by Nick Navari. @nicknavari.
A SIDEWALK, LONDON - The Broadway Beat had the opportunity to catch up with Arthur Lloyd Effington, who took a header into a chalk drawing on the streets of London some 60 years ago and hasn’t figured out a way to escape.
“‘It’s a jolly holiday with Mary’ my ass,” said Effington, eating a candy apple. “Let me tell you something: you fall down here, you win a few merry-go-round horse races, and you think, ‘You know what? I could get used to this!’ But it’s a hell-hole. Spend a few days here and you’ll see this place for what it truly is. The reality of this chalk town is a pill that’s hard to swallow - with or without sugar.”
Sir Waddlesworth, the press secretary to the president of the penguin waiter and waitress union, told us in a statement that Effington had trouble acclimating with the other residents.
“He kept to himself for the first 40 years he was down here, but once he started feeding us birds, we decided to adopt him into our commune. It’s rough out here on these streets, especially for a human, so he needed protection. Let’s just say you don’t want to be caught walking alone around here without your umbrella at night.”
Effington, who once tried physically erasing himself with a blackboard eraser, recently learned that he and his penguin-wife Slippy are expecting a child.
“I wanted to name our baby Bert, but he had a meltdown,” said Slippy as she regurgitated some sardines for Effington’s dinner. "We penguins worship ‘Our Creator’ Bert, but Arthur calls him his ‘Hostage Taker.’ My husband says he used to ‘love to laugh,’ but I don’t see much of that anymore.”
The Broadway Beat reached out to Bert for a comment, but his attorneys declined. He is currently on trial for several hundred counts of gross negligence and involuntary manslaughter as a result of the dozens of other people who have fallen into his artwork.