Coffee and Sugar

by C. Sean McGee

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Spin around,” said Eve.

  “What? Why?” said Joao.

  Charity pulled on his arms so that he came to a stop; with she, standing in front of his drawn face, smiling like a sleeping thief.

  “Don’t ask, just follow my lead. It’s silly, but it’s something that drives me crazy. Anytime I turn around, I feel like I have this elastic band wrapped around me and I just have to turn around the other way to undo it. If I don’t, I’ll go crazy. Look” she said, closing her eyes and lifting her delicate arms into the air so that the light breeze ran through the fine hairs on her arms, caressing her with a tender chill that had her shiver just slightly, not enough to molest her thought, but enough for Joao to see and he himself, to feel a cold chill run up and down his spine.

  Charity smiled as she danced in the light breeze, her fingers catching pockets of air and pulling them with her as she turned on a dime, her heels, high in the air as her body rested on top of her toes and she sprang; like a wildflower, up into the height of the sun, so high that she took Joao’s breath with her and his heart paused as he held sight of her floating like an angel, drifting in the warm summer air, the sea of content unto which he thirsted to drink.

  She turned and turned and turned and turned some more, swinging her arms and laughing as she drunkenly fell to the floor.

  “Now you,” she said.

  Joao lifted his arms like she had done and tried to garner the same grace but as he turned, with his eyes jammed shut, he felt a hissing breeze spit across his right ear and he thought of a thousand eyes watching him and as he turned on anything but a dime. His right hand swung wild and hit against the cheek of an infant child being carried at its mother’s breast, almost knocking it from her arms and inviting the stricken child into a wounded and desperate shriek.

  Joao pleaded his apology while the infant screamed for its mother’s breast while the mother clung to her child despondently, cursing and spitting at Joao, calling him names he had never heard before and advising him to do things he had never imagined a man could do and definitely not with the types of animals she mentioned.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said.

  But the mother; with her complexion bruised with rage, slapped him across the face and stormed off down the street, pressing her crying baby against her chest while around him, pedestrians past with their judging eyes, tisking with their mouths and shaking of their heads; attending to the itch of their moral nerve while on the ground; looking up with a cheeky grin and wide blue eyes was Charity, laughing hysterically, squeezing her stomach and crunching over herself, cursing the pain that her laughter brought to her belly as if she were in the throes of birth.

  Joao was red.

  Embarrassed.

  Ashamed.

  Charity; noticing his distress, managed to control her hysteria and picked herself up from the ground and put one of her gentle hands on his cheek to earth the swell of his distress and to calm his growing nerve.

  Her skin felt like soft, bumpy silk and she quickly calmed his nerves as he lifted his stare to dress against hers, losing himself in her beautiful blue eyes that looked as if they were exploding from their centre where her soul was kept. The different colours were magnificent, all rolling in and out of one another, a billion shades of blue, twisting and turning and slowly drifting from the tiny black centre like the death of a star.

  “Ok, now don’t you feel like you need to spin back the other way?” she said laughing. “Oh, come on it wasn’t that bad. So you hit a baby. Could be worse.”

  “How?’

  “Hmm. Maybe you’d best not try to undo this.”

  “This is stupid. I have to get back to the café. Fatts will be angry.”

  “So, what did you think?” asked Charity, skipping along beside Joao.

  “It was fun I guess, kind of stupid really.”

  “No, of the Apostle silly,” she said, poking his side playfully.

  “He seemed nice I guess, I dunno,” said Joao.

  “Nice? You haven’t met many stars. The Apostle is amazing. There’s no other word to describe him. He’s helped so many people. Apparently done some miracles too. Healed some people who were very sick” said Charity.

  “I thought you weren’t into that kind of stuff,” said Joao.

  “Well I’m not, not really, just The Apostle, he has this effect, I don’t know what it is,” she said.

  “I have to get back to work,” said Joao.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you so down? I thought you’d be over the moon to meet your idol” said Charity, slowing her skip, turning towards Joao consolingly and pulling on his arm to bring him to a complete halt.

  “I liked it I did. Thank you, it’s just..”

  “What, what’s wrong? It’s ok Joao, I’m your friend, you can trust me.”

  She pressed her hand against his cheek and he felt a shiver run down his spine and a warmth overcome his mind, flow down through his veins and threaten to burst out from between his legs.

  He flushed red.

  “It’s just, I thought we might go… It’s nothing don’t worry, I’m being silly. I’m sorry I have to go” he said, hurrying away from her hand and running down the street, caring less about how others might think as he barged through them with tears starting to well at his eyes and an uncomfortable warmth overtaking his entire being leading him to want to be somewhere far from everyone and everything that he knew.

  He just wanted to be alone.

  “Joao, don’t be mad” Charity yelled to the wake of Joao’s escape as he dodged and weaved in and out of a manic torrent of pressed pedestrians.

  When he reached the café, he could see scores of people all lining up by his counter waiting impatiently, some tapping away at their tables while others tapped their feet against the floor, others nervously bit at the finger nails and others took their nails to scratching against their skin. The place was packed and everyone was there, desperate and demanding, waiting for him to return so that they could live another brief moment inside their own shadow, a moment that only Joao could give them.

