Despite a number of extreme measures imposed by the national government on the verge of the Easter holiday weekend (Saturday, Sunday, Monday), there are still people who just can’t be reined in.
The decree as of Friday was that nobody was permitted to leave their primary residence. Keywords: “Nobody,” “leave,” “primary residence.” These simple words can’t find any space in many brains because those spaces are occupied by “fun,” and “holiday,” and “break the monotony.” Knowing this, the various order-keeping forces of the Veneto (and I assume elsewhere) fielded regiments of supplementary officers, stationing them at checkpoints on the main roads leading from towns toward the mountains and the beaches. Even if you were heading five minutes across town to your extra dwelling/apartment/lair, you would get fined and sent back to your primary residence. And that fine has no connection with what you might get for perhaps not driving with a mask and gloves, or if you were driving more than one passenger, and that one passenger wasn’t sitting, as per the law, in the rear seat on the opposite side from the driver.
You see? This is how we got from the Ten Commandments to the entire books of Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy — a simple concept has to become endlessly complicated because people just don’t want to hear it.
Anyway, back to the creative cheaters. A few days ago (every day ago seems like a week ago), a man was stopped by the police in Mestre, inquiring as to his reason for being out walking around the streets.
“I’m going to work,” he replied. This is good, because it’s one of the few reasons you’re allowed to be out. And what work is that? was the natural response from the police.
“I deal drugs,” he replied.
Over the three-day holiday weekend, the scofflaws had a ball. In and around Venice the majority of residents stayed inside, or close by; only 323 people were fined for infractions such as walking on the beach. But elsewhere in Italy, things were humming along to the tune of 13,756 citizens or commercial activities being fined for illegally doing something. Or anything.
On Monday (“Pasquetta”), a member of Parliament was stopped on the road going from Rome to Ostia (a/k/a the beach). When asked where she was going, and why, she replied, “I’m a member of Parliament and I’m working.” Because the police couldn’t establish a rational connection between Parliament and Beach on a holiday, she went home with a fine. Which of course she is going to contest, because something. Injustice, oppression, experts guilty of conflicts of interest, the destruction of the national economy under the excuse of the epidemic, and the danger of vaccines (none of this is made up).
A policeman in Torino stopped a man driving somewhere to inquire where he was going, and the man replied, “I’m going to make love to a friend.” The driver got a 533-euro fine, but the policeman is now under disciplinary action for having put the video (probably via bodycam) on social media. The friend is still waiting.
Yes, there were parties — the by-now usual rooftop barbecues with loud music, easy to detect by the patrolling police helicopters. (In one city, one reveler actually shot at the helicopter.) In Lodi, a young man who knew he was positive for the virus invited five friends over to his house. Naturally they’ve all been fined; I’m still mulling over their concept of “friend.”
Then we move to the grassy embankment of the little river Piovego, near Padova. On Easter Sunday afternoon, a young man was sitting on one of the steps leading down to the water. Alone. Therefore sad. It’s wrong to be outside but he has an excellent reason, which he explained to the policemen (Guardia di Finanza, for the record).
It was on these steps that he had met his girlfriend; where they shared their first kiss; where they had spent such lovely times together. But the separation imposed by the quarantine had somehow led her to break up with him. And so, eyes filled with tears (I am not being sarcastic, I am reporting from the newspaper), he decided to return there to seek inspiration for a poem, a poem that would somehow win her back.
The officers recognized his predicament and were — as far as possible for someone in uniform — completely in sympathy with his plight. They felt for him, even as they were writing out the ticket. And so the young man was sent home, without his girlfriend, without his poem, and also without some 300 euros.
