Coffee and Sugar

by C. Sean McGee

CHAPTER TWELVE

  The roads downtown were coarse and bumpy and the buses in the city traded practicality for comfort and safety. The driver sped along the road, weaving in and out of traffic like a mosquito would, the clapping hands of a desperate camper, himself not imagining in his mind a lick of difference between sitting behind the wheel of a bus and sitting behind the wheel of a Beetle, driving the former like the latter, his right foot planted firmly on the accelerator as he swung the wheel left and right, clipping mirrors and bumpers and waving his left arm out of the window as if he were reaching for god’s hand to pull him out of the coming wreckage.

  The bus was packed as it always was, with the morning flood of weary and worn workers and beggars and priests and thieves; sounding out in their heavy moans, a chorus of fatigue of which they swapped for choking black fumes that hung in the thick moist humid air like a poorly lit decoration.

  Some coughed and some blinked of their eyes. Others sneezed into their hands and then rested their hands on the backs of others when the bus would hit a bump or a puddle or a pedestrian. And their sticky, dirty hands clinged to sweaty backs and to greasy hand rails that were so crowded that sticky, dirty hands lay on top of other sticky, dirty hands like an orgy of worms as thick, bulbous hairy fingers rolled over and in and out of one another, wrapping tightly like retracting coils whenever the bus shuddered or a pretty girl bid her brace before many fat, disgusting men.

  Joao stood wedged between a silver bar which pushed against his spine and a large ginger woman whose giant low hanging breasts seemed to enclose themselves around the curves of his face so that the sweat that stained her shirt and dripped from her chin stung his eyes.

  The woman’s stained t-shirt was more like a wash cloth now as with every jump and jolter or the bus, her enormous breasts shook up and down and dragged Joao’s face along her chest where her t-shirt streaked across his eyes and his chin like a filthy rag on a toilet floor.

  He tried to hold his breath, but it was no use. Her sweat ran down his chin and onto his neck where it trickled down his body and tickled his skin. When he tried to lift his hand to scratch his belly and dry the woman’s sweat by patting his shirt against it, the woman slapped him over his head, short and sharp to stop his wandering hand from coming close to her curvaceous body.

  “Touch me and I’ll crush you,” she said, slapping him once on the head.

  “Sorry mam. I’m not trying to touch you” said Joao.

  “I’m not good enough for you to touch? That’s what you’re saying? I’m just a fat bitch, huh?” yelled The Obese Woman.

  “No mam,” said Joao choking for air, taking in every breath, the warm air that curdled below her arm pits, being able to taste on his tongue, the fruit of the giant woman’s labour, “I have an itch and I just wanna scratch.”

  “Oh you have an itch you wanna scratch do you? Dirty little no gooder” she said.

  “I’m sorry mam,” said Joao, straining from being buggered by the bead of sweat that ran down his chest and settled by his naval begging to be touched and mopped away from his chest.

  “How about you lose some fucking weight you fat nigger,” said The Nazi.

  “Excuse me?” said The Obese Woman.

  The Obese Woman turned angrily to face The Nazi who was standing on the steps in front of the open door as the bus sped along the busy avenue. It was the same Nazi that Joao had seen every time he rode the bus. He was a big man who wore big black boots with white laces and his pants fit him very funny. They didn’t come down to his heels. Instead, the legs of his pants stopped near the top of his boots so you could see his socks underneath and he had red braces on his pants like an old farmer, but they were full of badges. And he wore a dark blue jacket that had some symbols on the arms and he had a crudely drawn poo tattooed on his forehead. It was the same man who always sat in front of Joao looking angry whenever there was a black man on the bus.

  Joao squealed like an injured puppy when the woman turned with the force of her anger spinning his small frame like a thin wire so that he scraped his back and spine unnaturally against the pole. And his squeal; as piercing as it was, was heard only by the author of this story who ensured that you the reader also heard it as Joao’s face was buried deep between the woman’s heaving breasts that were like two wrecking balls now as her anger married with the rule of gravity to swing her body and her breasts and Joao in absurd directions as she pointed her finger and hurled a ton of abuse at The Nazi who stood arrogant and unaffected, just an inch from her scorning lips, standing coolly on the steps of the rear exit.

