Coffee and Sugar

by C. Sean McGee

CHAPTER THREE

  “Hold on,” said The Lady Driver as her right foot pressed on the accelerator, the deafening roar of the engine shooing a hundred crows from their perch just above the muddy swamp where Joao and The Bishop had found themselves imprisoned for the night.

  The two men clung steadfast to Jesus as The Lady put the utility into gear and pushed the car forwards, dragging slowly but not gently, the ceramic statue out of the muddy waters and onto the dry land where the two men; holding on for dear salvation, unraveled their arms and rolled themselves onto their backs, staring up at the morning sun while the mud that covered their arms and faces crackled under the morning light.

  “Can I give you a lift somewhere?” asked The Lady.

  The Bishop took a minute to compose himself; looking out at the wreckage and feeling a wave of shame wash over him like a bucket of warm piss. He pulled his knees up to his body, looking castrating and convicting at his docile son Joao whilst cursing his own name over and over in his mind for making the impossible, something that they will never ever mention to Mother.

  “My name’s Joao, what’s yours?” he asked The Lady Driver.

  “Is there anything you want to bring? There’s no space in the tray, but you can try to swing some things on the roof if you like. I’m headed south. You headed to another farm?” she asked.

  “We’re moving to the city,” said Joao excitedly.

  “Is that so? Well, I might be able to take you as far as you need to go then. Hop in when you’re done affixing yourself” she said, turning away from the Bishop who still sat foetal near the belly of Christ, his chin settled in the valley between his two knobbly knees.

  The Bishop eventually pulled himself from the ground as the utility’s engine roared like hungry a lion and a puff of black smoke burst out of the exhaust filling the air with the smell of diesel. Joao went to his side and offered a hand to which his father pushed away sending him stumbling back towards the car. His face was bitter and his eyes were mean and he scratched at his throat in disapproval, spitting in the direction of his sinking Beetle that swallowed with it, their clothes and their food.

  “Isn’t this fun? We’re hitchhiking” said Joao.

  “Shut up and give me a hand donkey,” said The Bishop, wetting the boy’s enthusiasm and groaning as he leaned down, wrapping his arms around the ceramic Jesus with Joao lifting from the statue’s feet.

  The Bishop dragged the statue over to the car and rested it against the rear of the utility. As he reached his hand down to undo the elastic straps for the tray, the car jumped forwards and he and Joao fell over each other and the statue with Joao hitting his face against a rock and cutting his upper lip and The Bishop, coming crashing down on him like a moral objection, taking his breath away and breaking one of his front teeth.

  “What the hell is wrong with you lady?” yelled The Bishop.

  “I told you. The tray is full. You got mud in your ear?” she said.

  “Lift the legs donkey; we’ll tie it down to the roof.”

  “That won’t do. Your statue will tear through my tray top. Find another way or leave it behind. Now hurry, I’m late” she said in a strangely inappropriate and unnerving yet affectionate tone.

  The Bishop wiped away a sweat ridden line of dirt from his eye and cursed under his breath as he sat on the floor.

  “I got an idea. Get in that mud donkey and tie off around the cross. Bring her back up an inch” he said hitting his palm on the back of the utility and yelling to The Lady Driver who was admiring herself in the mirror and watching The Bishop’s hand press against her precious tray; flirting with punition.

  The Lady Driver slowly backed the utility up to the edge of the road while Joao prepared to lower himself into the cold thick mud to secure the rope around the crux of the crucifix.

  “No need to be fancy, donkey, it’s not the ballet,” said The Bishop.

  As Joao eased one foot delicately into the mud, The Bishop grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and the belt on his pants and threw him through the air so he landed like a dead frog in the middle of the muddy swamp.

  Joao pulled his face from the mud and dragged himself along the last meter or so until he was secure around the crucifix where he tied off the rope and clung for dear life as The Lady Driver revved the engine and dragged the white wooden cross from the middle of the muddy swamp, up the bank and onto the road.

  “Are you sure about this?” asked Joao as he tied Jesus’ arms to the crucifix.

  “We’ll make another. Jesus is a once affair. Check your knots” said The Bishop tying the end of the crucifix to the tow bar with little slack so that it would pull neatly behind the utility as they drove.

  The two finished tying off Jesus to the crucifix and the crucifix to the back of the car so that the ceramic statue was dragging behind on a wooden sled hanging precariously above the red hot bitumen.

  As they were about to pull away, a loud bang coming from the tray startled Joao and he reached to the door, opened the handle and jumped over his father to escape out of the car, running back towards the muddy swamp.

  The Lady Driver looked in the mirror nervously.

  Joao looked back over his shoulder for a moment and dived back into the muddy water and dragged himself along until he reached the old Beetle. The passenger window was open so he leaned his body over the door and brushed around with his hands in a desperate flurry.

  “What’s with the boy?” she asked.

  “He’s retarded,” said The Bishop.