  He wanted to go home, back to the farm where once again he could be nothing. He had never thought that one could be less than zero, but here in the city he found himself once again feeling this way.

  “Hey, there he is. Joao, Joao, Joao, Joao” came a chant from inside the café as one of his customers caught sight of him standing at the far entrance to the café, clutching his hands over his face; his fingers spread lightly so that only the cracks of his eyes peered through at the scores of people lined up waiting for him to return; he, shaking uncontrollably as a fevered dread tickled his nerves and put an anchor to his feet.

  The whole café turned and caught sight of him and then started their chant and rant; calling his name out like some sporting idol or pop star, banging their clenched fists and slapping their open palms against their tables in a pounding ritual invitation; their hands and fists at first sounding out their own beat, then like all things in nature, one fist eventually slowing to sound out like the one before and then the one before that to the one before it, until every handheld the same space between it and the table as every other hand before and beside it so that the sound of every strike of approval was as loud and defining as Joao’s own heartbeat.

  The roar was deafening and where once he thought that this might have brought him joy and a sense of belonging, now it seemed it brought him to a worse place than the back of his father’s lecturing hand.

  He turned and ran away from the entrance and hid behind the corner of the building, pressing himself against the wall and sucking in long gulps of air, clamping his hands to his knees and resting himself as blood pounded against his forehead making him feel as if his brain could explode at any second.

  “If god permits,” said a voice laughing heavily that sounded more like a cement truck turning its produce, the words sounding out like heavy slush, piling up on loose soil.

  Joao turned and saw
the back of Fatts, his arms out wide and inviting as if he were about to heartily hug the two police officers before him like a python would, its lunch. They were the same officers he had seen coming into the café every second day, wearing mean, bullish looks and directing Fatts out into the back of the store in obvious secrecy.

  The men shook hands and the two police officers dressed in military black with their berets pressed so tightly against their skulls that Joao could see; even in the distance, a thin white line meeting a dark red glow where their skin folded under the tight band of elastic and rubber lining.

  “Joao. Come here son. What are you doing hiding round here?” said Fatts, turning joyfully and taking Joao under his giant arms like a skinny, molecular, talking and whimpering, human crutch.

  Joao wiped away the tears that escaped his eyes, sniffing away as he did like a toddler at the tail end of a learning lesson, willing to read between the lines.

  “What’s the matter boy? Nothing is so strange as having no definition? You can tell me anything. I won’t judge you” Fatts said.

  “It’s Charity,” said Joao, unsure how to continue or say what he felt.

  “Oh, women,” said Fatts in sagacious confusion.

  “I like her. I mean, I really like her, but I don’t think she likes me, not the same way. But she always smiles when she sees me and she holds my hand and she makes me feel funny and I really like her. How do I know if she likes me the same way?” asked Joao.

  “Ask her,” said Fatts.

  “I can’t. I get nervous. I want to ask her. I want to say a lot of things. I want to tell her how pretty her hair is and how her eyes remind me of the solar system and how when she says my name, I feel special and I don’t want to hurt myself anymore” he said.

  “You want to hurt yourself, Joao? How long have you felt like this? You don’t cut yourself or anything do you?” said Fatts, slowing his voice, lowering his tone like a disabled ramp, inviting Joao into his empathy.

  “All I ever wanted was for someone to notice me. Not someone, well not anyone; just my family. I just wanted to be useful, to do something, to matter, but no matter what I did, no one ever saw it or if they did, they never let me share it with them. My mum, my brothers, my sisters… My dad” he said, his last words sounding out like the choking splutter of a stalling car.

  “Let me tell you something about family Joao. You know sometimes; well all the time, girls like to put shiny stuff on their nails and paint them different colours?” asked Fatts.

  “Yeah. Charity, she changes the colours every day, well when I see her anyway. Some girls just do red, but Charity paints her nails a ton of colours, really bright as well. I think it’s a bit silly, but I don’t tell her that. She…”

  “Focus Joao. Ok, so you know what I’m talking about then. Ok, well to get rid of that paint, they use stuff called acetone, or nail polish remover. Now you’re life is like a canvas, it’s the nail and everything you do is the bright and shiny stuff that you paint on top and your family, they’re the acetone. You see, family is like nail polish remover, they take the shine off of everything you do, they make you dull and uninteresting, and they bring you back down to earth. If you wanna feel better about who you are or what you do, don’t go showing our nails to your family” said Fatts.

  “But they are the only ones I want to care about the things that I do.”

  “Look around you Joao. Can’t you hear them calling out your name? You’re at the heart of something bigger than your family. Everybody loves you, Joao. Everybody needs you. So go in there and be somebody to them” said Fatts, taking Joao by the shoulders and directing him back into the café where he walked with dry eyes and a swelled pride, his feet falling upon every chant and pounding fist, his heart, pumping love and belonging through his body so that his fingertips expanded like a rose’s petals as its flower comes into bloom and they twitched with animated exhilaration and his feet felt like they were hinged on giant springs as he bounced through the employee doors and into the café where hands patted against his back and joyous cheer erupted in the afternoon air and finally, his soul filled like a weather balloon, with definition.