  “You heard me; N.I.G.G.E.R,” he said, spelling out his insult in a worsening derogatory tone.

  “Fuck you, you pasty white racist honky,” said The Obese Woman, spitting at the end of her trade.

  Joao wriggled and squirmed under the weight of the woman feeling every bit like a cat in a bag, trying to squeeze his way out of this uncomfortable situation.

  The Nazi and The Obese Woman continued their racial tirade, neither finding more grace than the other, both taking to lower blows to reduce the other to submission but their words and shouts and spitting and insulting just continued the entirety of the journey whilst Joao counted out in his head, the number of stops before having to stretch his skinny little hand up and out from beneath The Obese Woman’s breasts and to desperately press the red button to bring this circus to a stop.

  As the bus swerved through traffic, knocking everybody this way and that, a chorus of abuse spread through the bus with the frustrations of the people being exalted in foul words and pushing and shoving; too close to one another for any real hurt but close enough to make a mark.

  There were the elderly cursing at the youth who sat vacantly in their priority seats, either pretending to sleep, looking absently away or glaring back in obvious undisciplined dissent.

  There were poor, wrestling with the rich and then the poor who were dressed as rich, cursing the rich who spoke with poor tongues and even poorer minds.

  Everyone found some difference that could serve as a canvas on which to paint their disappointment and tired appreciating committal, yelling and pushing and finding weakness in one another and making that the tone of their address.

  Joao squirmed some more.

  His hand reached for the red button.

  His finger stretched.

  The button pressed.

  The bell dinged.

  And everybody swayed back like a mound of human reeds caught in a gale force breeze as the driver slammed on the breaks bringing the bus to a dead stop.

  The tiny doors opened and scores of stressed and angry workers piled out, pushing and squeezing and biting and fighting as they fought for an inch of fresh air and to make their way onto the hurtling sidewalk as if nothing at all had happened.

  Joao shook the surprise from his pants, straightening out the legs of his trousers and tucking his shirt back into his pants before entering the café where Fatts was waiting with a giant grin, chuckling out loud and holding his massive belly whilst pointing an amused finger at Joao who look beset by disbelief and troubled by the pull of the city’s tide in the early morning.

  “Let me tell you a little something about life,” Fatts said, “there’s an animal for every stage in a person’s life you know that?”

  Joao said nothing but responded instead with an eager eye that widened in exuberance as he walked towards the counter where Fatts was now sitting. He prepared for his mind to be painted with a new colourful truth from the man that he admired.

  “You know, when a baby is born, it’s really cute. All cuddly and fragile and you just wanna wrap it up in your arms and squeeze the life out of it, in a good way of course. Well, new babies, they don’t do very much. They eat, poop, sleep and play. That’s about it. Just like a kitty cat. And just like a kitty cat, they’ll cry all night until they get to do one of those four things and you can be sure; just like the kitty cat, they’re gonna wanna do all those four things when you least expect
and when it’s gonna dance on your sanity. My kitty, she wakes up at 3 am and starts pulling at the hairs in my nose. Now she thinks that’s ok cause she’s a cat and it’s her world after-all, just like a baby. And just like a kitty cat, that baby isn’t bothered about having to sugar coat the truth. It’ll tell ya when you’re not needed or wanted and will be pretty damn obvious when you are. You see the kitty and the baby, they don’t imagine much outside of the four things they do well, can’t imagine myself why you would want to. It’s a great gig you know. Another thirty years and I’ll be in the geriatric home living my last days like the kitty cat” said Fatts.

  Joao smiled.

  “Now when a baby gets a bit older he or she becomes a toddler. As soon as they get those legs working they’re running around grabbing whatever they can and generally, breaking it. To mum and dad, causing a ruckus and making a mess, to the toddler, they’re just having fun, exploring, learning, being. So as soon as a baby gets its legs, it goes from being a kitty cat to a puppy dog. You leave that toddler alone for a second in a room and when you come back, there’ll be paint all over the ceiling, your prized books will all be scribbled upon, cups broken, computers pulled apart, wallets devoured and in the centre of the room, there’ll be a bare bummed little walking terror telling you that they didn’t do it; just like little puppies, learning their limits, sharpening their teeth, pulling things apart, having some fun. Toddlers are dogs” said Fatts academically.

