Coffee and Sugar, C. Sean McGee [highly recommended books txt] 📗

wasn’t so kind as to offer them a lift, they would have been in a world of trouble sitting with no food and water by the side of the road. She really was a nice lady. Even though she didn’t like to speak, he could tell that she was really sweet and he sat in temporal conscious drift imagining what her bitterness might be.

What was it that brought her out onto the road?

Was she travelling around the country, living off the small commission she made from selling the things she collected as she went along? Maybe her father or someone really close to her died and she was driving unendingly; silent in her own bitter grief, rushing to the other side of the world to be with her family when they lowered his body into the ground and watered the dry and triste soil with their bitter, salted tears.

Maybe she was like they, having been excluded from her home; the wooden boards ascended upon the entrance by suited financiers in their tanned loafers with writs and summonses waving in their hands like a sodden handkerchief, chasing her down the street like a scorned lover negating the end of their torrid affair and she was driving; like they, to a new city, somewhere far from the sediment of her bitter trial to find a sweet moment to give her life meaning and worth; maybe an old flame that she had never to spoken of her fascination and adoration when she was just a flower in bloom; ripened by the season of youth, but now that she was wilting under the unremitting ordinance of time, she was racing against the clock to find the love of her life and quench the amorous hunger that had gnawed at her quietude all these years leading her to make a trail of mistakes that would undo the binds of obligation she had used to cage her heart since her courage failed her that day that she watched him walking away from her touch but remaining a dumbed prisoner in her domesticated heart.

Whatever be the reason she kept unto herself, it was enough for her to endure the lonely trial of pursuing the end of the infinite horizon and; just as her vehicle had to break to refuel, she herself must be running on some bitter charge, a reservoir of difficulty which hardened her will and kept her tied to her convictions.

With The lady Driver in mind, Joao snuck away from the utility, keeping away from the dim light that shone down dispiritingly from small, yellow, flickering light bulbs which swung from interloping, rusted wires that hanged just above the line of parked cars. He kept in the infinite black so as not to arouse the appointed disapproval of his father, especially if he were to be drunk which after a mere minute b the bar, he most surely was.

He ran in-between the cars and looked through the window into the roadhouse to see his father leaning over a yellow glass and speaking to none but himself, his disgraces lined up in empty, stained glasses just to the side of his reach.

The coast was clear so he snuck into the restaurant and walked calmly with no apparent suspicion up to one of the tables where there sat a large silver coffee vat on a table and beside it were some plastic cups piled up next to a dirtied jar of sugar, stained brown from the illiterate spoons which had spun first; the bitter coffee, and dipped then the spoon into the sugar, spilling the drink and making horrible brown clumps, ruining the innocence and chastity of the fine crystals.

Joao shook his head at the obvious insolence of the average person, so willing to stain their pleasantries with tragedy and disappointment.

He imagined again the struggle of The Lady, trapped behind a steering wheel; driving, neither from nor to her delicate end; imprisoned like a purgatorial abortion, winding her way to her expulsion from the life that cut her away.

He thought and felt of this weight while his hand slowly pressed on the lever and black coffee dripped out of the silver vat and into the cup below which he turned gently like a record with his right hand, letting the coffee fill according to the pace of her heart.

When the cup was full he then thought of the things that The Lady Driver would find sweet, the moments she would collate along her unforgiving journey; little things that meant nothing to anyone but her and of which she probably kept the safe in the tray in the back of her car so he thought not about what could be inside but the feeling of knowing that whatever secret she kept within was hers to keep for another day and a great joy washed over him as he took a silver soon, filling it with just enough sugar to tempt him to shed a light on her secret but not enough to know what it was.

He smiled to himself as he let the crystals fall through the coffee, her sweetness dancing with her struggle and when he felt the tiny crystals somewhere near the middle he spun the cup in his hands back and forth as if he were gently crushing a small insect and he continued to move the cup back and forth until he felt as she would feel when her motor turned, taking to the open road with a heavy stomach and light heart.

The whole time, the spoon he used to collect the sugar lay neatly on the table, never violating the sacred coming together of coffee and sugar.

When he made it back to the car, The Bishop was there, still nursing a drink in his hand and looking woeful in his dismounted reverence having his son betray his word which upon him was a title given to him by god.

“Where the fuck did you go you little cunt? You don’t repect your fada? You don’t repect uh, Jesish” he screamed in in his drunken slur, pointing his indicting finger and tripping over his exalted balance.

“I’m sorry sir; I just wanted to do something special for the driver lady. She drove us this far and I thought maybe she would want a coffee when she woke up. I made one for you as well” he said sheepishly, holding up a cup in one hand to his father.

