Coffee and Sugar - C. Sean McGee (mystery books to read .TXT) 📗

fear so that the light he carried in his heart exploded from his chest and exalted the devil from the will of mankind.

And he would shed many a tear as he talked about the unquestionable love that Jesus Christ had for each and every, man, woman and child and how his sacrifice that atoned for our sins; if not gone unloved and unmarried, would always carry us through the torrential part of any calvary that we endured, that the love of Christ alone, had once shaken him of the devil from the clench of his fist and spilled pure grace down the length of his arms, dripping the light and love of Jesus Christ and his splendorous heaven into his virtuous Christian soul.

And at this part the farmers would erupt in joyous canter, swaying their arms around as if they were shooing away a plague of locusts from circling about their heads. Their eyes lit up like a forest fire and it seemed as if some drug had taken its effect, overpowering their senses and extending them to pure exhilaration and Elysium.

And the drug had in deed taken effect.

The ecstasy of Jesus Christ was swimming in their blood and coursing through their varicose veins, dousing their senses with pure Christian goodness, taking them beyond the immediacy of the aches and pains that swelled at their feet and bludgeoning through their stinging open pores.

It lifted them beyond the valley of defeat where their dreams and aspirations had become firmly rooted in disparaging soil. It unhinged the worry that shouted the veracious viscidity of life so deafeningly in their hardened minds; that which consistently edged them closer to temptation and to disregard their struggle as a worthy test of their faith by instead condemning the light in their heart for blinding them along a weak and crooked path.

It lifted them to the sight of the heavens where the charity of Christ extended from a bridge paved with their devotion and cemented with the blood, sweat and tears that quenched the fire of their laden trial. It left them lighter than a single breath, rising up from the profoundest depths of an ocean of self-doubt to join its brethren in a listless, heavenly abode where they could kiss the stars each and every night.

Joao would peep through the tiny hole, pressing his face tight against the wood and squint with one eye whilst catching sharp slinters in the flesh near the corner of the open other, trying to see as everyone saw; the light of the world coming down upon them. He would twist and turn on the spot, ignoring the little splinters here or there, pressing his knee into the hole just above the ground and scrunching his now blackened toes in the hot dirty sand.

He wriggled and writhed, waiting for his favourite part of the service, when The Bishop would invite each parishioner to the front so they could speak of their saving graces and so they could thank Jesus for the miracles he had spelled upon them to turn their trail of troubles into an abode of fortune. It was at this moment that Joao would do what it was that Joao was unrivalled at doing. He would crouch in the sand with his head turned to the side, pressing against the splintered hole and he would listen with his ears and he would listen with his heart while each person canted their bitterness into the hands of The Bishop and in the end of their ordeal, they spoke of the delicacy of their faith and the sweetness that Jesus Christ brought to their hearts.

Joao became their struggle, closing his eyes and imagining himself walking back through sodden fields with sore blistered feet, blurry eyes and blistered hands, having reaped only mockery and insult from his dry earth to then stubble through an open door, thirsting for anything to parch the defeat that clung to his skin, opening the fridge to see his last beer having been drunk, turning to the table to see the chicken spoiled and marching into the room to see his wife on all fours, blaspheming the name of god while that singing European knelt behind her with his guitar swinging off his back, banging her like a French drum and all the while singing that song he always sang; “Baby you’re a rich man, baby you’re a rich man, baby you’re a rich man too. You keep all your money in a big brown bag inside the zoo, what a thing to do;” singing and singing and slapping her rump as if he were riding her off into the sunset waving his left arm in the air while his right gripped her thighs, treating his good little woman like some bucking bronco.

As the old farmer canted in honest bravado, his voice swelled with anger for the seeming betrayal but he saw no blame in his wife, for she was swept upon by the lust of Satan and she was screaming out the name of Jesus to come and save her from this obviously horrendous torment.

“I know myself, “the old farmer said, “that when my dear wife and I consummate our love, she says not a word and she’s as quiet in bed as she is at the dining table so I knew then that the devil had put a spell on her and she was screaming to lord Jesus to free her from that man’s lure. Apparently she was screaming for quite some time. In fact one of the farm hands told me she stopped several times and would start up again just minutes later, moaning away and screaming out the name of Jesus to come and rescue her. And it was god who had me down my tools and save my dear Beatrice. It was Jesus who walked in my boots and sent that devil packing and onto the road of good intentions. I thank Jesus every day that I got there in time to save my dear Beatrice and I know he counts her blessings along with me” the old farmer said leaning his head to the right to bid a naive shimmering eye to his clearly dishevelled wife who looked on with a nervous look herself, convinced the lust which burned between her thighs on that day and even now as her husband relived her orgiastic trial was the work of the devil and not of her own will and that the purity of her good Christian heart, of her faith to her husband, had her; in the throes of hellish emotion, still find her soul’s voice and chant out the lord’s name in between heavy moaning.

