Short Story

  At the neighboring table sits an interesting couple.
  He is a young man with an intelligent air—fit, well-groomed, wearing expensive glasses and a very foreign-looking jacket with padded shoulders.
  She—well, a sex bomb, complete with all the appropriate curves and contours, a pretty face, and an angelic little voice.
  They are chatting cheerfully.
  It’s a pleasure to watch them.
  From time to time, the couple gets up to dance.
  I am just about finishing my solitary dinner when an utterly inappropriate patron approaches their table and asks the “bomb” to dance. The man looks either freshly out of prison—as they say, “straight from the boss” — or on his way there. Neglected, downcast, as if dunked in water, yet at this moment oddly excited: maybe he’d taken a shot, maybe smoked something, or maybe the woman had simply struck him too strongly.
  The couple refused him in unison.
  And rightly so — the oddball had clearly decided to perform well outside his league.
  After all, anyone can walk into a restaurant…
  I sip my coffee.
  From the back of the hall appears the same down-and-out fellow, now accompanied by a new character — and an unpleasant one at that: slit-like eyes, metal teeth, a Sakhalin tan.
  Add to that a feline gait.
  I immediately felt like disappearing.
  “Gentlemen—comrades,” rasped the sinister newcomer, almost whispering, “why are you offending a man?”
  “But he’s breaking the law,” the young intellectual replied, almost cheerfully.
  “What law?!” the scruffy one lunged forward, but was gently restrained by the authority.
  For some reason, I didn’t doubt his authority for a second.
  “So what law is that?”
  “He who feeds the lady dinner gets to dance with her.”
  “There’s no such law!” protested the would-be dancer.
  “Dry up,” rasped the authority, suddenly smiling tenderly. “Enjoy your evening.”
  They quietly withdrew. I finished my coffee and thought: “Well now—that’s not a bad plot for a short story.”