  As they spoke, Joao was back in the mud and wading through with momentum and vigour. He pulled himself up the bank on vines and roots that shot out from the lush earth.

  When he entered the car again his father slapped him across the back of the head and cemented him in the middle seat. Joao sat still with a mammoth grin and handed his father his black leather case with the black leather straps.

  “Nearly left it behind sir,” he said to The Bishop, panting away.

  The car pulled away from the bank and headed south on the highway. The thoughts in their heads and the uncomfortable silence were overrun by the roar of the revving engine and the sound of a wooden crucifix, splintering whilst being dragged along the bitumen, lifting into the air and crashing back to earth, every time they passed a bump in the road or some loose gravel.

  “So what do you do? You don’t look like a farmer. You selling stuff?” asked Joao to The Lady Driver who sat with conditioned eyes, locked on the curves in the road, blinking only occasionally, maybe to prove she that she was real and not a crudely drawn sketch of a woman.

  “We’re moving to the city. The Bishop here is gonna be famous. He’s gonna get his own television show and he’s gonna be the best preacher the world has ever seen. Isn’t that right sir?” Joao exclaimed rightfully looking up to his father who responded only by staring straight out at the road ahead and in the corner of his eye, seeing how The Lady Driver would react; in his mind, playing famously cool.

  “The Bishop is the most famous preacher in all of town. Folks come from all over to hear him talk about Jesus. I’ve seen it too, he’s really good. Do you like Jesus? Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?” asked Joao.

  “No,” she said. “No, I do not.”

  “That’s too bad. Maybe later The Bishop could tell you about the good book” he said.

  “I think for now I’d prefer to listen to the sound of the wheels turning,” she said.

  “We have a church, in the city. It’s waiting for us. What’s in the tray? Is it the stuff you sell?” he asked.

  “You could say that,” said The Lady Driver.

  “What are these?” asked Joao, picking up a pile of scattered papers from below his feet.

  He shuffled the papers in his hands as if he were about to deal a winning hand, patting away at the sides while gently tapping the bottom of the pile against this lap making it straight and ordered.

  The Lady Driver; with her eyes married to the road ahead, reach
ed across with her left hand and snatched the pile from the boy and tucked them snugly in the compartment on her door.

  “Are they your boyfriends?” asked Joao.

  The Lady didn’t speak; she just kept her eyes locked on the road and ignored the young boy’s snooping.

  “Don’t be rude,” said The Bishop slapping Joao on the back of the head and fasting his hands down to his sides, giving him some of his fashioned pitchfork paternalism, tossing the boy around in his seat until he finally came to rest in a less cumbersome and obtruding way.

  “Sorry sir, I remember. A good boy should see only of what he’s been shown” said Joao, sinking into an apologetic defeat and locking his inquisitive, tentacle like hands between his knees, willing himself entirely to focus his eyes on the white line of the FM radio and not wander around the foot of the car.

  For the rest of the day’s drive; all eleven hours, not a word was spoken between the three. The Bishop and The Lady were comfortable inside their own thoughts, neither itching to know about the other whereas Joao; for eleven hours, it was absolute hell.

  At the end of the day, they pulled into a small roadhouse and snuck their car as close to the main gates as possible pretending to be paying diners but instead using the safety of their secured parking to get a few hours of sleep before continuing their journey.

  “You can get a room if you want, but we’re only resting for a bit. There’s a long hike ahead so I just wanna see the back of my eyelids for a sec. Now, I appreciate my leg room so if you’d please” she said, ushering the two men out of the car.

  “I’m getting a drink. Don’t touch anything and don’t go anywhere” said The Bishop, pushing Joao against the car’s tray with his index finger and stamping off through the dark parking lot with his annoying feet slapping against the pavement and his leather case draped haughtily over his shoulder.

  Joao rested against the tray and looked down at the crucifix lying behind the vehicle. The wood was almost completely worn away close to the end, making it look more like a giant stake than a simple cross. Without moving, he examined the ceramic Jesus and apart from the missing left forearm, he was in perfect condition, still hanging on to the crucifix.

  He sat in the darkness imagining The Lady Driver, thinking how mysterious she was and how lucky they were that she came along. They could have been stuck in that mud forever had she not turned up with her truck to pull them out. And if she 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 that she collected as she went along? Maybe her father or someone really close to her had 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 sodden handkerchiefs, 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 to whom she had never spoken of her fascination and adoration when it was that 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 walk away from her touch but remain a dumbed prisoner in her domesticated heart.

  Whatever be the reason that 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 have been 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 hung 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 at 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 that were piled up next to a dirtied jar of sugar that was stained brown from the illiterate spoons which had spun first; the bitter coffee, and then 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. These were the little things that meant nothing to anyone but her and of which she probably kept 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 a 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 unto 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 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 li
kes 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 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 might pour 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 swayed like a pendulum in front of his eyes and he slapped the tray every time he lost his grip, 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 who was 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 intervened.

  “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 a 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.