“My Maria suffered the same” yelled one man.

“As did my Josephine” yelled another.

In fact, much to the surprise of Joao, all of the men had suffered the same bitter struggle which in the end would make his work much simpler and appeasing.

Each and every man stood to attention, looking longingly and mournfully at their spiritually injured wives with apparently all having had played the fool to the trickery of Satan as in apparent mortified splendour, the singing European had wandered from farm to farm and lusted all of the women whilst their men were away attending the land.

They all told the same sweet tale that Jesus had called them to their homes and there they had heard the desperate moaning and pleading of their wives; some of whom were on all fours while others rode the European like a king of the rodeo, obviously drunk on the devil’s deception and evil trickery.

As each man spoke, their wives looked onwards like beaten puppies welcoming the tender, caring touch of consoling hands brushing against theirs, accepting their grace and concern like the innocent victims that they were. And they all thanked Lord Jesus Christ for guiding them back to heed their fearful wives’ cries.

Joao lived every moment of their ordeal and as he did, his hands crushed and stirred at a mix of beans in an old wooden bowl and he looked not at his hands for his eyes were gelled shut, but he looked through his fingertips and he crushed the beans not with the weight of his fist, but with the extent of his heart, smashing down on the beans with his faith and his love of Jesus Christ; a love that would carry him through the most bitter of ordeals and a love of which would always sweeten the journey.

As he listened with his ear and his heart, his attention was stifled by the sound of a guitar strumming off in the distance and the sound edging closer to where he stood. As he stirred the grains, the men inside the church all spoke of the same devil; the unworked European with delicate hands, long wavy hair, sky blue eyes, an aversion to chore and a penchant for song.

As they all canted the same tale, The Bishop’s eyes flared and an awakening became him, for he had invited the devil into his own home. That very man had spent weeks lazing about his farm, singing that wretched song and only god knows what else. He cursed loudly and looked at his wife who had worn a sheepish distance until that point and he asked her down on his knees; reaching out in loving kindness to her gargantuan bulbous knees.

“Has the devil bedded with you my love?” he asked.

A slight snigger went about the congregation as all looked upon the giant mass of a woman and all imagined that god had built her with such grace, charm and dimension, that the devil himself would be warned off from her earthly spell and mountainous thighs.

“I but merely shook his hand, bid him work and nothing more” said Mother.

“The devil is among us” spoke The Bishop as outside, the strumming of the guitar grew louder with the European quizzing Joao, pulling him from his heavenly grace and concerned focus.

“C’mon, it no fun out here” he said pushing the door open and standing in obvious shock as around him, angered famers pointed fingers and sheepish wives grinned lightly and waved hello in secrecy, apparently consumed again by the devil’s allure.

“Ladies” the European said humbly as he turned away and ran; followed by scores of angry farmers and the Bishop in tow, all of them picking up sharp stabbing instruments and chasing the skinny white European through the dusted terrain and out into the black of the night where in the invisibleness of visual abandon, he disappeared and was never seen again.

When the parishioners all returned, there waited for each and every one, their own cup of coffee and sugar, mixed and prepared by Joao alone as he gave himself to their bitter struggles and Christ’s sweet descent.

But nobody was interested in coffee that night and as Joao spied from outside the kitchen window where he stood on a rusted metal drum and peered through a smudge in the grease laden window that allowed him to see mainly the outlines of people in the room and he could see; as they walked around waving their fists in anger, that no hand warmed against ceramic cup and so he looked to the table where aspiringly, he could just make out what looked like every coffee he had prepared sitting exactly where he had left them, all but one.

The Bishop burst out of the house with the cup of coffee in his hand and as he did Joao slipped off the rusted container in ambushed wonder, a large smile entrapping his face and the joy of seeing his father finally about to taste his own reflection and see in him; for once, a state of usefulness was saddened and depleted when raced towards the edge of the veranda and threw his heavy set forwards, putting all of his weigh into his right hand the cast the cup of coffee up and into the darkness; the smashing of the ceramic cup a faint whisper compared to the breaking of the young boy’s heart.

Normally, service was; compared to this night, a lot more sedated; a lot of singing and dancing, a lot of prayer and many tears of joy. Rarely did they actually do battle with Satan, but on occasion they did, just as they did the night that life for Joao and the Bishop would shift degrees of states, both metaphysical and geographical.

But before anyone spoke of change, the good people cast off the strangeness that had become them and sat themselves back in the barn where, there sat on the podium; where The Bishop had stood, a small black and white television that crackled and hissed and snowed in and out of picture, responding kindly to a quick wrapping on its side before eventually clearing up, showing the title for the only thing as important as Jesus in their lives and that was; ‘The Carriage of my Heart’; the longest running and most successful soap opera, having been a part