Cheap as Chips

it’s vice regal, and the vice comes at a price

‘I dunno’, Clarrie said after we’d installed em, (the Poker machines)  we couldn’t afford the electricity bill. Poker machines cost an awful lot of money.  Spose that’s ok, as the other bloke Jamie said ‘that’ll be paid by high rollers from China’. 

‘Jeez, Chinese high rollers’? We knew what that was code for, crook cash being siphoned offshore so that Jamie and his mates could cruise the Pacific in flash yachts and go the complete Howard Hughes, 

After a few weeks we knew we’d been dissed. 

That was when our troubles went up a notch or two.

But not everyone is a winner

Susie Wong arrived. Susie was in a word…. ‘inscrutable’. And she didn’t even butter the scones, just sat on the phone all day texting. That’s when the bus-loads of high-rollers arrived. Cept there’d been a mix up, instead of high rollers they were ‘low levellers’. Straight out of some post apocalyptic industrial nightmare from some God-Forsaken dump north of Harbin. If you’d said; ‘bring me your malnourished  diseased and humourless’, they would’ve nailed it, but fortunately being Australia we don’t pretend to have high moral virtue as a founding principle. But we do have a sense of smell and the loos ponged to high heaven. 

The only other people who came in the door seemed to be drug dealers and pimps. They’d walk in, sniff the air, look around, see our coffee scroll on the table, Mrs Culthorpe, (who though was now unemployed was working with us as a volunteer in training on the excellent ‘Road to Nowhere’ training for the dole scheme. That was Susie’s idea just for having her on, we were getting a twenty k kickback from the Feds. It seemed too good to be true.

‘Jeez’, Clarrie said, Clarrie was one for understatement, ‘we only wanted a pie warmer and an inside on footy tipping,  and now we’re up to our armpits in shit we cant even afford to run, for people we don’t even know and for the benefit of who knows what’. 

Funny thing, no sooner than he said it, when all these trucks turned up, and these removalists, (all must be the same family). Mr Who, Mr What and Mr Why, took all the pokies. As they walked out the door they said; “sign this”? Which we did, and with a grin, that was as sharp as a shithouse rat he winked, “ all sorted”, ..

There’s losers

We had a funny feeling that “ sorted” could be code for a visit from Mick Gatto. 

‘Fuck me, we’re really fucked’, Clarrie, said. He had a point, holding up the electricity bill, we’d have to sell the office, Mrs Culthorpe and the equipment just to stave of bankruptcy. 

‘Bloody hell!” Ces said, “I’ve got an idea, why don’t we get another pie warmer, apply for a community development fund and see if we can get Federal funding to help us in the footy comp, a computer to check the odds, and a link direct to sports bet and Footy bet”. 

We scratched our heads, seemed like a great idea, with a direct link to sports bet and footy bet, we’d be much closer to the action, be able to read the form and be doing the right thing by the blokes who put on betting so that the community may gain a benefit, and a bit of building better communities infrastructure funding’. 

‘And whilst you’re at it, piped Ces, throw in an extra bit of funding for a dart board, a comfy lounge and a bar fridge, with Bingo nights we might just need the extra equipment’. 

‘Too right’! we enthused, and just then this tall bloke in a military type uniform arrived, and said, “i think you’ll need this”

But the community benefits are HUGE!

What the …. 

‘No questions, to question is to question the highest authority in the land, you are ordered to install this’! And (he gave us another Tony Abbott wink) your problems will be, ( then he went Arthur Daley) sorted’… 

‘Fuck me’! once he’d left in a black car, with six wheels, and a motorcade of paramilitary blokes on motorcycles and sidecars with flags and mounted Mg 42’s, we opened the box. 

It had another box with a red button. On the button printed on a Dymo label, the words “ Dutton Button”. 

The only problem there were two boxes and two buttons, a black button and a white button…. The white button looked worn through overuse, whereas the black button looked brand new, hardly ever used….

What was the Dutton button? Will it help us in out request for public funds? What has it to do with Eddy, and the other bloke who runs the Poker machines and Mr Whu, Mr What and Mr Why?

The trickle down effect, In the end, this will require quite a few window cleaners to keep this empty building sparkling clean.

Find out in out next ethically challenged episode of “ Two Wongs don’t make an off-white either’ or “ Dial 000 and ask for Lumumba”