Kung-Fu Stu

I didn’t ask him his name, but I don’t think he could have told it to me.

You know when Stu is in Gloucester Greene market because you can hear his battle cries. He sounds like Bruce Lee with emphysema as he throws axe kicks at pigeons in the square.

The first time I saw him I was scouring the Saturday market for authentic English trinkets. The older guy hawking pocket watches smacked the tarp of his tent to rouse Stu from sitting near and disrupting his business. Stu’s got grey hair shorn short with one or two dreadlocks left as bangs. I’ve only ever seen him in one jean button down shirt with a under tank showing off his broad chest. I’ve never heard him use words.

I feign interest in the pocket watches just to watch him through the mesh screen of the tent. He sits with his breath a perpetual wheeze and head lolloped to the side. A food vendor calls over to him. Stu stirs and walks over the vendor. I see the vendor give him a cigarette and motion him away. I figure this is his existence. He gets pushed from shopfront to shopfront with change or cigarettes or scraps of food.