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

Joao squirmed some more, his hand reached the red button, his finger stretched, the button pressed, the bell dinged and everybody swayed back like a mound of human reeds caught in a gale force breeze as the driver slammed on the breaks bringing the bus to a dead stop.

The tiny doors opened and scores of stressed and angry workers piled out, pushing and squeezing and biting and fighting as they fought for an inch of fresh air and to make their way onto the hurtling sidewalk as if nothing had happened.

Joao shook the surprise from his pants, straightening out the legs of his trousers and tucking his shirt back into his pants before entering the café where Fatts was waiting with a giant grin, chuckling out loud and holding his massive belly whilst pointing an amused finger at Joao who look beset by disbelief and troubled by the pull of the city’s tide in the early morning.

“Let me tell you a little something about life,” Fatts said, “there’s an animal for every stage in a person’s life you know that?”

Joao said nothing but responded instead with an eager eye that widened in exuberance as he walked towards the counter where Fatts was now sitting and prepared for his mind to be painted with a new colourful truth from the man he admired.

“You know, when a baby is born, it’s really cute. All cuddly and fragile and you just wanna wrap it up in your arms and squeeze the life out of it, in a good way of course. Well, new babies they don’t do very much. They eat, poop, sleep and play. That’s about it. Just like a kitty cat. And just like a kitty cat, they’ll cry all night until they get to do one of those four things and you can be sure; just like the kitty cat, they’re gonna wanna do all those four things when you least expect and when it’s gonna dance on your sanity. My kitty, she wakes up at 3am and starts pulling at the hairs in my nose. Now she thinks that’s ok cause she’s a cat and it’s her world after-all, just like a baby. And just a kitty cat, that baby isn’t bothered about having to sugar coat the truth. It’ll tell ya when you’re not needed or wanted and will be pretty damn obvious when you are. You see the kitty and the baby, they don’t imagine much outside of the four things they do well, can’t imagine myself why you would want to. It’s a great gig you know. Another thirty years and I’ll be in the geriatric home living my last days like the kitty cat” said Fatts.

Joao smiled.

“Now when a baby gets a bit older he or she becomes a toddler. As soon as they get those legs working they’re running around grabbing whatever they can and generally, breaking it. To mum and dad, causing a ruckus and making a mess, to the toddler, they’re just having fun, exploring, learning, being. So as soon as a baby gets its legs, it goes from being a kitty cat to a puppy dog. You leave that toddler alone for a second in a room and when you come back, there’ll be paint all over the ceiling, your prized books will all be scribbled upon, cups broken, computers pulled apart, wallets devoured and in the centre of the room, there’ll be a bare bummed little walking terror telling you that they didn’t do it; just like little puppies, learning their limits, sharpening their teeth, pulling things apart, having some fun. Toddlers are dogs” said Fatts academically.

Joao’s smile widened.

“Now when these dogs grow up, they start to hang around in large groups and usually they’ll have an idol, a star, anything at all really, just something up high that can shout down at them and move them about. They never travel alone. Always rushing this way and that, but never rushing first, always being on the heels of their friends. You see when the toddler grows up and hits puberty, he becomes a sheep and like the rest of the flock, he or she does nothing really, just sits around all day being ushered this way and that by their parents, rock stars, their teachers, doctors, their heroes, villains, everyone. They’re kind of useless but you hold them for long enough and you can fleece them of all their money. From cats, to dogs, to sheep” said Fatts.

Joao giggled lightly thinking of his siblings and returned his stare to Fatts who was just putting down his cup to start again.

“Now, we get to us; the grownups or cattle. This is what being a man is about. Being shoved into a tiny little bus and herded around the city so you can end up stuck at an office for ten hours a day and milked of your intellectual property” said Fatts.

“What’s that?” said Joao.

“Your ideas. The cow is milked and its milk is stirred and pasteurised and bottled and boxed and labelled and branded and sold, just like the grown up. He sits at his desk while his ideas are extracted and complied with other ideas to make a great idea that is produced and boxed and branded with the company logo and sold to some other poor chump in some other part of the world who’s just doin the same thing. Paying for a part of someone else’s milk cause he sold off his own. And like the cow, the grown up is given freedom, democracy, shopping malls, pornography, churches, theme parks, rock shows, football and choice. Give a man freedom and he’ll do nothing with it. You wanna make a man strong, you take away his will to fight. You wanna hear him scream, you force his mouth shut but if you want him to be stupid and still just like a cow, take down the fences, put a bell around his neck and make him think he can leave if he wants to. Grownups, they’re cows. Every now and then, they’re a bull but when the humping is done, they go back to being a cow.” said Fatts.

“And what about old people?” said Joao.

“Revert back to kitten. Except we’re talking those hairless kitty cats with loose skin. They go from cow to pug to a hairless cat. That’s it. So remember, when you’re piled on that bus with all of those swearing and cursing fools, each of them clinging to one reason why they are better than the rest; they’re all bloody cows” said Fatts.