  Joao’s smile widened.

  “Now when these dogs grow up, they start to hang around in large groups and usually they’ll have an idol, a star, anything at all really, just something up high that can shout down at them and move them about. They never travel alone. Always rushing this way and that, but never rushing first, always being on the heels of their friends. You see when the toddler grows up and hits puberty, he becomes a sheep and like the rest of the flock, he or she does nothing really, just sits around all day being ushered this way and that by their parents, rock stars, their teachers, doctors, their heroes, villains, everyone. They’re kind of useless but you hold them for long enough and you can fleece them of all their money. From cats to dogs, to sheep” said Fatts.

  Joao giggled lightly thinking of his siblings and returned his stare to Fatts who was just putting down his cup to start again.

  “Now, we get to us; the grownups or cattle. This is what being a man is about. Being shoved into a tiny little bus and herded around the city so you can end up stuck at an office for ten hours a day and milked of your intellectual property” said Fatts.

  “What’s that?” said Joao.

  “Your ideas. The cow is milked and its milk is stirred and pasteurized and bottled and boxed and labeled and branded and sold, just like the grown up. He sits at his desk while his ideas are extracted and complied with other ideas to make a great idea that is produced and boxed and branded with the company logo and sold to some other poor chump in some other part of the world who’s just doin the same thing. Paying for a part of someone else’s milk cause he sold off his own. And like the cow, the grown up is given freedom, democracy, shopping malls, pornography, churches, theme parks, rock shows, football and choice. Give a man freedom and he’ll do nothing with it. You wanna make a man strong, you take away his will to fight. You wanna hear him scream, you force his mouth shut. But, if you want him to be stupid and still just like a cow, take down the fences, put a bell around his neck and make him think he can leave if he wants to. Grownups, they’re cows. Every now and then, they’re a bull but when the humping is done, they go back to being a cow.” said Fatts.

  “And what about old people?” said Joao.

  “Revert back to kitten. Except we’re talking those hairless kitty cats with loose skin. They go from cow to pug to a hairless cat. That’s it. So remember, when you’re piled on that bus with all of those swearing and cursing fools, each of them clinging to one reason why they are better than the rest; they’re all bloody cows” said Fatts.

  “Even you?” asked Joao.

  “Me? I’m a wildebeest” said Fatts laughing.

  Joao laughed too though he wasn’t sure why. It was just fun though to laugh with other people like in the way some people felt more comfortable joining a queue with more people even when they were queuing for the same thing. It felt ensuring to ride on another’s wing; to be sure you’re in the right place or to know if and when you are enjoying yourself.

  “You have a customer,” said Fatts pointing to the door.

  It was The Nazi from the bus. He was standing in the doorway looking angry and mean in his eyes, staring at Fatts as he walked from around the counter and behind the restricted doors.

  Joao smiled, but he was reserved and nervous.

  “Coffee,” said The Nazi, “and hurry up, or I’ll punch ya.”

  Joao busied his hands and knocked over a horde of cups and pots as he prepared his tools, pressed by the mean fisted urgency of the man in front of him, staring him down like a hungry polar bear over an injured, baby seal.

  “If you don’t mind sir, I make my coffee different. It takes just a moment more time. Is that ok?” asked Joao nervously.

  “If it’s crap, I’ll punch ya,” said The Nazi.

  “Ok,” said Joao, accepting the terms of his grace without any debate, or choice.

  Joao washed his hands thoroughly, removing the spit and sweat and stains from the morning’s ride on the bus. He had a special towel that was only his. Fatts had bought it for him. And he used this towel to dry his hands so that they wouldn’t collect more coffee than they needed, so that the grains that did not belong would not stick to his fingers and make their way in to poison The Nazi’s cup but instead would follow the negating rule of his fingers as they flicked the grains back to where they belonged, in someone else’s coffee.

