Coffee and Sugar by C. Sean McGee (ready player one ebook .txt) 📕

“Do you mind?” asked Fatts with his hand outstretched asking to try some of the coffee.

“God that’s awful” he yelled, spitting out the coffee onto the table.

“Sorry about that, just it was very bitter and it has an after taste. It’s umm, I don’t know, just… I’m really sorry; I’ll pour you another one on the house”

“No, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Like seeing my own reflection when the summer rain washes over my living room window. Thank you. I haven’t felt like this in some time. Would you tell the boy thank you for me?” asked The Nervous Lady.

“Sure, no problems” said Fatts, smiling estranged and affected as The Nervous Lady stepped tentatively over the high curb at the entrance and then made her way down the bustling street and then she was gone, for another day.

Fatts stood behind the counter looking at the filter and scratching his head. The coffee tasted terrible but who was he to argue with what someone else believed to be true. He walked over to where Joao was affixing the broken handle of a broom to the bent nails that stuck out from the mop head to hold it in place.

“It’s tricky,” he said, “You have to kind of wedge it in there. You know that woman comes in here every day at the same time and sits at the same table being the same amount of weird. This is the first time I have ever gotten anything out of her other than a couple of bucks tied to a string of complaints. Good one. Mop up here and then we’ll round up the day. We can talk about that advance” said Fatts cheerfully.

“Thank you Mr Fatts” said Joao, pushing the broom into the nails so that they wedged around the stick and held it enough to the mop head so he could do his work.

Joao was happy. He had never received a compliment before for his work and especially not for his coffee. He wanted to rush out onto the street and tell someone or anyone what had happened. He really wished he had someone to tell but he didn’t and the thought of this alone was enough to desiccate the good vibes that were gingerly raining down upon him.

His father was locked behind a curtain and his brethren were far away attending to the turning of soil, the milking of cows and the tiring of oxen. Even if they were here, they would have probably been looking in a different direction.

As he pushed away on the handle, his eyes married the checkered tiles that lined out before him; eyeing off every scratch and fleck of dirt that his hands would lead to and wash away, throwing his left leg down into the ground and pushing with his two hand into the handle moving like a hurricane through a wooden village picking every scrap up in his wake and pulling into its centre. As he swang the mop left and right, he watched the feet of the customers tapping about singing out some song or pent expectation they imprisoned in their heads. Then his eyes caught wind to fire.

Watching the floor beyond his reach, he saw a hand reach down into a bag that wasn’t its, stay a moment inside and then vanish quickly. Joao followed the hand upwards and saw in an instant too late, the image of a dark haired girl running out of the café, her hair swishing about in the mix of warm breeze and desperate flight. Joao dropped the mop and ran out the door after the girl, apologising as he pushed past old women and men on crutches and he pushed and shoved until at the end of the street he folded over himself, his hands pressed at his sides and his lungs, working beyond their capacity to slow his heart and shallow his breath.

“You’re slow” said a familiar voice behind him.

Joao couldn’t speak. He tilted his head to the right and saw the dark haired thief standing beside him with her arms folded over her chest. She was smiling with her left leg pulled up so that the sole of her foot pressed on the wall while her right was straight against the ground and her body was arched kind of funny so that she was leaning only her shoulder blades against the crème wall.

“You have to try harder if you wanna get me” she said.

“Charity?” asked Joao struggling for breath.

“Yep. What you thought you’d never see me again? You gave up on me that quickly? I thought we were friends” she said.

“We are, I mean I didn’t, I mean I was, I mean… Did you steal something from that person in the café? I saw your hand and you ran from me. Are you a thief?” Joao asked.

“It’s nice to see you too” she said leaning downwards to kiss Joao on the cheek.

The second her lips touched his cheek he felt his lungs deflate; absolved of air and his soul exploded again into a billion particles and swarmed around his chest threatening to burst out and ignite the air that surrounded him. He went red immediately looking like a stretched out tomato as he fought for air to usher out the embarrassment that flustered about his face and beat; like an eagle’s wings, in his heart.

What a wonderful feeling.

“Do you have to go back to work right now?” asked Charity.

“It’s my first day. It’ll be bad if I don’t. I have to mop the floors. Mr Fatts likes them real clean. Why?” Joao asked.

