In its largest form, Scabby the inflatable rat stands 25 feet tall, towering over the union laborers who use the grotesque balloon to attract attention during demonstrations. You’ve probably seen Scabby around town perched on the picket line in front of a building, forever reared up on its hind legs, its blood-red eyes glistening, its mouth full of yellowed fangs.
And last July, Scabby was back in the headlines when a man passing by a Teamsters’ demonstration in the Loop allegedly pulled out a box cutter, plunged it into the air-filled rodent, then ran over Scabby’s remains with his vehicle. Deflations, O’Connor understands, are just part of the balloon business. “When Godzilla came out [in 1998], we rented five Godzillas to different movie theaters,” he recalls. “All of them got stabbed.”
