Coffee and Sugar

by C. Sean McGee

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Coffee and sugar” spoke an excited voice from across the counter, vying to have their order heard and be the next to experiment with the flavor of their soul and be cast in their own shadow for but a moment.

  The mood in the café was electric. People were pushing over one another, waving crumpled notes patriotically and shouting short sharp commands to get the attention of Joao who; in the midst of frantic baristas taking money and scribbling notes and confusing orders, sat like a thinking monk, his hands entrenched in a jar of coffee, looking with his shut eyes into the life of an old man with missing teeth, scruffy hair, torn shorts, a rather large and oddly shaped middle toe, a nervous twitch on the muscle in the right side of his neck, an uneven beard that looked more like the burnt out scrub in a desert dune, a runny nose, a virulent cough, a lazy left eye, a crazy right other and a hand full of one cent coins in his clenched fist; a week’s work of begging that he held tighter in his left hand than a father would, his child through a thunderstorm.

  The old man handed over his coins and took the small glass to his lips and before he let the liquid touch his tongue, he paused for a second that could have passed as a lifetime as the steam listed up his mucky cheeks and wet a dried tear that scabbed beneath his eye, setting it free to run the length of his face; to pass through his messy beard, to run along the line of his jaw and to pool just at the tip of his chin where it stretched and filled with the heavy, musky breeze that rained from the bloating sky above; an advent to the coming afternoon showers.

  And he tilted the cup slightly so that the dark, hot liquid that steamed like the echo of his voice, ran out of the small glass cup and along with his life, washed over his tongue and coursed inside of him and the single tear; that for years he had been hardened to shed, fell away from his stony face and splashed onto the floor where it quickly dissolved into the hot moist air abounding.

  And as his soul was warmed with a glimpse of its own reflection, the crazy old man felt free to feel again; to love, to fear, to want, to need, to long, to miss, to remember, to laugh and to cry.

  And at the sight of the crying crazy old man, the crowd went into hysteria with the counter looking more like the platform for the last train out of dodge with people of all ages, all creeds, all denominations, all false fabricated ideas of ideals; all being, all too human, resounded in desperation, want and desire and each and everyone knowing that before them sat a full bowl of candy but in their minds they looked through the mounting pile and saw only the last one and shedding; like a head cold, their off the rack morality to eat as many candy as they could to ensure they got the last piece.

  Fatts sat at the back of the café with his giant arms folded over his chest laughing heartily. He had never seen this kind of hysteria before and he preferred more to enjoy the moment than to attempt to package, price and profit from this furor that ignited from the small spark of his dear Joao and his only talent that nobody had ever cared about but that of which now, was the only thing people wanted.

  The chants and screams for coffee and sugar echoed at the counter deafeningly and the continuation of such; of this drunken desire, spilled back out of the store and whispered in the farthest regions of the city where people shuffled about in their normal bustle with their heads low, their eyes perched on the backs of the feet in front of them, thinking of their work, wishing they could wish it away, living as they normally lived. But at this moment, as they shuffled about in the nether parts of the city, they sensed something calling them; something different, but something oh so familiar, for everyone everywhere was sensing it too.

  Joao moved in and out of trance, passing forward each cup and then moving to gently wash his hands and the creases between his fingers and in the folds where his fingers bent so that he painted on a clear canvas for each coffee that he prepared and with every coffee, he moved a little slower, looking a little heavier on his feet, longer in his face and more vacant in his eyes each and every time that he stepped into his conscious state, looking less like a person and more like an old shack being weathered by a pestering wind with its shades half drawn and a dim flickering light slowly buzzing towards its inevitable extinction somewhere in a small cramped space at the back of the house, visible as just a tiny speck of wavering light creeping out of a blanket of heavy nothingness that spoke of abandon and absence and was less of an invite as it was a warning for curious travelers to make their camp in another’s work and to rest their worries on another’s pillow.

  “Show’s over folks, go home,” said Fatts, stepping in front of the exhausted Joao, pressing his massive palms against the push of the desperate crowd, keeping Joao from the pursuit and craze of their expired obligation.

  The crowd got angrier and even more restless than they had been, knowing too well that they would have to bed with their pent expectation, still waiting to reach some climax in their want and desire. Those that had been waiting shook their fists and cursed and those that had been served; hungry for more, pleaded and begged and fell to their knees saying ‘you did this’ and ‘just one more’.

