Coffee and Sugar by C. Sean McGee (primary phonics .txt) 📖

“It’s much better than I expected. The church is looking really good. We are in a great area, nice neighborhood; a lot of people are really looking to me for spiritual guidance. It’s just a matter of time now really. I’ll be sending money to you shortly. Yes Joao is fine. You know, he is keeping himself busy. I don’t know, just being busy, doing his coffee. Well you can tell him that yourself. Ok well I’ll tell him for you. How’s the farm? And the service? Relax, I have to get my church set up before I try for television, but soon ok? It’s just a sore tooth, I’ll get it fixed. Because it doesn’t bother me that’s why. Well then, that’s very brave of you isn’t it? Listen I have to go. Do you want to speak to Joao? Ok then” said The Bishop passing the receiver to Joao who stood wide eyed beside him, longing to tell of his adventures to his mother.

“Hello Mother” he said before The Bishop clasped his hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver, looking Joao sternly in the eye and speaking in godlike reverence.

“You mention nothing about last night to Mother” he said, wiping the blood away from his chin and easing himself towards his bed; wincing and limping through every step, cursing all and sundry under his breath as he hobbled past the kitchen towards the darkness of his quarters; hidden behind a sheet of red cloth.

“No whores” yelled Mother into the phone before hanging up abruptly.

Joao placed the receiver gently onto the table and walked solemnly towards his father’s room, resting his face lightly against the red cloth, his breath causing it to flutter lightly as his fingers turned over the bend in the wall and urged him forwards to mend his father’s broken spirit.

“Sir, I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do” said Joao, trailing off with the sound of his father shuddering through every pained step until the old man was out of sight, cowering under his covers, drenched in shame and fueled by violated rage.

“I could have taken care of it. You should have just left well enough alone” said The Bishop.

“Maybe you shouldn’t drink as much.”

The Bishop snorted.

“Sir” said Joao correcting himself.

The Bishop lay curled in a ball like a sulking child but still spoke to Joao as if, even in this state, his son were less than him; his own child, less than his most fervent disgrace.

“You’re bad luck Joao. I should have brought your brother.”

“Which one?” asked Joao.

“I don’t know. The tall one, thingy-me-bob, you know, what’s his name” said The Bishop.

It was never easy to hear his father struggling to put a name to one of his children. Joao felt like a slightly bigger spoon in a row of spoons.

“Maybe I could look for work” Joao said.

“Your work is with the church.”

“But we need money. For those men and to send to Mother. She’s expecting us to send her money” Joao said.

“You just do what you’re supposed to do. You let me worry about Mother” said The Bishop, falling asleep on the last syllable.

The next morning played like the many mornings that followed. The Bishop moved not a foot from his mattress, hidden in the dark, refusing to come out into the light, speaking only through low grunts when his glass ran dry, finding peace only when consciousness became foreign to him.

Joao did little except clean his mess and keep a strange order about the church, unsure what to say make The Bishop feel better. The only thing he could think of doing was something he hadn`t done in a long time; not since they had arrived in the city.

Nothing could cure a man`s pain than to well in his reflection and what better way than with a perfect coffee.

Joao smiled to himself.

It wouldn`t bring them money, but it would lift his father`s spirits and hopefully take him from this daily, darkened prison where he drank himself into oblivion.

He went into the kitchen and took the coffee powder and boiling water and sat down on the floor where his father had been attacked. He lay down where his father had laid, looking where his father had looked and he closed his eyes and imagined what bitter memory he must be trying to blur in his mind.

And the vision that came to him was of his father; no younger than he, being brushed aside by swift busied hands that had no time to favour his musings or stories over the pressing need to whip a tired and worn ox in circles; his father, slapping at the beast`s arse with his bare hands every time its legs pardoned to fail or begged upon a moment`s respite, turning like the hands of a clock in burning sand while his brethren; their backs kissed with cancerous sores, fed fields of cane with their stony hands into the giant metallic mouth, their unfortunate fingers just an indecision away from catching in the metal teeth that snapped down and dragged the cane inwards to be torn and eschewed out as a fine liquid.

Joao; looking through the eyes of The Bishop, watched as the sweet cane juice trickled out from the rear of the monolithic machine, the kind sound of water touching stone frightened only by the constant churning of the long mechanical arms tied to the neck of the ox and the animal’s pained moaning; silenced only by the impeding bellow of his brother screaming for more; whipping and beating the animal, never satisfied, never tiring, always wanting more..