  Joao dipped his hands into the jar of coffee, this jar too, given to him by Fatts and permitting only his freshly washed fingers to touch the lid and to press inside the dark grains.

  The Nazi stared straight at Joao who stared straight back as his fingers pressed gently through the surface of the grains and slid their way downwards until his fingernails touched against the hard glass bottom and then; as his mind wandered, his fingers too wandered through the grains, touching each and every one and picking only the ones that spoke of the vision that played out in his mind.

  And as his eyes trained onto the pupils of the scarred, angered man with poop tattooed across his forehead, a wave of harsh and bitter warmth had him at first scolded, like a bare bum breeching a boiling bath and then, as the curtain pulled on his cerebral theatre and his conscious eye opened, he could see a young boy being pushed and prodded, being picked up by a group of older boys by the legs.

  As the boy swung wildly and pleaded for them to stop, the tears and snot that billowed from his eyes and nose streamed back down his face and the back of his throat making him splutter through every word.

  The boys laughed and shook him so that the few coins he had in his pockets jingled as they struck against the bathroom floor.

  “It’s not my money” yelled the boy.

  “It’s not my money, it’s not my money” the meaner boys repeated mockingly.

  “It’s my nana’s money. Please” the boy pleaded to the meaner boys who laughed hysterically and lowered his legs so that his head was just beneath the rim of the toilet; a filthy, disgusting toilet with a horrendous stench that hadn’t been cleaned in months.

  “You got no mummy and you got no daddy, little cry baby is a bastard, you’re a bastard, you’re a bastard, you’re a bastard, you’re a bastard, you’re a bastard. You’re mum and dad are dead” screamed one of the boys, leaning down to his face, shouting over the rim of the toilet, nasally and repugnant like.

  Another coin fell from his pocket and the young boy thought only of his grandmother, the woman who had loved him and protected him through tragedy, who had always kept the spooks from camping underneath his bed and trying to break into his head and
wreck his dreams.

  He thought of her face and he felt sad because he was too small to help her and he was too scared to say anything back.

  “You wanna see you’re mommy little baby? Huh? I’m gonna kill you, you freak” shouted one of the boys, lowering his pants as he spoke so that he could urinate on the boy’s face as it hung over a pile of old feces.

  “Yeah, piss on him” shouted the other boys egging their friends on to follow a trend and urinate on the boy’s head and face.

  Each of them took their turn, sometimes two or three at once. They leaned in to urinate on the boy’s face as he clenched his eyes, mouth and nostrils shut, feeling the warm liquid drench his hair and face, thinking only of his grandmother and hoping she would rescue him like she had from the depression that shadowed from the death of his mother and father.

  As the boys were about to lower his legs further so that his head would sink into the pile of mashed and crusted feces at the bottom of the toilet bowl, their joy was broken with the sound of old hinges turning on a creaky, old door and a bent, rusted, metal frame.

  “It’s a teacher,” said one of the boys panicking.

  “Aint no teacher here,” said a loud voice from behind the stall where the children gathered in surprised panic.

  “We’re just playin around. Just messin” said one of the boys.

  The sound of many confident boots marching into the toilet was deafened by the silence that came after as they all aligned before the stall and the mean boys’ fear heightened at the sound of the only exit; a small but heavy iron door, being closed and then locked and then chained and then the sound of a padlock, clicking into place.

  “Seems a little unfair, all of you onto just him,” said the booming voice.

  A boot smashed against the door of the stall and there; standing in the light and blocking the entrance, were nine older boys, some of them young men and one of them; the one with the booming voice, hardly a boy.

  “You know, when I was in school, kids like you wanted to pick on kids like me. Put him down,” said the man with the booming voice before continuing. “You see, I was just like him, different, special. But you and all the little cunts like you, you gang together and you tried to pick on kids like me, like my friend here, because you’re not special, you’re ordinary. You think havin a mum and dad that tuck you in every night and mash up your potatoes and dice up your steak makes you special, it makes you ordinary. And you know what happens when you get older? Nothin. You still have someone to cut up your food and hold your willy when you pee and you still need mum and dad to make you feel safe when you’re not with your little faggot friends. Come ere buddy” he said to the boy now cowering on the floor, waving his hand gentle and invitingly, giving a consoling stare.

