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Intro
On St. George’s Day, Parsons and Fawcett, two representatives of the Flintock City Council, serve Johnny “Rooster” Byron papers, which demand that he immediately vacate the property that his mobile home sits on. The city plans to build a new housing development nearby, and they do not want Johnny and his rabble-rousing friends around disturbing people. Johnny rudely tells Parsons and Fawcett to get lost: he has intention of abandoning the land he has lived on for decades. After Parsons and Fawcett leave, several of Johnny’s acquaintances and friends come to visit him. The first of these is Ginger, who knows Johnny better than anyone and is annoyed that Johnny did not invite him to the party he threw the night before. Johnny makes up stories about why Ginger was not invited, none of which are convincing.
Johnny’s other visitors include a man he calls Professor, who has a tenuous grasp on reality. Johnny’s friend Lee is also there, having fallen asleep on Johnny’s couch the night before. It is Lee’s last day in Flintock: he plans to leave for Australia as soon at St. George’s Day is over. In addition to Professor and Lee, two young girls named Pea and Tonya crawl out from underneath Johnny’s trailer, where they’d been sleeping. Everyone talks excitedly about the events of the previous night and the upcoming fair to celebrate St. George’s Day. They also discuss the disappearance of Phaedra, a local teenager, whom no one has seen in weeks. Phaedra was last year’s May Queen and is expected to show up to the fair this year to transfer her crown.
Johnny’s friends help him create signs warning the local city council to stay away from his property. Johnny also tells stories about his past, all which are highly improbable. In the most notable of these stories, Johnny befriends a giant that is approximately 90 feet tall. Johnny claims that the giant gives him a large drum and tells him to bang on it whenever he runs into trouble. While Johnny is partying with all of his friends, his ex-girlfriend, Dawn, shows up with the son they have together, Marky. Dawn asks Johnny if he still plans to take Marky to the fair. Johnny apologizes and says he cannot because something else came up, and he does not plan to attend the fair. Dawn assumes that Johnny wants to stay home with his friends and do drugs, so she calls her new boyfriend to take Marky to the fair instead.
After Dawn and Marky leave, Troy Whitworth, Phaedra’s stepfather, shows up and asks Johnny where he can find his stepdaughter. He is convinced Johnny knows where she has gone. Rather than give Troy information, Johnny insinuates that Troy is sexually abusing Phaedra. This starts a verbal sparring match between Troy and Johnny, which ends with Troy telling Johnny that his friends don’t respect him. As proof, Troy relates a story about how two men named Frank and Danny walked by Johnny’s home the previous summer and found him passed out and covered in his own urine. According to Troy, when Frank and Danny spotted Johnny, they urinated all over him, and someone filmed it. Johnny looks around at his friends and realizes the story is true. In response, he storms off to his trailer and everyone else leaves to go to the fair.
After returning from the fair, several of Johnny’s friends come by to see how he is doing. He hides from some of them and speaks briefly to others. While he is out in the open, Parsons and Fawcett show up to remind him that people will be coming to destroy his property if he does not leave immediately. They leave him a signed petition calling for his displacement, which features hundreds of names. When they are gone, Phaedra comes out of Johnny’s trailer and asks him about the exchange. Johnny makes up a story and Phaedra does not push him to elaborate. Then, Phaedra pressures Johnny to dance with her before she gives up her position as the May Queen. Her request is innocent, and Johnny eventually gives in. While they are dancing, Troy shows up with two other men. Phaedra runs away as the men hold Johnny down and beat him. They also brand an X on each side of his face with a hot poker. When the assault is finished, they leave.
Ginger, who witnessed part of the assault but did not step in to help, asks Johnny what happened. Johnny angrily sends him away. As Ginger leaves, Johnny turns around to find Marky. Johnny tells Marky to live his life according to his own whims and to never conform to the pressures of broader society. Then, Johnny orders Marky to return to his mother, which he does. Now all alone, Johnny takes a can of gasoline and sets his mobile home on fire. Then, he utters a long and complicated curse aimed at everyone who is responsible for displacing him, all while beating the drum he claims to have received from a giant.
