At the top of the page the letter had a coat of arms that featured crossed hockey sticks. Below it were the words St Lucia’s Anglican Girls’ School, the initial letters all picked out with gothic capitals.
‘Slags,’ thought Ozzie, ‘that would be right.’
Certain phrases jumped out at him. ‘Your establishment “The Pussy Palace” with its lurid signage …’ And ‘offensive messages confronting young women …’ And ‘…live in a society that celebrates gender equality …’
The letter was signed by a Ms Trotter on behalf of the girls in Room 7. Below that, about 20 pupils had signed their names too. He looked at the variation in the signatures’ colour, size and style. Some of these, the ones at the top, were shapely and controlled. As you read down the list they got messier, until the last three or four which were just tags. He was sure he had seen a few of these scrawled on walls near the Pussy Palace just recently
This wasn’t new, though. It had happened before, during the eighties, when some feminists had got it into their woolly heads ‘to liberate his sex slaves’. First there were the letters, then the ‘occupation’ of the footpath outside while they harassed the clientele, then the media got on to it. His girls were the ones who got rid of them in the end. Taking a few of the ringleaders out to Mangere to meet their whanau. To show them why they looked forward to coming into K. Road each night. The tide turned after that. The lesbos disappeared back into the safety of the university, or wherever it was that they had all come from.
This time he couldn’t help himself. He wrote back, thanking them for the comments, promising them that ‘he would refer them to his Creative Consultant Lulu Taufoa at their next bored meeting’. That in the meanwhile they should ‘keep open minds because he was sure he employed a few SLAGS girls in his time and they had impressed him with their excellent presentation and their slick moves’. In fact Ms Trotter herself was welcome to try out at their monthly auditions. There was always a place for her in the resident karaoke girl group, ‘The Cunning Stunts’. He knew that teacher pay didn’t go very far and perhaps she should expose herself to new possibilities.
He signed the letter Seymour Titty, P.A. for Mr Mike Osbourne. He wished he had a letterhead but then again – you didn’t get many letters in this line of business.
About five or six days later a letter arrived from Ms Trotter. This time though she meant business. As he read, he could sense her blood rising to battle. She wasn’t ‘one of those people who could be brushed aside’. How ‘a reasonable enquiry had been responded to with a contemptuous brush off’. How she hoped that he knew who he was up against because now she was ‘taking the matter to a more public forum’.
Ozzie laughed. What was it with teachers? Were they born without a sense of humour or was it something they lost along the way?
Some days later there was another letter, this time from the City Council. It was written by a Ms Hackett and referred to complaints from the public, compliance regulations, signage, liquor licenses … and gave him 14 days to respond. This time he was angry. There were no puns about ‘not being able to hack it’. This letter was all about money. His money, no-one else’s. First it would go to his lawyer, Roger King, Q.C. and then there would be a series of ‘disbursements’, if history was anything to go by. There were so many people to pay off on the council, and they all thought he was a millionaire.
One of King’s lackeys rang back later in the day to tell him that it wasn’t going to work. Ozzie cut him short. ‘I don’t pay to talk to you. I want to talk to the organ grinder, not the monkey.’
King was on the phone half an hour later.
Evidently the Ms Trotter he had been teasing was the daughter of Councillor Trotter, the hard-nosed Christian from Mount Roskill. Elections were coming up and this had all the makings of a crusade. They had to play this carefully otherwise it would be Ozzie’s hide nailed to the barn door. Maybe it was time he backed off a bit. Made a few concessions.
He was really caught off guard when the Hard Truth got wind of it. The billboards read ‘“Booty in eye of beholder” says K. Road Sex Czar.’ The journos even threw a few suggestions of their own his way. ‘We think “The Rubber Butt” would cause less friction or “The Gland Hotel” might appeal to the Asian clients.’
After that it was just a matter of time before the Palace was under siege from the television journalists. Campbell Brisket from 24/7 drawled out from the box about ‘shameless shenanigans from the Sultan of Sleaze’. Joe Public was scared away and forced to patronise the pricier flesh pots at the bottom of town. Profits dropped. Girls were laid off. The council closed in for the kill.
When it seemed that all was lost, one of King’s so called ‘courtiers’ brokered a deal between Ozzie and Trotter. His excited face appeared on the national news, announcing that the new deal ‘allowed two proud men to walk away with their heads held high’. Trotter conceded that an establishment specialising in male tension relief might have a part to play in New Zealand’s most dynamic street. Ozzie agreed to a sign that included no words that could possibly have a double meaning. Furthermore it would be a simple neon sign, with no pictures.
The two Trotters were pictured on the front page of the Herald locked in a victorious embrace. Below it, in the form of an insert, was a picture of the scurrilous Osbourne stalking away from the council chambers.
It must have been about a month after this that TV crews once again converged on the lower end of K. Road for the unveiling. Many of the more zealous councillors were assembled for their response and reaction. There was no sign of Ozzie; he was in his upstairs office and wasn’t taking calls.
At precisely 8 p.m. a technician lit up the sign and pulled back the thin, blue, tarpaulin.
The words were small, blue and discrete except for all the initial letters, which were large, pink and flashing. This Is The Show.