  Around the gargantuan man, there stood another eight boys and men of all ages. All were dressed in big black combat boots with white laces, jeans that ended strangely above their boots so that their white socks were plainly visible, red braces holding their jeans to their waists and dark blue bomber jackets with swastikas and crucifixes branded all over the arms and zippers on buttons and badges and well sewn patches.

  The boy lifted himself shakily. He had small bits of feces on his forehead and in his hair and he had wet himself during the ordeal.

  “Hold on little buddy. His money, pick it up for him” said the booming voice to the group of trembling boys.

  One of the mean boys leant down and collected the coins from the ground that were now covered in urine.

  “Clean them before giving them back. Don’t be rude” said the booming voice.

  The boy went to wipe them on his shirt before the man with the booming voice stamped his boot on the floor and like a clap of thunder, scaring all of the boys into attention.

  “Not with your shirt. Wash em. In your mouth” he said.

  The mean boy took the coins and put them inside his mouth and washed them around, gagging as he did with the flavor of urine stinging his taste buds.

  “Come ere buddy,” the man said, taking the boy close to his enormous frame, kneeling on one knee and resting a trusting, confident arm across the boy’s shoulder.

  The boy looked to the man and felt the same calm that he would receive whenever his grandmother chased away the spooks that were camping beneath his bed.

  “You know, being special is a good thing. It’s good to be different. You’re mum and dad died and that sucks but life is like that. You’re not alone, though. You got a family. We’re your family,” he said, stretching his arm around and showing off the other boys and men who stood staunch, glaring at the mean boys like pit-bulls resting upon a single command.

  The boy smiled.

  The man with the booming voice clicked his fingers and the other boys and men; primed to attack, did just that. They leapt from where they stood, taking to each mean boy in pairs, taking them by the arms and legs and swinging their limp bodies into walls, doors, porcelain bowls and smashing their faces against the massive mirror that hung above the seven small sinks along the far wall.

  They stomped and kicked and very quickly, the mean boys went from tears and screaming to whimpering and then silence as black combat boots came crushing down on their hands and backs and faces and their blood gushed from their body as quick as their bravado as the boys and men followed the mean children’s lead and lined up along the crumpled children and urinated all over them.

  As the boy walked out of the toilet under the wing of the man with the booming voice, he caught sight of his own reflection, seeing the end of years of torment from these cruel children that were dressed up as educated and moral and middle class but were as mean and vile and filthy as any sewer rat. He caught in his own reflection, the end of his youth marked with a brown stain across his forehead.

  On the other side of the door, he was now much older and as they passed through, Joao could see that the young boy was now a young man and he was no longer weak and feeble, shivering to himself at the thought of violence, threat or altercation.

  Now, looking in the mirror, he could see that this young man was the threat.

  He was violence.

  He was altercation.

  “Your father would have been so proud of you. And your mother too” said The Grandmother, her voice old and crackling, spoken with a pinch of pride and a dash of imminent shame which; from the silence that trailed her words like an aftershock, welcomed to lash upon the young man’s ears at any moment.

  The Nazi said nothing. He continued to dry his body whilst catching the shadow of his grandmother behind his mammoth reflection in the mirror, her small, frail fingers curling around the door, holding it just enough so her voice could enter unchallenged into the room.

  “Don’t put it on, please” said The Grandmother.

  The Nazi said nothing.

  “It’s not the boy I know. It’s not the boy your father would want you to be. You’re better than that. You don’t believe all those things” she said.

  “They’re my family,” said The Nazi.

  “I am your family, not those monsters,” said The Grandmother.

  The Nazi unchanged his stare, seeming unmoved by the plight of his grandmother whose light breathing now sounded out as a light cry and the sadness that ´pulled beneath his conscious sea, spilled anger into his mind and spurred fury at his fists so that his unchanged stare now yielded a heady glare in his eyes that set fire to his blood and had him want to say the worst things imaginable, but he couldn’t.

