The Invisibles

Meat and Mouth

1 meat and mouth— Maddy left Luke Dixon sitting in the bully’s chair and went to the Christmas-lighted window, willing the boy’s loser dad to drive that blue Ford truck out of the woods. His lateness was eating into her weekend. Snow covered her solitary car in the lot, and she would have to dig and scrape before following the buried road from Grace Evangelical Church and School through the pale brown trees and bald fields to town. She thought of her apartment’s stale heat, of marijuana buds in a medicine bottle in the freezer, of the cheap red wine on the counter. She was thinking of her records, of the jukebox at her favorite bar, of that bass player from Saturday night. At a table by the board, beneath crookedly arranged alphabet magnets, Luke sopped dregs of Campbell’s Tomato with a cheese sandwich. His excitement over a dollar’s worth of food was as troubling as his choice to sit in the chair of Davey Schwartz, a larger boy who just this morning pinched and poked him during art until Luke clipped off his own paper Santa’s head. Maddy had tried intervening, had tried doing good, telling Davey he would stay inside for recess. But Davey sniffed out her insecurity, like always. It was probably her imagination, but he had seemed to almost smile just before he went and told her coteacher, Hank Osmond. And Hank Osmond, predictably, had undermined her with the familiar head tilt that enlarged his jowl, saying, “Come on,Maddy,it’s snowing,”as if she habitually tormented the boy.Yet Hank had been all too happy to leave her alone with Luke, so he could get back to his surround-sound home theater, despite having 2 — meat and mouth recently told their director he had concerns about her temper. It had been a long week, and she was tired of male conspiracies. If Luke wanted to sit in Davey’s seat, let him. You couldn’t save them all. Luke wiped his wet sleeve across his mouth and eyed his empty plate and bowl as if waiting for Maddy to notice and offer more, which would mean leaving the bright warmth of the classroom for the cold darkness of hall and kitchen, constantly bracing for the instant when the furnace clamored on downstairs. “When do you think your dad will be here?” she said. Andy Dixon was unemployed, and for some reason the kids all knew. Luke sighed, looking more sullen than usual. Maddy put aside her exhaustion and stretched yet another smile.“It’s okay, honey. I can stay here as long as I need to. Do you know if he had any errands to run?” His lower lip began to tremble. She glanced at the window, pretended she had not noticed. “It’s really coming down. You should eat some more before you go out there.” She waited for him to finish sniffling and said, “Does that sound good, Luke?” He nodded, then narrowed his eyes. His brow worked as if he were performing difficult calculations as he said, “Ms. Maddy, could we play a game?” “Sure. What do you want to play?” “I want to play pretend.” “Pretend what?” He lowered his voice to a whisper.“Can we pretend I’m Davey?” “Oh.” She reached out, saw the greasy blue shirt had not been washed in several wears, then gave Luke’s shoulder a light tap. Now was probably the time to give a speech, the one about the importance of being yourself or whatever. As if she never needed a break from Maddy, the twenty-four-hour mess who pilfered from her father’s cabinets because the drunk tolerated meat and mouth — 3 it. “I don’t know,” she said. “Do you think Davey would like that?” Luke’s mouth dropped open. “It’ll be a secret, Ms. Maddy. Don’t tell!” “Okay, Davey,” she said, winking as she stacked his bowl on his paper plate, straining to grin. “If you don’t tell, I won’t tell. Come on down to the kitchen with me while I warm you up some more soup.” Luke shot to his feet and announced, “Davey wants chicken noodle.” “Well, then that’s what Davey will get.” She remembered something Hank Osmond said, that being a good teacher usually felt like it could get you fired...