Maggots McGee was a nasty piece of work. Something was missing in him. He could not imagine anyone getting the better of him and he would make sure of that at any expense. And payback was his first rule in life.
Aaron was his favourite target - bully boys have many targets, but they always have a favourite. Aaron was not a regular guy. In fact he was worse - he was gay, a Nancy Boy which Maggots was determined would be Aaron's nickname - and that justified every nasty attention Maggots gave him.
Three weeks ago, Maggots had a go at Nancy Boy at a disco. He wasn't very successful - Aaron seemed to brush it off. Then as they were all going home, Maggots saw Nancy Boy and his mates walking home so he decided to do a hoon right near them but he misjudged his wheelie and crashed into a water main that spouted a geyser and wrecked his beloved ute. He knew that Nancy Boy didn't actually do anything - but it was all his fault that Maggots had been humiliated in front of his own mates as well as front of Nancy Boy.
Maggots was determined to find a way of humiliating Nancy Boy as payback for his own humiliation. The question that would need some considerable thinking was - what would be the best way to go? Without his car for a while, Maggots had a bit more time on his hands and he wanted to make the most of this terrible situation.
Maggots had heard a whisper that November 21 was Nancy Boy's birthday. He called a conference of the Gang to discuss what they might do. After laying out the need for revenge, he simply asked if anyone had any bright ideas of how they could mess up Nancy Boy's birthday.
"Well I reckon we orta get him on Friday night and just bash him to pulp!" Red Dog was always straight to the point. There was nothing subtle about him, and for Red Dog few things were more enjoyable than a good old bashing - especially when it was four on one. "He generally goes to the flicks with one of his poofta mates, doesn't he? Why don't we just get him then?"
Cammo wanted something with a bit more of a sting in the tail. "Why don't we do a bit of graffiti around that shop he works in - you know, paint it up a bit with Nancy Boy stuff. We could do it all in pink, like." Well at least his brain was trying to be creative, but that could only eventually lead back to them a charges for criminal damage. They had been around the PCYC long enough to know that being too obvious was not a good idea.
"Yeah! Well I would just stick something up in a real obvious place to make sure everyone knows he bats for the other team. He never seems to advertise - so maybe we should do some advertising for him! That would fix him." Stale Ale was no more subtle than Red Dog. He just wanted to hit him where it hurt.
"I'm warming to this idea of pink something. We've got a few days before we need to do anything. Maybe we can do him slow!" This brought peels of laughter from the others 'coz Maggots was always threatening to do someone "real slow" but they never could see had what he did counted as slow.
Without his car, Maggots was back to his old treddly - a once famous dragster bike. His dad had kept it from when he was a kid - he was so proud of it. The frame was orange and the seat was white, and the high handle bars made it stand out among his mates bikes. At first Maggots thought it was just a case of his dad being a cheapskate and not buying him a new bike, but then a bloke stopped him in the street one day and told him hea had just bought one on eBay for $1200 - and it wasn't half as good as his was. Maybe his dad was cooler than he thought. He also found that the right guys around seemed a bit envious of his bike - so it was still cool, even thought it used to be his dad's bike. Sometimes all four of them would take their treddlies to the skate park. Some kids had boards, some had scooters and some used their bikes to do tricks. The park had three sections and it was generally easy to keep the midgets in one area and school kids in the middle, leaving the more extreme part for the big kids. Thy saw not incongruity driving up in their cars to the park and taking the boards, scooters or even bikes from the back of the car and start up skating.
Out of the four of them, Stale Ale was the ace at the skate park. He could make his bike do amazing things - jumps and turns that wrench at your guts, they are so sharp. Maggots was a bit of an oaf, really, and so he just did the typical back and forth rolls to keep it looking like he was busy and knew what he was doing.
One of the good things about not having the car was that Maggots did't have to worry so much about the booze bus. This meant that they could take a six-pack down to the skate park, no probs. The grog of choice was JD's and Coke in pre-mix cans. They were about the same as a stubbie of beer but they tasted better. so they would do some pumping in the skate park and then rest awhile under one of the trees drinking a brew. It was during such a break that the germ of an idea sprang to life.
"You know what we should do for that Nancy Boy?" Maggots had come up with the idea himself. "I saw someone's place last week with all them pink flamingos over the lawn because it was their 50th birthday. I reckon we should just borrow a few of them and stick them on Nancy Boy's lawn - with a special birthday wish for Nancy Boy."
"Where are you gunna borrow them from?" Cammo, as second in charge to Maggots, often tried to be practical.
"They come from that garden shop, down near the Market, don't they?" Stale Ale obviously kept his eyes open about some things. "But you have to pay for them, don't you? You know, like hire them."
"I reckon we just borrow some of them - if they put 50 out for some blokes birthday we could just borrow 17 and stick up in the front yard of Nancy Boy's place." It seemed so easy to them all, that it was a done deal as far as they were concerned. The next challenge was to see if there would be someone else's birthday just before the Nancy Boy so that they could pinch some.