  She was his grandmother.

  And he loved her.

  “You don’t need them anymore. They’re no good criminals and they’ll get you in trouble. You should be in school” she said.

  “They’re my brothers. They’re my friends. They’re my family. They were the only ones who ever looked out for me” he said.

  “What about your mother and father?” she said.

  “They’re dead” he yelled back.

  “And what about me? You’re the only
family I have” she cried out.

  The Nazi said nothing.

  “If you put that jacket on, you can’t come back here, ever. You’ll be nothing to me. I’ll never want to see you again, do you understand” said The Grandmother, her tears and sadness now overwhelming so that her words spilled from her mother like a torrent of water from a crumbling dam wall.

  The Nazi looked to his side at the jacket folded neatly over the chair beside his bed and his eyes studied the badges and insignia etched and sewn across it. They were what his identity was built upon, all that he knew and all that he believed in. They were the symbols of strength that flexed in his muscles, beat from his heart and echoed from the fight in his soul.

  These symbols took him from being a young child, embossed in torment and ridicule, trampled by the abandon of his mother and father and preyed upon by his need for his adoring grandmother; always being the insect having its wings and limbs torn from its body to then being a young man; confident and strong, a leader, powerful, listened, learned, well spoken, assuring, domineering, hardly a victim, always the threat; a king amongst men.

  The Grandmother wept out loud. She collapsed to the floor with her head buried in her hands while the only family she knew walked out of her life, stepping over her frail body and marching out of the house to never return again.

  The Grandmother cried.

  The Nazi swelled with anger.

  When he walked out of the door he was much older, almost the man he was today. He wore the same jacket though many of the badges had been removed. His skin was more scarred, the effect of being accountable for the things he had said and done in his life and more so, for those done by men he longer eluded to being his family.

  The Nazi sat alone on a stool.

  He had no brothers.

  He had no friends.

  He had no family.

  He was, entirely alone.

  All he could do was to sit and stare as his mind rambled like a broken radio, a strange hiss that when he gave it the attention it deserved, became clearer as the sound of his dear grandmother sobbing and weeping as he had stepped over her frail body all those years ago, leaving her alone like his parents had done to him, leaving her alone like he had done to himself.

  Joao gasped as he closed the theatre in his mind, seeing once again The Nazi staring him long in his eyes, tapping his fingers away on the counter, looking mean and demanding and short of patience.

  He moved his hands to the sink and ran water over his stained fingers, washing away the remnants of this man’s bitter past. He wiped his hands clean and dry and then returned his stare to The Nazi before pressing his fingers gently into a bowl of sugar, one; like the coffee, that only addressed his hands and of which every grain belonged to someone’s history.

  When he closed his eyes, his mind was blank. There was no vision at all playing out for him and every grain of sugar seemed to dissipate away from his touch almost as if there were no sweetness at all in this man’s life, nothing at all that would warrant him to will away the shadow of his own death and have him return day after day for more of this existence.

  He moved his fingers slowly through the bowl of sugar passing in and out of hundreds of thousands of individual grains and each grain screaming in vile contest as his fingers passed through with not one sweet moment belonging in his life.

  Then as he pulled his hands from the bowl, he opened his eyes and caught drift of The Nazi’s stare and saw in him, a look he had seen before and so he closed his eyes again and imagined someone else as his fingers slid through the white grains.

  He saw the face of an angry lady, one whose anger was but the bark of her tremoring loneliness and amorous abandon. Her anger was so much like that of this man; this tattooed, broken, disheveled and lonely man. The Nervous Lady had that same vacant look in her eye, defending her sadness with venomous spite.

  She had no friends.

  She had no family.

  She was; as The Nazi, entirely alone.

  Joao smiled to himself thinking that nothing in the world is entirely alone, pinching grains of sugar, small seemingly insignificant grains that would tell this story and remind The Nazi that he was not the only person in the world to have ever felt this way and as such, he was not alone.