The initial discussion wss put on hold while the first servings came. There were a few choices of meats to choose from. George and Molly's staple beef so far as I knew. Pork, chicken and some lamb. For the most part, it went smoothly, with the general discussion being work related. George's work in the Police, which had a lot of 'interesting' stories, Molly's time as an Aide before her recent promotion, my time at the school in the two years since Clemens had last visited. And, of course, Clemens work in Florida, dealing with the Burmese Python population. Which led to the inevitable...
"Yeah, thingssss sshhould ssstart looking up now." Clemens spoke wistfully.
"You, don't sound very happy about it." Molly queried.
"The priccce, Molly. The priccce wassss too high."
"Excuse me?" The question came from George, not that I could blame him, the way Clemens had said it, you could be confused between how heis job was secured or if he referred to Animatrix.
"The job George. The job. They never ssshhould've had to die." His voice had lowered now.
"This, I've never heard of..." George began before being cut off by Clemens.
"I find that exxxtremely hard to believe, it wasss all over the newsss."
"Well, we don't have a TV in our house, and it was never brought up in work." George explained to him. "So what happened?"
"Well, it wasss about two monthsss after thisss," He pointed to himself. "Ssseveral of the workersss had ssseriousss beef with it, and sssought to get rid of me anyway they could. At the zoo where I work, there wasss a ssschool tour taking place. At the reptile enclossssure, sssomebody released all the sssnakesss into the public walkwaysss. By the time thay were all rounded up and back in their enclosssuresss, ssseveral of the ssstudentsss had been bitten, by the poisssonousss ones. One'sss ssstill in a coma, two died."
"Holy......How...How did it happen?" Molly horrified question.
"Asss I sssaid, they were releasssed into the crowd. Then they pinned the blame on me. The crowd sssaw fit to believe them and I wasss assssaulted on sssight. It took the sssecurity firing live roundsss towardsss the crowd to forccce them to disssperssse. By then, both my legsss were wrecked, asss were ssseveral ribsss, and an arm." Clemens was having problems keeping his face up right now, the memories still too fresh in his mind. "When I came to, about a week later, I learned that while I'd been comatossse, the manager had been able to sssecure the unedited footage and sssend it to Federal Authoritiesss, leaving the local law enforccccement with no option but to drop all chargesss on me. While the real culpritsss, all 19 of them, are doing between 25 yearsss and life."
"Shi--t..." George was barely able to whisper out.
"Yeah. I missssed the trial sssinccce I couldn't be dissscharged. But there were more than enough evidenccce to ssshhow that I wasss not only innocccent, but myssself a victim. During the time I wasss recovering, the musssclesss in my legsss atrophied, and I lossst the ability to walk on them. It'sss taking time to rebuild them sssinccce it wasss only reccccently that the bonesss in them healed properly. That'sss why I have to ussse my tail to move around right now. Until my legsss get their ssstrength back. It wasss perhapsss asss a resssult of all that, that I wasss promoted to head the ressssearch depatment there, sssinccce ssseveral of them are now behind barsss. Even ssso, it feelsss very dirty there. And probably will remain that way for a long time to come. Ssstill, that's enough of that for now. On to better thingsss."
"Amen to that." George responded, seemingly shaken by what Clemens had told him.
"Yeah. I'll need to be back for when they re-open it anyway, that'sss in about a fortnight."
"Well, in any case, there's another serving for later. So if you want, I can show you around while we wait." I finally spoke up, to try and lighten the depressing mood.
"That would be fine with me." Molly answered, sharing my belief that there had been more than enough bad news for now.