The young respectable man hurriedly walks a long the fine pavement wearing at best, a long genuine grey/green Burberry coat, but it could be perceived as more of an autumn colour, a Cashmere Burberry check scarf (You can tell because the fibres look softer), smart black skinny jeans and a pair of pointy shiny black shoes.
In his hand he is carrying a green leather folder. He is a fast walker. Up ahead are two fat women. Both have their hair tied back in ponytails. Both are smoking. One has a big sovereign ring on her finger. Both are with pushchair and child.
Now, because the pavement is not so wide it is important to understand that two pushchairs placed side by side can occupy the pavement making it extremely difficult for one to squeeze past. But this is what mothers, chav mothers like to do. As if it is some sort of egg and spoon race, just this time with more lively screaming wanker eggs in big SUV carriages, they tend to keep head-to-head whilst chatting absolute fraff about their lives with eachother - I'm sure the local council estate gossip). Of course the young respectable gentle man in a rush sees the two (vigilant looking) women approaching and this is what happens:
1. DEATH.The young man hurried that day determined to get quickly to his house. It had been a tremendously productive start to the day awakening all kinds of potential, theoretic stimulation which he now wished to channel as soon as possible into his work.
Up ahead in the distant he saw two large ladies walking with pushchairs. Suddenly they stopped. Stopped whilst talking. One needed to put her baby's bottle back into the bottom deck of her bus carriage, whilst the other stood their smoking, chewing gum, chatting and eyeing up the oncoming gentlemen with some sort of underlying hatred for anybody that looked like a toff. "Oh dear" thought the young respectable man in negation, "I'd better walk around them, but the only way is to step off the pavement into the road." And without thinking twice, remaining pretty focused on getting to the office, he stepped out into the road...
BANG.
2. ACCIDENTThe young man hurried that day determined to get quickly to his home, in particular his study. It had been a tremendously productive start to the day awakening all kinds of senses, potential, theoretic stimulation, poetic imagery, which he now wished to channel as soon as possible into his work.
Up ahead in the distant he saw super large ladies walking with pushchairs. Suddenly they stopped. Stopped whilst talking. One needed to put her baby's bottle back into the bottom deck of her bus carriage, whilst the other stood their smoking, chewing gum, chatting and eyeing up the oncoming gentlemen with some sort of underlying hatred for anybody that looked like a toff.
The young man thinks to himself, "Oh crumbs, I have to try to squeeze past somehow. Should I ask them to move? Oh no, that would be ridiculous, they look like the type to just grunt and punch me in the face. What me? Asking two "mothers" to move for a gentleman?
They would probably turn round and tell me to... you know? "F" off!?
That word those scrubby people use. Those ehm..,"
His thoughts mumble for a second, "What do you call it... ehm... Chavs! yes..., They would probably be rude to me, I couldn't possibly stand there waiting politely for them to move now could I?"
And whilst pausing to think about this, the man had actually made his decision then and there. He tried not to stare into the faces of the fat chavvy, "cigarette rapist" mums and their scrubby Adidas babies and just stood there for what was just a quick instant, expecting them to move, possibly one to walk ahead of the other. But no, not so. The fat mum just stood there observing with hatred. The respectable gentleman did not want to look like a fool and had an image to retain and of course places to go, work to get on with. He could not wait, to be even more humiliated by these grotesque failures of society.
He acted quickly and might I say not in the most diligent manner, somehow remaining on the pavement, but bombarding past the pushchairs. The fat chav mum was accidentally pushed back whilst the young respectable man maintained an extremely slim foothold on the tiny paving stone in which to pass by safely. Having gone only a few steps further, he thought about his action, and said to himself what if it had gone a little more like this?...
3. LESSONThe young man sped down the road that day determined to reach his house to put down onto paper the lesson and the sites he had seen earlier that day. It had been a tremendously productive start awakening all kinds of potential thoughts, the imagination that had also stimulated his brain to think more theoretically, training his eyes more visually, and now he wished to return imminently to channel all this synaesthetic inspiration into something more useful.
Up ahead in the distant he saw two large ladies wearing tracksuit bottoms, white trainers, gold chains and front buck teeth, walking with their pushchairs blocking the entire pavement. Suddenly they stopped. Stopped whilst talking. One mother needed to put her baby's bottle back into the bottom shelf of her Wagon cart, whilst the other stood their smoking all over her child's buggy, chewing gum with an opened yellow stained mouth, chatting in some filthy annoyingly loud dialect and eyeing up the oncoming gentlemen with some sort of utter hatred. Almost as if to say "if I were a bloke I would be robbing you mister" or at least taking the serious piss.
The serious piss? well the young man was having none of that this morning. He stopped before them and said "Hey listen, do you realise that what you are doing is a crime!"
"What you talking about?" they said,
"Yes that's right", the man told them "a crime, you're potentially guilty of a crime called manslaughter."
"Manslaughter? hang on, what the fuck are you talking here mate, I aint no killer", one of the mothers shouted through her chewing gum.
The young man backed off a bit from the smell and smoke, "Yes, because by obstructing the pavement, in this instant you could have caused me to step out into the road, you have applied pressure upon me to step around you with no room on the pavement, you and your pushchairs, where the only way to get past is to step out into the road. Now if I get hit, if I die, you would be guilty of manslaughter!"
And in saying this, of course the respectable gentleman didn't really know if that would be the case or not, but it made him think for the rest of the journey home, how well do we all know the law? how do we know when we are breaking the law? even such a thing as occupying the pavement which causes someone to fall into the road by accident, can you be liable? are you guilty of manslaughter for not knowingly forcing that person off the pavement who then got hit and died.
Of course it scared the "Sh.." out of the mothers who quickly moved aside to let the young respectable man pass with ease. They came away from hearing his words feeling like they had been freed from the clutches of prison and definitely a lesson learnt for next time. Perhaps they only go head to head now in the park or something...
But now I open this thought to you? How well do you know the law? How well do you know those by-laws and the legislations created. How do you know you are innocent all the time or actually doing a crime? is it that obvious. Whenever we think we're breaking a law it always normally comes down to one of those age old ten commandment things like "don't steal, don't kill, don't tell lies" bla bla bla of course, "laws of humanity and society". But within all that there seems to be a lot more that we the people just take for granted. We let the police and the lawyers do that and so when faced with the problem of accidentally a man is killed in the road, we don't even know why we then get thrown into jail.
It is about seeing the mistake before making the mistake just as an artist will see the bird before capturing it in words or visual representation.
Unless you are a lawyer it is a language in itself. But then is art as well? no it isn't necessarily! There's no use that fat chav saying, "oh but I never knew that obstructing the public walkway could lead to manslaughter!" "I never knew I was being a negligent idiot". Perhaps we are all negligent idiots only observing the surface and not digging deeper beneath the surface. Perhaps laws are only created for the police to enforce and for the lawyers who know how to read them. Perhaps that is why Law is always a good career to go into because "we", the people, will always have to employ them to understand it for us!
So as artists, again I ask who is art for? the people who know it or the people who don't? Is your art for the White Cube or is it for the Tate Modern? Public or Private? Know your art, like you should know the Law!
Fini