“I thought maybe we could go for a walk. There’s a nice park a few blocks over. I know this spot that’s real secluded. Nobody goes there. It’s really nice to be alone. Thought maybe you’d want to go there with me and hang out, but if you have to work, then…” she said coyly, rolling her finger in her air as she middled on her lip and called Joao to sensual indecision.

“Yeah, I have to work,” he said, “too bad.”

“O…k” she said, kind of shocked. ”I guess I’ll see you round.”

“I did a good job today” shouted Joao as Charity walked away.

“I know. I saw. I still like you, you know. Even when you brush me off” she said, speaking over her left shoulder, her voice trailing away with her shadow behind the corner of a building and then lost; like a tear taken in a flood, amidst the flux of hurried people all pushing against one another in their fight to be one step ahead of everyone else.

Joao walked home smiling that day, remembering The Nervous Lady’s face as the hot coffee splashed across her lips and drenched her pallet and he could swear he saw her feet dance a little as the coffee worked its way through her body, tingling its way from her neck down to her wriggling toes; lighting her senses, filling her soul.

He thought about Charity and how pretty she looked when she smiled. She seemed so happy and the glow in her eyes when she looked down upon him; surprising him at the end of his chase, was the opposite of incident, it made it forget completely that she had stolen something from a woman in the café.

Was he falling for a thief?

On the bus he was brimming with confidence, watching every stranger board and following them from the turnstile where he sat, all the way to their seats; surveying how they walked with some trudging their feet along like shackled prisoners while others moved about in a light skip; some defeated by the monotonous and suited obedience of day while others were lighter and waking with waxing zest into the celestial lechery of night that was coloured electric.

As the bus was in motion, he sat and examined people’s expressions, especially those lost in wandering thought. There were so many muscles in the human face and it was so awing to see the skin lift and contort and pull and turn in so many rising and sinking fashions. It was like they all had worms under their skin and every time they thought of something pained or wonderful, the worms would wriggle about and stretch their bodies making the people sitting in front and around of him seem anything from lost and complacent to concerned, pensive, tough, mean, frightened, lean defeated, sad and angry. When their faces changed, Joao knew their minds were changing and he tried to envision in each of them what weight and burden might have been saddled in their conscious minds.

“This is your stop buddy” said the man at the turnstile talking to Joao.

“Thank you sir” he replied.

The man paid no folly to his good charm and instead went back to reading his word sleuth, the furrowing worm of worry crawling through the skin on his forehead, pushed up by his confusing eyes as they searched harrowingly for an ‘a’ or an ‘f’ and his fingers squeezed the tip of the pen so tightly that the skin from his knuckles to his fingertips turned whiter than snow and as his concentration welled deeper, his tongue slithered like a slippery slug out from between his teeth and wiggled at the air as if his soul were trying to shake itself free from the chains of illiteracy.

Joao exited the bus and was caught by the sight of something marvellous as he turned to make his way up the giant winding hill towards his home. There in front of a shop window, out in the air for the scent of new to be caught up by the wind and tickle against his impressing nose and just beside his swinging hands and feeling fingers was something so beautiful that its practicality was an unspoken reward. There; at his touch, was a beautiful white plastic table that in its centre had a crucifix engraved into it.

“This will be perfect for the church” he said to himself.

Just then a smiling old woman walked up to him, one hand clutching a tiny black bible and the other reaching out to touch Joao’s elbow; the highest The Nice Old Lady could reach in the quest to console his inquisition.

“It is beautiful isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes, beautiful is the only word to describe this but I’m sure it is very expensive and I only have a bit of money and I need to pay it to the men on the hill, so they don’t hurt my daddy” he said.

“How much can you pay?” said The Nice Old Lady now strangely squeezing and pinching at Joao’s elbow making him jerk a little.

Joao opened his wallet and flicked through the notes inside. He had asked Fatts politely for an advance because he had some urgent matters. He didn’t want to divulge too much. Fatts agreed as long as Joao agreed to loosen up a little and take his foot off the formality. Joao agreed. Now he was at the bottom of the hill picking at notes with his long fingers inside his wallet while the nice looking old lady watched on.

“Let me help you” she said.

“Thank you mam. This is the first money I have ever had. It’s exactly like on TV you know? The same colours and it’s not paper is it? It’s plastic” he said.

The Nice Old Lady smiled and took the wallet from his hands. She scrunched her right hand and pushed it into her bra and then shoved the wallet directly into Joao’s front pocket.

“Be careful my boy, you can’t have that thing out or people will rob you