As a stoke of luck, the day before Aaron's birthday, an order had been place for 50 Pink Flamingos to adorn the front lawn of Shire President, Sam Malone. His new wife Nicky thought it would be a great treat to surprise Sam with. In her mind, 50 was the mark at which a man looked more and more like he had achieved something worthwhile with his life. She hadn't anticipated his reaction.- which was to fly into a rage about it being so public and that he didn't want people to know - they would write him off. He rushed out into the garden and flung the flamingos here there and everywhere. Then he got into his black Caprice and stormed out of the garage making as much noise as he could.
Nicky was flabbergasted. She thought she knew him and that he would enjoy a bit of fun. "What will he think of me now?" she thought and began to cry. "Oh no! I've done the worst thing. He'll never forgive me" She got so wound up herself that she jumped into her little white BMW and drove out of the village - not sure of her destination - just wanting a quiet place to think things over.
Maggots was riding by just after this, and surveyed the scene. The garage door was still up so clearly both cars were out. The flamingos were in a state of mayhem. This was his big chance - but you can't just carry off 17 flamingos on your bike - people might notice.
He raced over the Cammo's place and told him the deal. "Do you reckon your dad would let me borrow his ute to pick em up?"
"Well it won't take long, will it? He's gone out in the other car and won't be back till after lunch. Let's go!"
So, Cammo and Maggots drove boldly into Malone's drive way and calmly put as many of the flamingos as they wanted into the back of the ute. If anyone had seen them they would have just though they were picking them up for the Garden Shop - except that they didn't pick them all up. Then they took them back to Maggot's place and put them in the shed. A night of work lay ahead of them.
They all agreed to meet at Maggot's place about 9pm. They would hang around till the folks cleared off to bed and then they went to see if they could carry the flamingos while riding their bikes - nah! That wasn't going to work. "We'll just make a couple of trips." Thankfully, Aaron's house was not more than a couple of hundred yards away. Each boy could carry one under each arm and still manage to steer their bikes. They eventually got all the flamingos over to Aaron's house and set them up very quietly in the front yard. Then with some pink spray paint they wrote all over the lawn "HAPPY BURTHDAY NANCY BOY" They stood back and surveyed their handy-work with some pride. "That'll do!" said Maggots, and they all made their various ways home.
The next morning, Aaron's mum went out to get the paper and couldn't believe it. Her first reaction was to want to get rid of it all before Aaron saw it. Then she thought, he could probably cope with this. He was no longer afraid of people knowing he was gay, so she began looking more closely to see if she could work out who was behind this. Best talk with Aaron about it, maybe, so she went inside and called him.
His eyes nearly popped when he saw all the flamingos, and thought his Mum had done it. Then he was the writing on the lawn. "That's bloody Maggots and his mates. You've gotta admit Mum, it's pretty creative - especially for Maggots. What do you reckon we should do?"
"Well I suppose that's up to you. Maggots is always out to get you - but you always seem to wriggle out of his clutches, which I think is great. Do you reckon we can turn this one back on him?"
"Well I reckon the Sarge would love it! He reckons Maggots is all bluster - because he really hasn't got a brain. Maybe if we told him, he could have a bit of fun at Maggot's expense. That's why I never worry about him. I think it's best to laugh him off - no satisfaction in that for him."
"Let's call him now - see what he thinks." Aaron's Mum had no idea where her boy got his resilience from. She was just glad that he was able to stay free from all that negativity that most gay kids get caught up in and that too often leads them into bad places.
Aaron said he would like to make the call. "Sarge? This is Aaron. Someone has had some fun in my front yard over night. You might like to come over and see what they've done. No harm really, but you might have an excuse to call on Maggots again. ... Want to come right now? Great, see you soon."
It was barely ten minutes later when the cop van pulled up outside - and when the Sarge got out he smiled and just started laughing. "Are you telling me Maggots did this?" the Sarge asked as Aaron came out the front door to greet him. "If he did this, he has gone up a step in my estimation of him. Bloody, hell. I never thought he could think up one like this. Are you sure its him?"
"Well, no-one else in the village calls me Nancy Boy. It's such a give away, really! But its the best one I've seen him do - and he thought it would make me mad. Where do you reckon he got the Flamingos?"
"Now there's the coincidence! Nicky Malone rang in yesterday afternoon all distraught, like, because half the flamingos she had ordered for Sam's birthday yesterday had been lifted while she was out. At first she thought Sam might have done it because he hated the flamingos. Then when she talked to the Garden Shop about it they said they would just keep the $200 deposit she had paid and send her a bill for the rest. She was not happy!"
"Suppose these are the ones. Should I call the Garden Shop and ask them to come and get them?"
"Nah! I'll do that!" said the Sarge as he clearly tossed an idea around in his mind. "What say I call Tony Cassidy and see if he would like a story for the Tribune first. Pictures of the great art work - I might even be able to arrange for the artist to be included in the picture - and maybe a story about the futility of bullying. Maybe the little thug is more afraid of being exposed for what he is than he thinks you are of being exposed as gay. Let me do this. I will make sure he sees me as the avenger here, not you, but it's too good a show to pass up."
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