Coffee and Sugar

by C. Sean McGee

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 labors, 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 the humidity was stifling. It was the kind of heat that heavied your lungs and slowed the thrill in your voice so that like a cripple, you hobbled over your every word and then collapsed upon your exclamation

  Joao was unbaited by the heat.

  His body and his mind were 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, all 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 summer shower, drenching his senses and igniting the imaginable in his mind, turning the empty conscious canvas into a theatre of the impossible where what he once could not conceive, was; in the city, all so common and a part of the people’s way.

  “This will do” said The Bishop to The Lady Driver, pointing to a nearby bar on the corner of a shady looking street that was actually nothing more than an emptied garage of an old lady who; in between serving cachaça and beer to her furrowed looking patrons, stood by the side of the road, washing leaves off of the kerb and down the street with a green hose, obviously drowning in contemplation as she sat idle, staring out into the yonder, seemingly catatonic, holding the green hose and washing away the tiny leaves and twigs that were soiling up the street.

  “You take care, Joao. And thank you for the coffee. It was wonderful. You’re a kind boy. I hope you make a home here” said The Lady Driver, kissing his cheek lightly before he hopped out of the car and joined his father on the side of the road, waving as The Lady drove off into a plume of smoke.

  “Wait here with Jesus. I’m going to get some directions from these people, find out which bus we need to get” said The Bishop to Joao.

  “Yes sir,” said Joao politely, standing by the entrance to the bar as The Bishop walked in and took a seat next to a group of construction workers and what looked like homeless old men who were all nursing a greasy looking glass of poisonous looking liquid.

  Joao sat by the entrance for what could have been hours, though in the excitement of the new surroundings, to him, felt like the passing of seconds. He sat on the broken cement, gripping the ceramic statue and watching in mysterious awe as all types of people scuttled past him, weaving in and out of one another, leaning their hands against one another’s bodies to part their stride and push past them; their stride, nothing short of brisk.

  He could hear in the background, the sound of men laughing and cursing and every now and then, when a pretty girl walked past; whose glance was always cast somewhere out in the distance, he could hear the men behind him whistling and chanting vulgarity and he could recognize his father’s voice amidst the drunken bondage.

  The sun was beginning its descent into the night when finally The Bishop picked himself off his stool and stumbled outside, kicking Joao in the belly to wake him up and lurching down the street as if he were walking on two wooden legs with no bend in his knees for the fright of fall.

  Joao stretched out his worn body. The long drive had tired him so that his muscles had retracted like a coil and were frozen solid by the freezing air as the sun bowed before the coming eve.

  He took the statue on his back and carried it with him, catching the slow moving pace of his father, being pumped and prodded by the passage of people about him who cared not for what weight he carried or for where his journey might take him.

  Moving through the thick of the crowd along the broken sidewalk and racing towards his drunken father’s failing steps, he felt like a salmon fighting his way upstream as for every inch that he earned, the crowd pulled him back another foot or two and a panic started to wash over him as he saw; through the gaps in people’s arms, the image of his father creeping slowly out of sight.

  “Bishop” he yelled, but the drunken mess didn’t respond, he just kept swinging his legs left and right, clambering his way down the street, slapping his loafers on the broken cement and carrying his leather case over his shoulder with one hand while the other swayed this way and that trying to weigh in some balance in his swagger.

  “Do you want a hand?” asked a girl’s voice.

  Joao stopped briefly, tired from the statue sitting upon his shoulders and dragging behind him. He pulled himself from under Jesus’s back and turned to see a girl; no older than he, standing there with wide considerate eyes, lashes fluttering like the lens of a camera and a smile that invited the sun back into his eyes, lighting up the dark restrain which was binding his panic stricken sight to his conscious eye.

  Joao smiled, completely besotted.

  “Hi, I’m Charity. It’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?” she asked.

  Joao was speechless. He could find nether the words, nor the courage to undo the spell she had cast over him. She was so beautiful, unlike any girl he had ever seen before, just like the girl from the television; and she was speaking to him.

  He moved to say his name but his knees got weak and his legs gave way under the massive weight and he crumbled onto the floor like a deck of cards beseeched by the wind.

  “I’m Joao,” he said in a crackly voice from underneath the statute.

  Charity reached down and took the statue in her arms and lifted it from the crumpled body of Joao, leaning it against the adjacent wall and then lowering her hand to take that of Joao’s and lift him back onto his feet, patting at his body with her gentle hands to brush off the dust that had associated itself with his fall, marring his white collared shirt.

