the temporary human, hunger, still life, punishment, babies, beds, my place
- Flashback time: Mack buys Ivan when he is still a baby gorilla, and though he doesn't come with an instruction manual, Mack isn't worried and figures he can raise a gorilla all by his lonesome, no problem.
- Mack decides he'll just raise Ivan like a human baby—diapers, bottle-feeding, the whole nine yards.
- He treats him like a son, treating him to baseball games, movies, hamburgers, and strawberry shakes. It's like the little gorilla is an all American boy named Ivan instead of a gorilla from the rainforest.
- Meanwhile Ivan longs for his sister, and while he is experiencing a great loss, he is a look-at-the-bright side guy who feels lucky to have survived.
- As Ivan grows, a great hunger takes over him.
- Mack's wife brings home a still life painting, which inspires the artist in Ivan, but also makes him hungry since there are some bananas in it. Can you blame him?
- But the final straw is when he decides the frosting from a freshly baked cake makes the perfect paint for an as-yet-untitled piece he has plans to create on the refrigerator-canvas.
- Ivan is banned from the kitchen from that day on, and soon after, his new home at the mall begins.
- Mack transfers him to a cell outfitted with a tire swing and a television.
- Ivan's growing too big for human life, and now he's confused and full of teenage angst, wondering who and what he is.