“Even you?” asked Joao.

“Me? I’m a wildebeest” said Fatts laughing.

Joao laughed too though he wasn’t sure why. It was just fun though to laugh with other people like in the way some people felt more comfortable joining a queue with more people even when they were queuing for the same thing. It felt ensuring to ride on another’s wing; to be sure you’re in the right place or to know if and when you are enjoying yourself.

“You have a customer” said Fatts pointing to the door.

It was The Nazi from the bus. He was standing in the doorway looking angry and mean in his eyes, staring at Fatts as he walked from around the counter and behind the restricted doors.

Joao smiled but he was reserved and nervous.

“Coffee,” said The Nazi, “and hurry up, or I’ll punch ya.”

Joao busied his hands and knocked over a horde of cups and pots as he prepared his tools pressed by the mean fisted urgency of the man in front of him, staring him down like a hungry bear over an injured, baby seal.

“If you don’t mind sir, I make my coffee different. It takes just a moment more time. Is that ok?” asked Joao nervously.

“If it’s crap, I’ll punch ya” said The Nazi.

“Ok” said Joao, accepting the terms of his grace without any debate, or choice.

Joao washed his hands thoroughly, removing the spit and sweat and stains from the morning’s ride on the bus. He had a special towel that was only his. Fatts had bought it for him. And he used this towel to dry his hands so that they wouldn’t collect more coffee than they needed, so that the grains that did not belong would not stick to his fingers and make their way in to poison The Nazi’s cup but instead would follow the negating rule of his fingers as they flicked the grains back to where they belonged, in someone else’s coffee.

Joao dipped his hands into the jar of coffee, this jar too, given to him by Fatts and permitting only his freshly washed fingers to touch the lid and to press inside the dark grains.

The Nazi stared straight at Joao who stared straight back as his fingers pressed gently through the surface of the grains and slid their way downwards until his fingernails touched against the hard glass bottom and then; as his mind wandered, his fingers too wandered through the grains, touching each and every one and picking only the ones that spoke of the vision that played out in his mind.

And as his eyes trained onto the pupils of the scarred, angered man with poop tattooed across his forehead, a wave of harsh and bitter warmth had him at first scolded, like a bare bum breeching a boiling bath, then as the curtain pulled on his cerebral theatre and his conscious eye opened he could see a young boy being pushed and prodded, being picked up by a group of older boys by the legs. As the boy swung wildly and pleaded for them to stop, the tears and snot that billowed from his eyes and nose streamed back down his face and the back of his throat making him splutter through every word.

The boys laughed and shook him so that the few coins he had in his pockets jingled as they struck against the bathroom floor.

“It’s not my money” yelled the boy.

“It’s not my money, it’s not my money” the meaner boys repeated mockingly.

“It’s my nana’s money. Please” the boy pleaded to the meaner boys who laughed hysterically and lowered his legs so that his head was just beneath the rim of the toilet; a filthy, disgusting toilet with a horrendous stench that hadn’t been cleaned in months.

“You got no mummy and you got no daddy, little cry baby is a bastard, you’re a bastard, you’re a bastard, you’re a bastard, you’re a bastard, you’re a bastard. You’re mum and dad are dead” screamed one of the boys, leaning down to his face, shouting over the rim of the toilet, nasally and repugnant like.

Another coin fell from his pocket and the young boy thought only of his grandmother, the woman who had loved him and protected him through tragedy, who always kept the spooks from camping underneath his bed and trying to break into his head and wreck his dreams. He thought of her face and he felt sad because he was too small to help her and he was too scared to say anything back.

“You wanna see you’re mommy little baby? Huh? I’m gonna kill you, you freak” shouted one of the boys, lowering his pants as he spoke so that he could urinate on the boy’s face as it hanged over a pile of old faeces.

“Yeah, piss on him” shouted the other boys egging their friends on to follow a trend and urinate on the boy’s head and face.

Each of them took their turn, sometimes two or three at once and leaning in to urinate on the boy’s face as he clenched his eyes, mouth and nostrils shut, feeling the warm liquid drench his hair and face, thinking only of his grandmother and hoping she would rescue him like she had from the depression that shadowed from the death of his mother and father.

As the boys were about to lower his legs further so that his head would sink into the pile of mashed and crusted faeces at the bottom of the toilet bowl, their joy was broken with the sound of old hinges turning on a creaky, old door and a bent, rusted, metal frame.

“It’s a teacher” said one of the boys panicking.

“Aint no teacher here” said a loud voice from behind the stall where the children gathered in surprised panic.

“We’re just playin around. Just messin” said one of the boys.

The sound of many confident boots marching into the toilet was deafened by the silence that came after as they all aligned before the stall and the mean boys’ fear heightened at the sound of the only exit; a small but heavy iron door, being closed and then locked and then chained and then the sound of a padlock clicking into place.

“Seems a little unfair, all of you onto just him” said the booming voice.

A boot smashed against the door of the stall and there; standing