“No one likes your fucking coffee, donkey. You’re just a fool” he said, swinging his drunken fist and punching the cup out of Joao’s hand so the hot liquid; along with his self-esteem, went crashing to the floor, staining his feet; the struggle he carried with him.

The Bishop staggered forwards and quickly grabbed onto one of the elastic bands holding the tray cover to brace himself as he fell to the ground, somehow keeping his dirty glass of cachaça from tipping onto the floor.

A drunk will conserve his talent for whatever means, pours him another glass. And as he keeled over himself; propping his long chin into the top of the glass like an oddly shaped sunburned cork, the elastic holding one end of the tray cover snapped and part of the cover opened in the dull light; still dark and hidden, but uncovered nonetheless.

“What this bitch think’s so good that I can’t put Jesish in da fucking…” said The Bishop mumbling abhorrently whilst slowly picking himself off the ground; wobbling at first but eventually finding his feet and pulling himself to the corner of the tray to satisfy his superiority.

“Sir, you said a good boy should only see unto him what has been shown” said Joao worryingly.

“Do I look like a fucking boy to you? You question your father again donkey and I’ll bury you in a shallow grave. Do you understand me? Never, ever, question your father. Inconsiderate little donkey, fucking stupid…” he said trailing off into a grumble, his vision swaying like a pendulum in front of his eyes; slapping the tray every time he lost his grip and eventually throwing his arms forwards in through the gap and stumbling backwards, taking with him a strange looking floral shirt; clenched in his hands.

“What the fuck is this?” The Bishop said holding the shirt up to his blurry eyes.

He threw the shirt on the ground and stumbled back to the tray putting his right arm deep into the tray and patting around in the dark at the strange shapes. He felt a pair of shoes, a lot of clothes heaped up, a handle and the ends of some straw or something just out of his reach. He jumped when his hand strummed the strings of a guitar and the sound woke The Lady Driver sleeping behind the wheel.

“Donkey,” The Bishop screamed, “I told you not to touch the goddamn tray. Why don’t you do what your told?” he continued, standing over Joao who crouched on the floor, punching him in the face over and over until his lip split open and his eye swelled up like a balloon, all purple and black.

“Woah, wait on a second buddy” said The Lady Driver trying to calm down The Bishop who had broken the boy’s nose and would have kept going until long after his son was dead if she hadn’t intervene.

“It’s ok, it’s not his fault. Relax, ok” she said putting her hands against The Bishop’s chest and leading him away from Joao. “It’s just some things from my brother. He died recently and I’m taking them to our mother. Listen, Bishop, yeah? Well Bishop, do me favour, can you pop the shirt back in the tray for me, I’ll check on your son and we can be on our way. We can be in the city by noon” she said.

“Whatever” he said stumbling away from the boy and leaning over to pick up the shirt and take it back to the car.

The Bishop threw the shirt through the open cover and tried to take another peak but was stopped by the sound of a honking horn. He pulled the elastic back over the cover and moved his hand away feeling something cold and sticky on his fingers. He wiped his hands on the leg of his pants and headed back to the passenger seat where his son sat sulking in the middle and The Lady Driver sat pensive and unemotional, behind the wheel.

“I made this for you” said Joao, handing the coffee to her and wiping a bloodied tear from his cheek.

CHAPTER FOUR

When they arrived in the city, the sun was sitting high in the sky but it was being commandeered by an ominous black cloud that was pushing like a broken face of the crest of the gods, sweeping through the heavens to wash away the dregs of the day’s labours, burdens and unwanted returns.

The same heat that scolded the dry air in the countryside ignited the air in the city except here, every pocket of air was filled with droplets of warm filthy water and this humidity was stifling; the kind of heat that heavied your lungs and slowed the thrill in your voice so that like a cripple, you hobbled over your words and collapsed upon your exclamation

Joao was unbaited by the heat, his body and his mind electric on the pulse of the city, wanting; like a companioned dog, to hang his head from the window and feel the hot wind brushing past his face and breathe in the rich texture of the city air pumping from spinning turbines, eschewing from blackened heaving exhausts and excreting from the sweat drenched pores of weary people, shuffling about in a desperate flurry, each and every one with lateness in their step, pushing and prodding and begging for advantage; their bodies colliding in ignorant melee with beads of sweat bursting upwards from their skin to the thick polluted sky where it filled more pockets of air and made the heavy humid heat heavier; being filled like a blister with the extent of the city’s toil.

Instead, Joao sat still in the front seat, allowing the energy of the city to wash over him like a