At the New York Athletic Club they serve amazing food. People go

Host: The evening air was thick with laughter, perfume, and the faint clink of crystal against glass. The New York Athletic Club loomed behind them — a temple of marble, light, and excess, its columns gleaming under the city’s silver haze.

Inside, the music swelled — a band playing something slow, elegant, and expensive. But outside, under the awning, Jack and Jeeny lingered — two figures framed by rain-slicked streets and the low hum of Manhattan traffic.

The quote from Oliver Reed had just rolled off the tongue of a wealthy guest as he passed — half humor, half truth:
“At the New York Athletic Club they serve amazing food. People go there, get healthy, and then eat themselves to death — which is, I suppose, the right way to do it.”

Jack: (lighting a cigarette) That’s the most honest thing I’ve heard all night. Eat, train, die — all part of the same ritual. At least Reed knew the joke was on us.

Jeeny: (folding her arms, smiling faintly) You’d call that honest? It sounds more like a toast to hypocrisy. The idea that we can buy redemption by burning calories before we indulge again.

Host: A car horn blared down Fifth Avenue, echoing off the facade of the club. The doorman tipped his hat to a couple stepping out of a limousine — all diamonds, tuxedos, and perfect smiles.

Jack: (exhales smoke) That’s the beauty of it. The contradiction. The discipline of the gym, the gluttony of the dining room — it’s the cycle of the civilized beast. We build temples to self-control just so we can sin with style afterward.

Jeeny: (gazing up at the marble columns) And you think that’s noble? That our contradictions make us refined?

Jack: (shrugs) No, not noble — just human. You can’t live by virtue alone. Even the saints needed their wine.

Host: The rain began again — not heavy, just a soft mist, the kind that wraps the city lights in a halo. Jeeny’s hair caught the moisture, tiny beads glittering like dew in her dark strands.

Jeeny: Maybe you’re right. But there’s a difference between pleasure and decay. Between savoring life and consuming it.

Jack: (smirking) Spoken like someone who’s never truly tasted it. Look around you — this whole city is a feast. You think people come here to be good? They come to be alive, even if it kills them.

Jeeny: (softly) And you think that’s living? Eating yourself to death, loving yourself to ruin, drinking yourself to sleep — just because it’s done in a designer suit?

Jack: (his voice low, almost a whisper) It’s better than pretending to be pure. Purity’s just hunger that’s afraid of being fed.

Host: The sound of rain deepened, pattering against the sidewalk like a slow, deliberate applause. A taxi splashed through a puddle, and the reflection of the club’s lights rippled across the wet street.

Jeeny: (after a pause) You remind me of that Roman saying — In vino veritas. Truth in wine. But maybe we’ve taken that too literally. We drink to remember we’re human, but we end up forgetting.

Jack: (laughs softly) And what’s the alternative, Jeeny? Restraint? A life of self-denial? Counting calories and sins like it matters? At least Oliver Reed understood the irony — that health is just another way to make death taste better.

Jeeny: (quietly) You admire him, don’t you? That reckless honesty.

Jack: (nods) He lived like every moment was the last sip. Isn’t that the only truth worth chasing?

Jeeny: (shaking her head, gently) Maybe. But you forget what comes after the sip. The emptiness. The silence. The cost.

Host: A gust of wind swept through, rattling the awning. A menu flyer from the club fluttered down the street, colliding briefly with a puddle before sinking — the ink bleeding, letters dissolving into nothing.

Jack: (watching it) Everything costs something, Jeeny. Pleasure, discipline, love, faith. If we’re going to pay the price anyway, might as well get something beautiful in return.

Jeeny: (softly, after a long silence) Beauty isn’t always the reward, Jack. Sometimes it’s the bait.

Host: Her words hung there — delicate, dangerous — as the city lights flickered in the rain. Jack took another drag of his cigarette, the ember flaring briefly before he crushed it underfoot.

Jack: (quietly) So what do you want, then? A life of balance? Of moderation?

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) No. Just a life that means something after the last meal, the last drink, the last breath.

Host: The wind carried the faint sound of laughter from inside — rich, hollow, elegant. Jack looked toward the entrance, where mirrored doors reflected a world of light he no longer believed in.

Jack: (softly, to himself) Maybe meaning’s overrated. Maybe Reed was right — the best way to go is laughing, drunk, and well-fed.

Jeeny: (touching his arm) Or maybe the best way is knowing what you’re laughing at.

Host: The camera would linger — the two figures standing in the rain, framed by the glow of the Athletic Club behind them: a monument to both discipline and decadence, virtue and vice.

The quote still echoed in the air, half jest, half truth —
“At the New York Athletic Club they serve amazing food. People go there, get healthy, and then eat themselves to death — which is, I suppose, the right way to do it.”

And as the rain began to fall harder, Jeeny’s voice came softly through the night —
maybe the right way to die isn’t to consume the world,
but to have tasted it — truly, deeply —
and to have left behind, in all its ruins,
something still worth hungering for.