In the late 1960's a young man travels to California to fulfill his ambition of working with animals and maybe even find a girl like the one his grandfather married. Living behind a run down little pet store operated by a peculiar "minister" with an odd church and age old secrets John falls into the gritty underworld of the animal trade. Here he is befriended by a foul little man who teaches him the craft of "monkey business" and other crude dealings. But by night John heads over the hill to Hollywood to socialize with young people his age where he discovers other kinds of animals in this strange new world of rock and roll and the Age of Aquarius.