Page 23 of Torch Songs

“Yeah, well, I’m not infallible. I’ve trusted a couple of people who, in hindsight, didn’t deserve it. But I can see someone who’s been snakebit bad. Was it the guy? The guy you sing the song to?”

“I didn’t sing it tonight,” Guthrie told him virtuously. He’d taken it off the set list the minute he’d seen Tad in the audience.

“You didn’t find something to replace it,” Tad teased. “But that was it? The guy?”

“No,” Guthrie replied, forced into honesty. “No. That guy—he told the truth. He never took advantage. Was true to the guy he loved. Wasn’t his fault I couldn’t let go.”

“Mm.” Tad slouched a little more in the couch, and Guthrie wondered about his day. There was some driving between Sacramento and the Washoe. He probably hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before either.

“Not gonna ask?” Guthrie didn’t want the conversation to end, though.

“I’m gonna tell you mine,” Tad said, like he’d decided something.

“All your super mature, really healthy past relationships?” Yeah, Guthrie was bitter.

“Yup. Listen and be jealous. Ready?”

“Sure.”

“So about three years ago I was living with a guy. Lawyer. Uptight, sort of adorable. Worked for the DA’s office. Gave to charities, bitched bitterly about a guy he saw as his hated rival, but truthfully I think Sam had a crush on him that he didn’t want to cop to. Anyway, was gonna be marriage. I was sure. Then my mom got sick, and I had to spend a lot of weekends down in Bodega Bay, and he didn’t want to come with me because they were his weekends too, which, you know. Fair. But she died, and I was starting to get worried about April, my little sister, and he told me to get over it. And by the time I got my shit together and went down to Bodega Bay myself to find my little sister, she was living on the streets and so strung out she still has the scars on her face from when she was picking scabs.”

“Oh God,” Guthrie mumbled. “That’s so sad. You said she went to rehab. You got her there?”

“Yeah, but… but I went a little off the rails to get her there. I damned near kidnapped her and locked her in a shitty motel and weaned her off the damned meth. I… I got lice from her lice and fungal infections from her ringworm, and I had to shave her head, and we both bathed in permethrin for a week to get rid of the other shit, and….” He shuddered. “I told Sam it was rough, told him not to visit, and told him that once I got April into rehab and… and willing totryto get it done, I’d be back.”

“I’m so sorry,” Guthrie said, meaning it.

“I’m sorry for grossing you out,” Tad muttered.

“I had to pick my daddy out of his own vomit three nights a week for most of my childhood,” Guthrie told him, surprised it came out of his mouth. “I… I get it.”

“Addiction is an awful goddamned thing,” Tad said, and Guthrie could feel the passion of that statement welling up from his chest.

“Amen.” Guthrie didn’t have anything to add, but he did want Tad to finish the story.

“So I finally get April in rehab and to a place where I can go off my leave and go back to my work—and the promotion my partner, Chris, kept open for me because he’s a good goddamned guy—and I get home and… Sam’s gone. Hasn’t lived there for two weeks. Responded to my texts. Paid the next month’s rent. Left a note saying he hoped I was well, but he couldn’t live with somebody who was so codependent on his family, and he needed to move on.”

Guthrie was suddenly much more awake. “What. An.Asshole.”

Tad gave sort of a broken laugh. “Yeah. I was pissed at him for a while. But you know, in the long run, he was probably doing us a favor. I… I grew up with a single mother. She taught me and April to stick like glue. She taught us that sometimes all you have in your life was one or two people you could count on and neverto take them for granted. I wanted a guy who would be one of those people. Sam didn’t want that. He wanted easy. I wasn’t. So there you go. That’s the scariest thing about me.”

Guthrie breathed quietly a few times, trying to get a handle on what Tad was saying.

“I would be afraid,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to let that person down. I… my unrequited guy? He and his husband are like that. Theystuck.They stuck through shit that would make your heart drop out of your shorts. In fact some of the same shit you went through, but it was a family member. The whole time I was watching them dealing with that shit, I was like, ‘That’s hard. That’s so hard. But God, I’d like to be the person you could count on during that.’ So I get it. But I ain’t never had that. At least not with a guy.”

“What makes you afraid you can’t?” Tad asked.

Guthrie was so tired his words slurred. He wasn’t sure if what he was saying was going to make sense, but Tad had been honest. Brutally honest. Guthrie needed to be that same thing.

“My dad was a sonovabitch, but I loved him,” he mumbled. “Pulled him out of his puke. Got him to gigs. Me and my uncle Jock both played to cover his shit. Honky-tonk guitar player, couldn’t hold a job, me and Jock working to keep him fed, keep his lights turned on since I was fourteen.”

“Mm.” Tad nuzzled his temple, and Guthrie closed his eyes, hating how much he loved that. “That’s what got you running?”

“I was twenty-two when I fell in love. For real. Fiddler came in and played the shit out of his violin, and the entire band changed, just to let him play. And… and we played together and ate together and split tips together and… and beat up muggers in the parking lot together. He taught me how to keep my hands safe. Unless the fucker had a knife,” he corrected. “But not my heart. And I realized all them girls I was with, I was fooling myself. Those boys I was blowing—they were who I reallywanted, and I only seemed to want the ones who thought I was weak for wanting them. But Fiddler… he went off. To make money. Be famous. Went to Italy. Stayed with us to make one CD that made me enough to finish my degree. Get real jobs so I could play at night and have a place to live. But I was heartbroken. And I….”

Oh, he couldn’t finish. It was so stupid. Every gay boy knew where this was going.

“You told your dad,” Tad murmured.

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