Sturgess Cafe Pt 4...the pensioner speaks

Duggie says:

“Collect ideas like collecting rain in a bucket – just check there are no holes in the side…”

Back to the Sturgess Café.

“The ideas man, the instigator. As long as it’s not see you later alligator,” said Seeke.

“What are you on about?” said Nyman Chaw-Derek, Seeke’s partner and amazing conceptual artist – [that’s his description]. He’s the instigator, the ideas man. The café is his baby.

[Here’s the link to the previous part, so you can catch up…]

Things had settled down after the incident with the angry skinhead.

Turned out he’d just been released from remand, bit peeved due to the fact that he hadn’t done anything and had been locked up for it. So he’d taken out his anger on the café.

But when he found out about Nyman’s whole Arts Council funding scam [“erm…actually,” says Nyman, stepping through the invisible curtain between us and him, the character in my story, “I’m a professional artist. Sturgess Café is a conceptual piece…(he’s so post-modern)…and they don’t just give anyone a grant, you know]

Last heard, the skinhead was attempting to introduce violence, extreme violence into street theatre, somewhere in Dorset.

The local paper, ‘The Bugle’, had found out about the ‘Café Project’ following a letter writing campaign by the woman on the bus and a disabled pensioner, who’s mobility scooter always seemed to run out on his frequent visits too or from the café to buy a non-existent midday bacon sandwich.

“Oi awl-ways yoused to go to that caffy, when old Frank had it,” said the disabled pensioner, “ee dun a noice bacan butty, ‘im. They can’t keep nuffink the same…the police are all 16 years old…litter on the streets…get them in the army…National Service…corporal punishment…capital punishment…”

[…by the way, Café owner Frank died of complications related to a pork allergy in 1957.]

Duggie says: “to be continued…I think the hole is showing, I can hear a drip, drip drip…”