As he lost himself in dream, Joao’s hands magically attended to the cup that sat lifeless beyond the tip of his idle hands and as his imagining eye painted a bitter consternation with a gentle and solicitous stroke of his heart, his hands opened like a spring flower, turning to take the cold inanimate cup from the table, embracing it delicately in his fingers as it were a part of own body; an extension of his molecular self, drinking from his conscious stream.

In his conscious theatre, the massive animal was drudging through the hot sand like an old man on his last legs creeping across a cold, sterile hall to die somewhere more familiar than the bed that nursed his sickness. Slowly the animal turned and even slower, the massive crane like mechanical arm twisted around, scratching and screeching like the passing seconds of an interrogation.

And as the animal trudged along, so too; the fingers in Joao’s hand, slowly turned the cup so that the hot black liquid pouring into it ran along the sides of the cup and swam gently towards the centre, the patient coming together of liquid; the building of a pool, more of a transient molecular dance than an abrupt violent incident.

In his conscious theatre, The Bishop lifted his hands into the air to call to those of his father, only to have the course lashing of a leather strap; like the ox, releasing him from the bondage of his discerning desires, sending him back into the trail of his own footsteps, drifting aimlessly through his wanton existence. And it was this lashing that pulled Joao out of one dream and into another.

This time The Bishop was much older and with much less ardor; his face hardened by the unremitting drought or maybe just toughened by all the lashes that were spent across his childish affection. He stood now in front of many people; maybe twenty in total and they were all looking towards him with their eyes and ears thirsting for salvation, hanging onto his every word as if each syllable were a fine thread woven by god himself that suspended them above their growing despondence.

As he spoke, their spirits lifted, as the light of the lord emanated from his eyes and carried high in the palm of his hands, washing down on them like a summer rain, cleansing them of the stains of doubt that dirtied and tightened their skin.

And as their eyes widened, so too did those of The Bishop; feeding himself on the return of their love and devotion, on the spiritual echo of his own words; seeing in their eyes, his own reflection, more spectacular than he imagined in his own mind.

And as he caught sight of himself catching sight of himself, a single tear welled in his eye and held for a moment before running down the line of his face, building at the edge of his chin and dropping free from his body and splashing against the hot dry earth.

As the tear released its grip on The Bishop’s contentment, it fell into his struggle; the dry dusted earth, and as he imagined his father upon the podium in a moment’s grace, Joao followed the tear with a single pinch of sugar falling from the grace of his fingers into his father’s bitter struggle and just as the tear had vanished into the dry dusted earth, the grains of sugar; or the sweetness in his father’s life, fell into the dark coffee and delicately made their way to become part of the liquid, just as his tear of happiness would swim with the earth to become the plantation of his existence and Joao turned his hands slowly back and forth so that the grains danced with the coffee and those that wouldn’t, were free to sediment themselves at the end of the glass.

When he stopped his dreaming, the coffee was done. He felt exhausted but having had lived and just as miner might carry a single speck of gold after breaking his back with his spirit and a pick, Joao held; like a king’s crown, the coffee in his hands and shuffled towards his father’s room, knocking once on the wall beside the red curtain that kept darkness and absence about him.

“Sir, I made this especially for you. Here you are” he said holding out his two hands, the steam from the cup and the bitter smell fermenting in the air and tickling the old drunk’s senses, rousing him from his foetal slumber.

“What is it?” asked The Bishop.

“It’s a special coffee. I made it thinking of you” said Joao.

The Bishop reach out his hand and took the cup retracting it close to his body where his legs lay pressed against his chest, his face buried against the cold brickwork and his blanket, warming him from the horror that played out in his mind. He pulled the cup to his mouth a slowly sipped, making a long slurping sound as he sucked up the coffee and swilled it in his mouth, swallowing it with a thick gagging gulp as if he had just swallowed his own vomit.

“What is this shit?” he screamed throwing the cup in Joao’s direction, scalding him in hot coffee and then spitting against the floor where his son stood.

“You didn’t like it?” asked Joao, sinking into self-defeat, his stomach feeling like he had just eaten a bag of cement.

“Too weak. Tastes like fucking tea. Bring me a real drink. No, just leave me alone” The Bishop said sulking.

Joao bent down to the ground and picked up the pieces of the broken cup then made his way back into the lit church and sat on one of the plastic chairs, looking mournfully into the broken pieces that he cradled in his palms, seeing his own reflection, shattered into a million fragments and beaten down upon by the savagery of his father’s depression and as his fingers slid the broken pieces over one another; moving them in his hands like a set of dice, a single saddened tear ran down his cheek.

Joao did very little the rest of that day except stare at his feet and dissolve himself into the conversations of people