know is that i am sorry, sorry for my expulsion from eden, sorry for my lila rotting in her jail cell, and sorry for nathan.  rotting in his grave.
i don't think there's anyone in the world who doesn't know by now that i was raised in the wilderness by an ape. well, to be fair, by a man who thought himself an ape, but it amounts to the same thing gentlemen, does it not?
my father escaped from a new jersey mental institution in 1963.
he had been committed the previous year after applying one too many times at our local zoo for the job of "apprentice ape."
my father saw what the human race had come to while he was.  in captivity. he felt something had to be done to create a better world.
he stole little me from my mother, his ex-wife, and raised me, with love and tenderness and respect, as an ape like himself.
apes don't assassinate their presidents, gentlemen.
until quite recently i believed myself to be an ape, although i didn't know specifically what type. apes don't think in terms of type.
it might be argued, gentlemen, that apes don't even know that they are apes. in retrospect, however, i'd say that i was a pygmy chimp.
then, gentlemen, one day i saw something i hadn't seen since my father died in a freak accident involving a rotted log and four thousand bees stinging his head.  i saw other human beings. they chattered away at each other in what appeared to be gibberish. later i learned it was english. now i wonder if perhaps my initial assessment hadn't been correct.
i had never seen anything like it.
it was an ape as i had never seen before. like me, yet different in certain essential details. and all at once i felt a heat pass through me. my heart raced. gentlemen, i wanted to touch her, to caress her, to be one with her. i had urges and desires i could not explain. i felt overwhelmed by the power this strange creature had over me, and so i did what any animal would do when it comes across an animal of superior strength.
i saw it, gentlemen. i saw the whole sweaty, passionate, ugly, beautiful act, and to use the vernacular, i wanted me some of that.
and i think i understood from that moment, that in order to get some, i would have to do what they said. in order to experience this primal, basic, animal thing, i would first have to become a civilized, prissy, uptight human. i would have to become nathan.
good-eve-n-ing-lay-dees-and-gent- elmen.
when she came to work with nathan, she seemed different, gentlemen, i don't know, somehow soulless.
oh boy!
okay. that's fair.
my apologies, madam.
shan't happen again.
i'm loving this. it's such a treat to be out and about. what a wonderful invention a city is. the immense buildings of glass and steel glinting in the afternoon sun, the smartly dressed women in their best summer frocks, the colorful street vendors.
just spectacular. great salmon. fantastico! you've got to give me the recipe! my compliments to the chef!
it shan't happen again. i swear it. i'm just getting my sea legs, you know.
i don't think this aversion therapy is really necessary, doctor. i understand the problem.
i bow to your expertise in these matters.
eh.
yahoo!
very well.
uh, what's a reuben, please?
that's fine. that's what i'll have. corned beef is a good food.
did i? i tried so hard! i really concentrated! oh, i'm so happy!
extra dessert?
it's wonderful! do you think i'm ready? do you really?
oh, i will! your very trust has instilled an enormous sense of responsibility in me. i don't want to disappoint you.
got it.
it would be my pleasure, doctor. distinguished gentlemen and ladies of the psychological community, i stand before you today, a living testament to the amazing skill of dr. nathan bronfman. to say that he took me from crayons to perfume would be a vast understatement. dr. bronfman took me from playing with my own feces, then to crayons, and then to an appreciation of the complex works of franz kline, joseph beuys, and marcel duchamp. from compulsive masturbation to.
and, so, goodnight, adieu, until we meet again, au revoir.
to be taken from the depths of ignorance and depravity and raised to heights of culture and refinement! this is the priceless gift bestowed upon me by dr. nathan bronfman.
thanks to you, nate.
here, here.
is that a little boy?
interesting.
but i like being human now.
i want to be the way i was before.
nice night.
i agree?
what an enchanting picture you paint of our future together.
and so commenced my reeducation, gentlemen. lila taught me so much. she was a stern but fair teacher. and over time, i began to remember the carefree joy of living in a pure state of being. but something else happened as well, something perhaps distinctly human.  i began to fall in love with lila.
boy, you look so good from this ang.
ugnh.
unn.
ounpoo. ungh.
unka unka unka unka unka.
i have to talk. is that okay?
you did create me in your image, nathan. before you i was a simple, happy, complete being, in harmony with the world around me. after you i became duplicitous, cynical, angry, anal, totally out of touch with my surroundings. in a word, nathan, i became you. lila has reintroduced me to myself. and, incidentally, what i'm about to do, kill you, is something that would never have occurred to me to do as a creature of the earth. before when i killed, it was for food or in self-defense. now i will kill for revenge. revenge is an abstract concept, nathan. and i learned abstract thinking from you.
then lila shot nathan.
we bury the body. we disappear into the woods. nobody knows.
forget him, lila. we'll disappear. we'll never talk about it again. we'll never talk again period. i love you.
i won't let you do that. i shot the bastard. and i'm glad.
then i'll live for both of us, lila. i'll be the most free, truest animal in the whole forest. for both of us.
but first i'll live among them, just long enough to testify before congress about the waywardness of humankind.
and so, gentlemen, that is my story. i agreed to testify before this committee because i hoped to convey to the american public that there is indeed a paradise lost. human beings have become so enamored of their technologies and their intellectual prowess and their fancy gourmet foods, that they've forgotten to look to the earth as a teacher. this is hubris, my friends. and my story of destruction and betrayal is proof of that. i will keep my promise to lila. i will shed this suit and go back into the wilderness. i will live out my days naked and free.
thank you. that is all i ask. good-bye, lila. i take you with me in my untamed heart.
yes?
mother?
it's a pleasure to meet you, mother. but i'm an ape like dad was.  and i have to go back into the woods now.  forever.
yes.
i'm an ape, mom. i'm an ape. and apes don't drop lines.
hey, ma. did you bring any clothes? i'm freezing my ass off.
great. god, i've wanted you forever.
gabrielle.
like father, like son.
woof.
arf.
as much as i loved nathan, i'm not sorry she killed him, if it means i can have you. is that a terrible thing to say, my sweet?
let's go eat, i'm starved.
oui.