  “Charity is a nice name,” he said.

  “Are you lost?” she asked.

  “I just moved here, with my daddy. He’s up ahead; I’m trying to catch up to him. We’re trying to find out where our house is” he said.

  “I can show you if you want. I know this city like the back of my hand” said Charity joyfully.

  Joao smiled and went cross eyed as his cheeks flushed red and a nervous exuberance clambered about in his belly causing his stomach to lift up to his mouth, his teeth to chatter and his palms to sweat like a farmer’s crotch.

  Charity touched her hand against his and the softness of her skin sent a shiver through his whole body that ignited a fire in the nether of his subconscious which sent waves of light and energy through his entire body. He felt as a might child feel, the first time that it opened its eyes or even a flower in bloom, lifting its petals to taste the sun’s warm tender rays against its soft supple bud.

  Joao’s body; from his head to his toes, felt magnetic as if all the goodness of existence were now drawn to him.

  And then his muscles weakened.

  And he farted.

  Nothing loud or obnoxious, but it happened and she heard it and he retreated back into his nervous shell like a frightened turtle.

  “C’mon,” she said; ignoring what to Joao seemed damnable. “Let’s catch up with your dad. What do you prefer, the legs or the body?” she said.

  Joao stood with his mouth ajar, staring at Charity. She was magnificent. Her long dark hair ran from her milky white skin down the centre of her back. It was so straight and tied so neatly
.

  Her face was so pretty. She had big warm brown eyes that were like the mouth of a river inviting him to wash away his disparity in the purity of her simple, longing embrace of her fetching stare.

  She had a cute little nose that drew down to luscious lips that pouted lightly as; in the moments before speaking, the words built upon her lips like a tidal wave breaking through the wall of a dam.

  When she smiled; of which she did ceaselessly, a small dimple dressed upon her cheek as her luscious lips pulled back over her white teeth. At the end of her questions, Joao noticed that she always poked the tip of her tongue playfully through her teeth and bit down on it gently, waiting for his response.

  He sat there now, captive to her beauty, looking at her tongue as it poked through her teeth.

  “Well?” she said, smiling again, shedding more light on the dumbfounded deer.

  Joao shook himself and then followed the line of her chin down to her slender neck that was neither too long nor too short. It was the kind of neck that could wear a thousand jewels and still make room for its lover’s kiss.

  From her neck, he followed her milky white skin to where her large supple breasts pushed up and out of a simple tear in the fabric where her shirt pulled tight against her skin.

  He stared at her chest with his mouth agape and his hands tied to his side, sweating profusely. He imagined her slowly lifting her hands to the edges of her shoulders were the tiny strips of fabric held the shirt over her body and while her eyes undressed his, her hands gently flicked against the fabric and cast them over her arms so that gravity and her desire to be lusted by him, brought the shirt to the floor. And then she stood before him, with her bare chest and beautiful supple breasts calling him to a warm loving embrace where they would make love under the halcyon crackling of an open wood fire.

  “I like your body,” said Joao nervously.

  “I meant the statue Joao,” said Charity smiling. “Do you prefer to carry the head or the legs?”

  Joao ummed and aahed.

  Feeling flustered and overcome by a sheepish embarrassment, he nailed his head to the floor, looking only at his own feet while his face glowed bright red and his stomach sank heavier and heavier. Charity smiled and lifted his face with her gentle touch, looking him longingly in the eyes.

  “You’re cute,” she said.

  “Umm, the top half is heavier so I’ll take the shoulders and you can carry the legs. Umm, thank you Charity, umm, I’m sorry I wasn’t looking at your, I’m really sorry” he said.

  “That’s ok,” she said, “I liked it.”

  Joao ushered an innocent and playful smile as if a wrong he had always known of was now so apparently right; as if in the city, he were finally discovering himself and finding where it was that he belonged.

  “Sir, this is my friend Charity. She’s going to show us how to get home” Joao said, placing the statue down on the ground next to where his father sat, waiting for a bus.

  The Bishop looked over at Charity displeasingly at first before looking to the line where her breasts met and then finally at the light crease in her trousers between her legs. And he traced out the silhouette of her sex with a ravenous, sleazy grin on his face and an uncouth, venomous look in his eye.

  “It’s nice to meet you, sir,” she said as a bus pulled up against the curb.