The President’s House, Hapilopper City
The day of World Cup 84 Qualifying Match 4: Hapilopper v. Acapais
While the vast majority of the Dominion were focused on the upcoming qualifier match between the HNFT and the somewhat-unknown land of Acapais, several members of the Conservative Party of Hapilopper decided to pay President William Mathis an unwanted visit. They were still wanting an explanation for his visit to Wreckeria, now two weeks past, and they were not satisfied with the letter from the Wreckerian government. As a matter of fact, Conservative Party Leader Leonard Wolfe sent a very terse, and somewhat vulgar letter to the Wreckerian government telling them to kiss his ass.
Seriously. He actually wrote “kiss my ass” in an official letter to another government. Either way, Leonard and some of his confederates had decided to pay President Mathis an unexpected visit, as Mathis and some of his aides were getting ready to watch the qualifying match.
“President Mathis?” an aide asked. “Leonard Wolfe and some of the Conservatives are here.”
“Well, bring them in if they want to watch the match.”
Leonard was not interested in watching the match. He wanted answers about the Wreckerian visit.
“Mr. President, I want to know you haven’t responded to my queries about your visit to see those filthy Wreckerians,” Leonard snapped as he walked in. “You seem to forget this is a nation that wanted us all dead so many years ago, and now we’re just going to forget it? I want to know why you hate Hapilopper so much that you’d pal around with those disgusting Wreckerians. You want to answer my question?”
“I’ll be addressing the nation in the morning,” Mathis said, not even bothering to stand up to greet the leader of the opposition. “I’ll explain in detail exactly why I went to Wreckeria. And no, they’re not filthy, and second, don’t you dare accuse me of being anti-Hapiloppian again, you got me?”
“If you’re in favor of this nation, then why the hell did you go there?” Leonard asked, his volume increasing with every syllable. “You know, those bastards wanted us dead, and now you’re going to act as if that never happened? People DIED at the HNE because of those guys! And now we’re going to forget that?”
“That was 40 years ago, Mr. Wolfe,” Mathis responded, standing up to confront his political adversary. “If I thought they still wanted us dead, I wouldn’t have gone over there. If they wanted us dead, they would have killed me when I went there. They’re trying to start over, and I’m really getting sick of your tone. Now, you want to watch the match or not?”
Leonard pointed his finger at President Mathis, daring him to act. The two were now nose-to-nose, as their aides started huddling around the two. Leonard Wolfe and William Mathis already didn’t like each other, but the accusations of “treason” were starting to push things to a breaking point.
“You’re going to apologize and resign, or I’ll have you strung up on treason,” Leonard spit out. “You don’t go to Wreckeria unless you hate Hapilopper, and obviously you hate this country and everyone in it.”
“Why are you so quick to think ‘treason,’ Leon? Is it because you’re scared us being friends may go against your narrative of the filthy Wreckerian?” Mathis responded. “Hapilopper forgives, but doesn’t forget. If they slip up, I’ll put them on notice. I’m not going to go to war with a nation that wants to be our friend.”
“So you do hate Hapilopper,” Leonard spat, now just inches from Mathis’s face. “A real Hapiloppian would have told them to go fuck themselves. You’re not a real Hapiloppian, you’re a traitor. A god damned traitor. I’m gonna hang you for treason, you traitor.”
“Hang this,” Mathis responded.
Now, before we go any further, it should be noted that William Mathis is a very calm, level-headed person. He had never been known to even lower himself to Leonard’s level, or to the level of some of the more firebrand members of the Conservative party, but on this occasion, enough was enough. He had seen enough. Leonard Wolfe and his gang of Conservatives had barged into his house, without his permission, and threatened to string him up. Mathis didn’t even give it a second thought. He hauled off a right hook that made direct contact with Wolfe’s jaw.
Wolfe was knocked out by the punch, which broke his jaw upon impact, and actually knocked out several teeth. He fell into a recliner not far from the television set, which was airing Jon Arnold apologizing for Venerable Television’s cameras going into the Hapilopper locker room without permission to record that fight between Rod Hughes and Nate Ellis. It was fortunate that Wolfe landed in the recliner and not anywhere to the left, where he could have shattered a glass vase.
The Conservative aides were stunned, and all of them backed away the hell out of the President’s House after Wolfe came to. All hell was bound to break loose when it was revealed that the leader of the Conservative Party, a party of people who claimed to be more “manly” than the Liberals, had been knocked out with one punch by the leader of the Liberals. And all hell was bound to break loose when the conservatives tried to spin it that William Mathis’s only defense against Leonard Wolfe’s damning attacks was a sucker punch to the jaw.
Public opinion was split. Half of all Hapiloppians polled were appalled with the punch, while the other half felt that Leonard had it coming for his general obnoxiousness. But a larger group of people thought it to be a shame that the sucker punch wasn’t recorded. The only recorded evidence of the punch came when several Conservative aides, dragging a punch-drunk Leonard Wolfe from the President’s house, posted a picture of him, spitting out blood, from the punch, on twii.tur. “This is the price we pay for defending Hapilopper from the treasonous Liberals,” one aide wrote. “Mathis sucker-punched Wolfe, and he will pay for this.”
And Mathis, for his part, never denied it happened, even bragging about it on social media. “Sure will be nice to have Leon Wolfe shut up for a few days,” Mathis wrote. “Heard they’re wiring his jaw shut. How richly deserved.”
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