  “If you didn’t get a taste, you will get priority; tomorrow, understand? If you yell and push and shove and stick your face around long enough for me to remember it, you will get nothing, not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Now, Mr. Joao has tired for the day and will retreat into where it is you do not belong. Thank you and be considerate to one another as you exit the building and please, in the next twenty-eight seconds, find somewhere else to be” shouted Fatts, standing on the counter and orating the much sought and yet still debated intermission.

  “Oh come on, I’ve been waiting forever” yelled an unimpressed man.

  “And tomorrow you will wait forever more,” said Fatts while, behind him, Joao collapsed to the floor, his hands shaking, his skin pale, his eyes where they should be but looking hollow and clinging to a spirit that was without form.

  The café cleared and as it did, an echo of peppered feet splashing against slippery, wet tiles hummed through Joao’s ears and lay a blanket of threat in his mind, making him feel as if his fame were smothering him and though he was almost completely out of breath; struggling to keep his head from hitting the floor, he wanted so much to dive back into that sea and be swept away by the currents of conscious imaginings to find, in the murkiest depths of his subconscious, the tiny treasures he once thought abandoned, sunken and thrown overboard and then be able to somehow pull them from the depths of nothingness so that their colours could shine once again.

  “You’re a star Joao. I’ve never seen people react like that before, not to anything that wasn’t a drug anyway. You go home and get some rest” said Fatts.

  Joao felt less like an adorning star and more like an old washcloth with the kindness and life in him gone into cleansing each and every soul that passed by his counter, leaving him only with a thick grime and residue that he couldn’t shake off.

  As he lifted himself from the ground, pushing his small pebble like fist under his buttocks and heaving upwards, a familiar footstep patted its way into the café and towards the counter where his left hand now gripped against the rounded edge, holding his swinging body as he siphoned the last of his strength down to his folded legs, building like a jack in the box’s tensing suspense and eventually; when he felt his legs could serve him, springing high into the air and springing backwards into a stack of pizza boxes in stupid surprise as Charity said “Hi.”

  Charity giggled.

  Joao went red.

  A little embarrassed.

  A little annoyed.

  “Hi,” he said.

  He wanted to yell at her and make her feel as awkward as he had felt, as he always felt every time he was around her. He wanted her to feel as stupid as he felt. He wanted to give her this feeling of shame and ridicule that boiled in his blood and made him want to bury his head inside a small, dirty hole. He wished for a millisecond that he could pass this on like the flu or chlamydia; that he could give it to her like she had give
n it to him.

  Yet even though he felt like this, he still couldn’t help but look favouringly in her eyes as she seemed to look matingly into his and when he did; as he did at this moment, any trouble that he had loaded by his scratching nails, his whitened knuckles and at the tip of his tongue, dissolved in the merriment of how she made him feel and he thought to himself as he warmed in the glimmer of her eye that this must be how the earth must feel every morning when it turns it sleepy head and opens its heavy eyes to see the sun still there, to find itself still revolving; to find itself still belonging.

  “I’m sorry Joao. You’re my friend and I don’t want to ever make you feel bad. I really am sorry and I will show you that place. But later, when its more special” she said smiling and reaching her soft, delicate hand onto his, causing neurons to fire, his blood to boil and sweat to pour from his pores with sirens sounding in his mind as the dam walls threatened to burst open then and there.

  As her hand pressed against his, he felt warmed and cozy; cared for and safe. He had felt this when he was a boy, when he would be asleep in the buggering cold, curled on the floor, shivering his way through an escapeless slumber and nightmaring dream and the old mangy dog; the one whose hanging fur looked like an old man’s elbow, would curl up beside him, stretching its long, scrawny body along his, keeping him warm and attended through the night.

  “Can I have one of your coffees?” she asked.

  Joao smiled and tensed his hand and as he did, Charity tensed hers; entwining her fingers around his, curling the tips underneath so that they stroked the palm of his hand so gently as if the skin on which she strummed were the nylon strings to his heart.

  “I don’t wanna see myself,” she said.

  She was so beautiful and her wanting stare was so intense. Joao could hardly breathe.

  “I wanna see you,” she said.