ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Once or twice a week, Miles Keith answers an unsolicited knock on the door.
Only a handful of times, it’s been a salesman.
Last week, a Jehovah’s Witness dropped by for a cup of tea and an Iced Vovo.
Sadly, most of the time the Betoota Grove resident answers the door, it’s somebody looking for drugs.
“The look on their faces when I tell them there’s no heroin here is heartbreaking,” he said.
“Then they ask me, ‘But Miles, why do you have a pair of sneakers thrown over your power lines? Why?’ and I have to tell them the truth. They’re decorative. I enjoy the aesthetic, it lets me feel like the area I’m living in isn’t quite gentrified yet,”
“It’s still a bit edgy – like a youth might still wave a knife at you down at the metro station and demand your phone and wallet. Something like that anyway. I still carry a length of reo bar up my sleeve at night in case I need to bop some hoodlum on the head in self-defence, or just for the thrill of it!”
The Advocate reached out to members of the Betoota community who say they’re addicted to hard drugs for comment.
Our reporter’s calls were answered by a young gentleman who only refers to himself in the third person and goes by the name of Mouse.
Taking time out of his busy morning of lying in a local park, Mouse said he’s often fooled by the old shoes over the power line trope.
“Back in the day, back in the 90s, you could walk the streets until you found a house with a pair of shoes over the power lines and walk right up to the door and ask for drugs,” he said.
“Nowadays, you’ve got all these yuppies who do it for the look, so the area still looks grungy. Being a smack head is head enough in the Simpson Desert. People who do this type of thing only make my life harder than it has to be,”
“Even the police are more helpful. The only time I head up to Betoota Grove these days is to mug some private school kid, take his phone and laptop to a hock shop then inject myself with a bit of Mother’s milk. The area used to be much edgier. Ah well.”
More to come.
