Damn it! It was 2AM, and Rob Mason, the Mayor of the small Mid-Western town of Blandings Crossings, was angry with his wife, Clarissa.
He had dropped any number of hints that it was unseemly for her, in her position of First Lady of the town, to keep going out and partying almost every night of the damn week.
She had sneered in his face and said, “First Lady, Rob? Don’t make me laugh! You are a two-bit mayor of a two-bit town, so get real! Nobody cares what I do.”
The next part of what she said she uttered it under her breath, probably hoping Rob wouldn’t hear it, but he did. When she said, “Nobody cares what I do or who I do it with,” it stung Rob and he knew that one way or another he would have his revenge on her.
He had turned to her and said: “Actions have consequences, Clarissa.”
He would also have his revenge on the asshole, Harvey Clinker, the owner of Harvey’s Tavern in the center of Blandings Crossings and the bastard who, Rob was reasonably sure, was, to use old British Navy expressions that Rob had picked up when he’d served in the US Navy in the UKs Devonport, splitting her whiskers or giving her a good portion.
They’d seemed quaint and highly amusing expressions at the time. Now? Now, maybe not so amusing and no longer all that quaint.
Rob had first been an agnostic, sort of, when it came to the Coronavirus. He had doubted if it was as serious as some people were saying, but he had watched with increasing horror some news coverage from Italy (of all places, poor Italy, where they’d enjoyed their honeymoon two decades previously) when he realised that he would be able to rig the situation in his favour and to really stick it to Clarissa and Harvey, and with no repercussions blowing back on him. In fact, if he played it right, he would look like the hero and not the villain.
He had received an official notification from the Governor of the state that included the following order:
“Prohibited activities. All public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a single household or living unit are prohibited, except for the limited purposes permitted by this Executive Order. Pursuant to current guidance from the CDC, any gathering of more than ten people is prohibited unless exempted by this Executive Order. Nothing in this Executive Order prohibits the gathering of members of a household or residence.
“All places of public amusement, whether indoors or outdoors, including but not limited to, locations with amusement rides, carnivals, amusement parks, water parks, aquariums, zoos, museums, arcades, fairs, children’s play centers, playgrounds, theme parks, bowling alleys, movie and other theaters, concert and music halls, and country Clubs, bars or social clubs shall be closed to the public”.
It was the second paragraph that interested him, in particular. He had heard that Harvey liked to squire Clarissa at his tavern and then take her to his tawdry living quarters and have sex with her to the amusement of his regular customers who remained in the bar area, chugging down their beers, cheering on the adulterous pair.