CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
ATO employee Keyser Gruber, has today been assigned a mission that will test the human spirit.
As a professional auditor, tasked with taking down the most teflon perpetrators of tax fraud, Keyser has enjoyed a career of keeping the bastards honest. From shonky landlords to cash laundering driving schools – there’s no system too subtle for this bean counting assassin.
But today a file slid across his desk that will require him to betray the people he loves the most.
A culinary institution of The Betoota Flight Path District, Mother Cluckers chicken shop has catered to generations of hungover uni students and heartbroken woo girls. It holds a special place in the hearts of countless local families.
Keyser Gruber is one of these people. Their peri peri chicken burgers and industrial sized servings of thin cut chips are the only cure to a hangover he’s ever known. To this day, he’ll still stumble in their with a heavy head after a wedding or a staff drinks – sometimes barefoot, depending on how dusty he is.
And despite the fact that he often gets berated by an elderly immigrant for not lining up at the right end of the counter, there’s never any judgement towards his life life choices – or his disgraceful orders.
It’s a place of comfort – so much so that he’s even partial to dining out the back on the plastic furniture. Sometimes without a hangover. He’s even taken girls on dates there.
However, it is not lost on anyone, including this ATO employee, that Mother Cluckers has been running a cash-only operation for 50 years. With an EFTPOS machine that has been ‘broken’ for 20 years. The locals get it. So does Keyser – as he lets the intoxicating smell from the grill turns off that calculator in his brain.
Today, however, he’s been presented with a Cain and Abel scenario. Will he dash his own loved ones with a rock? Just to keep the powers that be happy?
These humble frauds have been there for him. They’ve fed him, nurtured him, protected him from the evils of the world. Will he betray them?
Will he sit in their restaurant for three hours and take note of the average sale price, and rate of sales, before applying those numbers to an entire financial year, and then measure them against their most recent tax return?
How far does the loyalty of a loyal customer extend? Who are the bad guys? The family-owned chicken shop, or the cruel government agency dragging them across the coals for their under-the-fig-tree economics?
The real question is, when you’re facing a bain marie of charcoal fried butterfly chooks, what’s the difference?
Keyser visits the shop.
With tears in his eyes, he orders the mushroom burger.
“Ahhh” says the owner, with a nod.
“We love our mushrooms”
“Feed em shit and keep em in the dark”
“Wise choice, son”
