CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
In a political landscape hamstrung by bureaucracy and red tape, one local dad has taken matters of urgency into his own hands.
Todd ‘Blackie’ Black (62) has today purchased his first packet of Winfield Blues cigarettes in 25 years.
“Forty five bucks?! Fuck me” he says to the local tobacconist, who hasn’t actually sold anything but disposable vapes for a matter of months.
To outsiders looking in, Blackie might appear to be in the midst of personal crisis. The cigarettes, the youthful baseball cap, the 6-pack of pre-Mixed Jim Beam Devils Cut on the passenger seat of his Nissan Nevada.
But Blackie is a man with a plan.
The semi-retired hotel broker gets back into his car and begins cruising around the middle-class Betoota suburb he calls home.
After slowly driving past the Betoota Heights train station, he then does a couple laps of the Westfield, before making his way to the local skate park. He finds what he’s looking for.
He pulls over and takes a seat on a park bench overlooking the half pipe and opens a can bourbon.
“Doing lad” asks one of the local delinquents, puzzled as to why this old man is drinking top shelf pre-mixers in a public place in broad daylight.
“Fucken not much” he says to the group of eshays, before lighting up his first durrie since before 9/11.
“Got a smoke?” asks another lad.
“Yep” he offers his packet to the group of kids.
“Mad cunt”
To the untrained eye, it may look like Blackie is having a nervous breakdown. But those that know him would realise there is something much more calculated at play here.
This is just the first steps in his very long-winded plan to destroy an entire nature strip worth of heritage-listed gum trees that are clogging the gutters of his family home and blocking his view from the bedroom window. After some light research into the highly complicated council processes surrounding tree removal in Betoota Heights, Blackie has realised he needs to think outside the box.
“You boys wanna go for a cruise to the abandoned airport? I got some fireworks we can let off.”
“I was gonna cut some doughnuts if you blokes wanna film it for TikTok”
The group of late teens respond well to his suggestion. This old man is speaking their language.
But this old man has other plans. He’s assembled a crew. The wheels are in motion. These trees will not see another summer.
