Page 50 of Torch Songs

He’d been dozing, the smell of the kid’s vomit and filth trapping him in that memory with April, when he heard Aaron calling to him. Aaron and Larx had managed to get halfway up the incline with supplies, which was, as far as Tad could tell, a miracle. They had a plan to get up to his level, the supplies with them, but Tad needed to step up. The pulley system they’d arranged and built out of paracord and a prayer had been ingenious, but in the end it depended on raw muscle and Tad being able to catch the rope they were flinging up the hill so they could set it up again. By the time they’d levered the supplies up to where Tad and his despondent friend under the tree were camped, and then helped Larx—who wasnotokay after rolling down the cliff in the SUV—get up the incline, Tad was done. Absolutely done. He was sure he couldn’t do another thing butgo fetal and moan until somebody magically teleported him to a place with morphine and sterile gloves.

He’d had to settle for the supply drop instead.

When all was said and done, his wound had been more thoroughly cleaned, antiseptics and antibiotics had beengenerouslyapplied, and his ass had been wrapped in the cleanest gauze to be found in the middle of a gravel pit anywhere. And he had clean sweats—oh thank God, thankanyonewho had donated the sweats to him. Aaron had assured Tad they werehis, a little too long but they fit nicely in the thighs, and they were warm and not stained with blood and sweat.

And then Larx had reached into the clothing duffel and pulled out….

Tad shivered now, pulling the flannel hoodie closer, burying his face into the collar, smelling Guthrie’s shampoo, his soap, even a little sweat in the lining.

He knew there was an explanation somewhere, and he wanted to hear it. Wanted to hear how Guthrie had found him, had known he was there. Tad wanted to touch his hand, tell him how grateful he was.

Wanted to kiss him, see his face in the sun.

But all of that was subsumed under the amazing truth that the hoodie represented.

He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.

No matter how skittish his new lover was, no matter how shy, Guthrie had shown up when showing up was impossible, and Tad could havecriedwith how much that meant.

But there were other things to tend to first.

Food was pressed into his hands, and he realized how much protein bars and Gatorade hadnotdone the trick since ten that morning. The burger wasn’t hot anymore, but it wasn’t congealed either, and it tasted like manna from heaven as hegulped it down. Even the fries were delicious at this point, and Larx gave him an apple to go with everything in the end.

“Eat the apple,” he said. “It’ll keep you regular.”

Larx was funny. Aaron was steadfast, but Larx was funny. They were both in their late forties and so… sodadhe couldn’t even fathom a word for theirdadness. Aaron, blond and broad, had been the muscle behind the pulley system, but Larx, smaller, leaner, with dark hair and eyes, had been the one to think it up. Both of them had tended to his wound, and they both had what Tad could only think of as the “dad touch.” Absolutely nonsexual but firm. Kind. Practical.

The kind of practical, Tad had learned, that sacrificed part of his shirt to cover a nest of sleeping rattlesnakes found near the landing place for the supply basket to make sure the snakesremainedsleeping and wouldn’t notice all the human activity near their lair.

Tad was going to take Larx’s word for it that the snakes would stay put—but he’d noticed Larx and Aaron shoving their bloodied clothes and a closed bag of trash into a space under the tree between their camp and the snakes’ camp, so he decided the faith was well placed.

And now, after Aaron and Larx had cleaned up their camp and offered their poor psychotic addict under the tree a blanket and some food—and a sedative, which they’d administered in the hopes of getting him to calm down and get some sleep and maybe gather the wherewithal to come out from under the tree—they were settling down on a mat of spongy eggcrate with the tree at their back.

Aaron held Larx against his chest, and Larx held Tad, all of them gathered under a layer of sleeping bags and blankets. Now that Tad had gotten some painkillers and some food and was no longer shivering in his bloodstained black jeans, he found there was something immensely comforting about being held by twostrong fathers who had already proven they were letting nobody go on their watch.

He could also count all the ways his body hurt—not just his ass, buteverywhere. He and Aaron had fallen down a cliff, for sweet fuck’s sake. There were going to be bruises, bangs, and scrapes. And he’dreallyneeded somewhere soft to lie during that interminable afternoon.

The comfort of his new friends against his back and the spongy eggcrate under his ass was wonderful, but above their heads the stars stretched wide and impersonal, and he felt small and insignificant and oddly alone.

Larx and Aaron were so obviously in love. Their teamwork had shone through every interaction, every plan, every idea. Apparently, an entire troop of teenagers and a brain trust ofveryunderpaid teachers were putting together a miracle for them on the plateau above their heads, but Tad was… incidental in all of that. All he had to comfort him, really, was that shirt wrapped around his shoulders and the smell of Guthrie against his skin.

The ambient lights from the construction above flickered off, and the sense (if not the sound) of profound industry faded, leaving their little encampment in almost absolute darkness.

The stars glared, malevolent in their icy indifference, and Tad was shivering with fever, willing Larx to hold him closer before he disappeared.

And that’s when they heard it.

A guitar, played in the silence of the canyon, and a clear, strong voice singing a lonely song. A song about waiting for your lover until the world ended.

“Til Kingdom Come.”

Guthrie had mentioned it a few times as a possibility to replace the both revered and reviled Linda Ronstadt song that had so enthralled Tad at the beginning. Tad loved it. The simplicity of a lover who would wait for his love forever if needbe, asking humbly for the same promise in return spoke to Tad. Weren’t they all, in the end, waiting for love?

And love—that was all it could be called—was soaring out over this lonely, inhospitable canyon, carried through the dark by Guthrie’s voice, by his music, and by, Tad was absolutely sure, the purity of Guthrie Arlo Woodson’s heart.

Guthrie sang “I Will Wait” next and let the final chords of the song—a sort of clanging guitar masterpiece, hang in the air above the canyon like the final smoke of a fireworks display, and at first Tad thought it was a misfire. He should have ended with a lullaby. And then Guthrie pulled out Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” and he breathed out a sigh of contentment.

The next song was soothing, an invitation to sleep, but he still heard that almost cacophonous finale and the lover’s belted promise, again, to wait.

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