Coffee and Sugar
Page 26
TWENTY SIX
There was a passage of feet that none would ever have imagined having passed as a carriage of mourners made their way in a solemn ascent up the hill.
Nothing was said between the strangers, whose eyes hung lower than their expectations, scraping along the bumpy and rocky path, watching for the same loose rocks and pot holes that Joao had, every morning and every eve when there had been less importance in this journey.
Their thoughts filled their every breath, travelling out into the cold afternoon air in a heavy ghostly mist. Above them, dark clouds circled and started to weep with large droplets splashing against their faces and on their legs as they drudged along, led by The 13th Apostle, up the hill towards the church; hundreds of people, all of whom had found themselves at the hands of Joao; all of whom had found their culture and their reflection at the bottom of a small coffee cup.
When the procession reached the church, they gathered like a swarm of bees in front of the door and made their way into the service one by one, filling every minute space with their bodies pressed against one another, their eyes peering over one another’s shoulders, their hands pressed against the warmth of another’s back; feeling the sadness tense and flicker in their muscles with each understanding hand, grounding and settling the sadness to which it pressed against.
They poured into the church like water into any space at all, finding a place for themselves in every crook and cranny and makeable crevice so that they could see or hear or feel a closeness to Joao’s white coffin.
And those who couldn’t push their way through the door pressed their ears against the thin walls and scaled the roof and even watched through the small hole that Joao had noticed before he died.
At the front of the church; standing before the coffin, The 13th Apostle lifted his rattlesnake hands into the air, shaking them like a tree’s branches in a heavy wind. The shaking travelled down his mammoth branches until his whole body shook as he fought for the words to address this terrible day, but he couldn’t find them.
He collapsed onto the coffin as if his roots had been torn from the earth of his contentment and the heavy winds of his depression pulled him over on top of the coffin and as he draped over Joao’s still body, he wept uncontrollably and he felt as if he could never pull himself away.
Mother leaned to The 13th Apostle and with her calloused hands, she lifted him under his belly and gently around his neck and brought him back up to his feet so the hundreds of mourners inside the church and those peering through the hole in the roof above could see the colour of his tears and so his crying soul could be heard through the walls, out in the crowded streets and down the hill where it could make its own passage into the hearts and souls of those who had yet to taste true sweetness in their lives so that their souls too could grieve as every awoken soul did, inside of the church.
The Bishop stood beside Mother and beside him and inconsolable, was Charity. Mother took The Bishop’s hand and looked around the church seeing the hundreds of people all begging upon a kind and meaningful word, for some solution to their grief that submerged their conscious minds and had them confounded and bargaining with god.
At the front of the room stood The Nazi, though Joao might have missed him were it not for the tattoo on his head. He was dressed in subtlety, devoid of his colours and badges and his symbols of regret; a plaid black suit and black loafers with a shiny silver buckle over the toes and beside him stood The Nervous Lady; alone, as she had always been, staring downwards for a certain pair of shoes, nervously picking at the palm of her hand.
Feeling her shiver against his resting arm, The Nazi took her hand and pulled her close with his other, shushing her worry.
The Nazi smiled.
The Nervous Lady smiled.
“There are so many people here,” said Mother, squeezing The Bishop’s hand, for the first time, pride swelling the tip of her tongue so that she lisped her way through the words.
The Bishop stepped away from his blame for a moment and opened his eyes to what stood before him and she was right. What everyone had said was impossible, even what he had believed could be but quickly; as he lost his way, learned to himself negate, had been made true.
Everyone had said that nobody would ever enter through these doors, that not even god himself would pay any mind, that hope and kindness; upon this hill, would never be.
“I knew you would be a success,” said Mother, looking The Bishop lovingly in the eyes.
“They are your people,” said The 13th Apostle. “Address them.”
The Bishop’s first word was louder than any that had followed and it was all anyone heard, for the second he said Joao’s name, hysteria beckoned at the hearts of one and all; from the foot of his coffin, through the church and out the door onto the crowded streets, people of all denominations, of all creeds, of all colours, of all sexes, of all differentiations, of all strangeness and opposition held each other in their arms with storms building in their eyes.
The Bishop canted his voice loud and availing, but nothing could be heard over the wailing of strangers, locked in considerate and liberating embraces.
As he spoke, Charity leaned in to the coffin and kissed Joao on his cold lips. She took from her bag a lottery ticket, folded it neatly and placed it in the pocket of his pants.
“What did you see when you were there?” she asked, kissing him one more time before turning away and leaving the church; in her hands a bag with nothing more than a clean shirt, a pair of sunglasses and a bus ticket.
Charity left the church, catching the cold air against her skin and drawing it into her soul, feeling her passage calling her to lift her anchor.
She stood watching an old lady slowly shuffling her feet and clenching in her frail hands, a tiny slither of paper. The Nice Old Lady had a look like a child at the turn of a handle, waiting on the edge of their patience for their father to come home. She had a look of radiating expectancy and though the wrinkles on her face were worn from a life of grimace and groans, it looked; in the little tremors on her cheeks, as if she were brandishing every muscle in her body to garnish a welcoming and finding smile.
The Nice Old Lady shuffled up and towards an old wooden shack at the top of the hill and nervously rattled on an old rusted chain that hung from the door. And Charity watched in still wonder as a lock turned.
The old chain rattled and slid from its binds and the old wooden door slowly creaked opened and then the piece of paper divorced from The Nice Old Lady’s fingers and drifted like a dead leaf through the air as she cast her arms open and wide in a forgiving embrace and walked into the darkness.
As Charity walked down the hill, carrying the small bag and with her reflection stretched out beneath her skin, she thought about the open sea and she thought no words at all, just a feeling of the wonder of returning to where she belonged.
At the end of the service, after the bishop had spoken, the scores of hundreds of consoling strangers all passed by Joao’s coffin one by one; touching his hand, giving their thanks and saying goodbye.
They turned to The Bishop, overwhelmed by his compassion and his deliverance and shook his hand offering their condolences and vowing to return, to quench their thirsting hope within these walls.
The Bishop smiled in humble pride.
So accosted was he that he didn’t even notice Mother, with one hand on Joao’s coffin, shaking the devil’s hand.
husband, father, son, brother, philosopher, story teller, teacher, recluse
Also by C. Sean McGee:
A Rising Fall (CITY b00k 001)
Utopian Circus (CITY b00k 011)
Heaven is Full of Arseholes
Coffee and Sugar
Christine
Rock Book Volume I: The Boy from the County Hell
Rock Book Volume II: Dark Side of the Moon
Alex and The Gruff (a tale of horror)
The Terror{blist}
The Anarchist (or how everything I own is covered in a fine red dust)
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Happy People Live Here
The Time Traveler’s Wife
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