What my mother never knew #14: Herbicide and other atrocities

We'd met some boys downtown and were invited to go and have some beers in the park with them. As it turned out, they really only had a few and nobody had any cash. We walked around the park in the dark and the guys we were with began bashing the flowers with sticks. It started out with just the odd one. A random swing with a stick or shoe. But they got a real kick out of it and pretty soon, all of the flowers were being massacred. I was with a mob of herbacidal maniacs! Too much festering testosterone I guess.

So we walked along raucously with no particular destination in mind when the two boldest guys came up with a plan to keep the party going. We were to go to a different part of the park and they would beat up some fags that liaised in a certain part of the woods. They'd steal their money and we'd be set. This wasn't a crowd that I'd hung around with much before although my best friend knew them a lot better. I was definitely not into pounding homosexuals. I'd never pounded anyone. I didn't want to be anywhere near it. So my friend and I waited in the playground while the boys went off to be idiots.

When they came back unsuccessful, they had a new plan. This one involved me - and I had no idea how to get out of the predicament. My friend and I were to stand near the park road and stop a car with guys in it, to ask for the time. The plan was that we would flirt with them and lure them into the bushes for promised sex where our thugs would be waiting with a two by four and other implements of welcome. I was horrified - I didn't know how to say no. My girlfriend was all business. She said all I would have to do is stand there and she'd do all the talking. So I did.

I stood there with my heart racing, afraid that I'd be hurt in the process. I stood there in the lights of oncoming cars, a forced smile pasted on my face, like a first time prostitute. I felt like one. A car slowed to get a closer look at us. My friend waved and began to walk over. The car was full as it turned out, and there were girls as well as guys. The rolled down their windows and yelled "YOU FUCKING SLUTS!!!" and other obscenities as their tires screeched away.

That was it. I walked away and refused any further humiliation. I felt I deserved every insult that was thrown at me from that car. I guess I would have felt a lot worse if I'd contributed to someone being beaten and robbed or worse.