Sally went off after the ordered meal. 2ic sat back relaxed yet retaining his happy alertness.
‘Watch me and learn,’ instructed he V, ‘In the moments before you consummate the very juice of pleasure it’s worth to bring up some dismal thought, you know. A kinda skeleton at those hedonistic orgies in Old time Rome. To sharpen the feel of gratification.’
‘My groom-gift at you wedding will be a Skeletal System Atlas. And thank you for sharing the trick.’
‘Any time. That’s what friends are for, V, to make you radiantly illuminated, buddy. For a starter, contemplate the Malthusian Catastrophe we’re heading to.’
‘The guy who predicted imminent food shortages because of the population growth? I don’t buy spooky prophecies. The history most optimistically proves that knife-edge balancing had become the mankind's specialty and from each and every next-day plague or plight we always safely leap into a deeper shit. So keep the boogeyman for your grand-kids as a night bed story and stuff.’
‘He proved it mathematically!’
‘At the turn of 20th century mathematicians proved that 50 years later life in all major cities of the world would come to a crunching halt because of no riddance to droppings of all the horse needed for intercity transportation. Smart eggheads! Your pessimistic Fellow of the Royal Society, from the world populated by less than 1 billion, omitted taking in consideration the human race inbred mechanisms of self-preservation like mass shootings at the kindergartens and campuses, ethnic cleansing, slaughterhouse world wars, extermination camps and other suicidal means to whet your appetite.’
‘It’s the art of spicing that makes a chef from a regular cowpoke cook. Don’t dump the whole sack into one meal.’
In a slow melancholic move reached 2ic for his jacket to angle a pinkish pack of chewing gum. He extracted one stick, unwrapped it and, ruminating musefully, dropped the pack into the breast pocket in his shirt. Then 2ic shed off his muse and meaningfully winked at V.
‘Oops! Excuse my manners! Here you are!’
He glibly took from the same pocket a separate stick of chewing gum and outstretched his arm with offering to V.
‘The story is…’
‘Alec Taylor Jr.?’ Sounded close by.
2ic dropped the proffered stick next to the salt shaker on the tabletop while staring intently at the two muscled up jocks in official wear.