Page 88 of Torch Songs

“Promise,” he said, meaning it with all his soul. “I gotta go.”

Because if he put it off, said he’d be in Sand Cut tomorrow, told Jock he’d get there eventually, he wouldn’t. He’d stay here and pretend he was the good guy—Tad’sgood guy, and that was all that mattered. He knew that being Jock’s good guy wasn’t going to get him a job or a boyfriend or even the family he found he so desperately needed—but you didn’t get to choose who you got to be the good guy for. You either were or you weren’t. He’d promise to Tad, because he knew he’d keep it.

He wasn’t sure he was strong enough to keep a promise to Jock if he didn’t leave right the fuck now.

He took one more look behind him, though, and saw Tad wiping his eyes.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he murmured. “It’s not long. A month? Two months at the most? I know you’re the kind to stick. Have a little faith in me, right?”

Tad nodded. “Right,” he rasped. “Drive safe.” His eyes were red-rimmed, and he looked as shitty as Guthrie felt, but that was as good as it was going to get for the moment.

“’Course.”

When he got to the front room, he found April had packed his laptop and his guitar in their cases, and had provided, against all imaginings, two of the household’s travel mugs, both filled with coffee.

“Aw, darlin’—”

“I put your sleeping bag and pillow in the lockbox in the back of the truck,” she said, clutching his cat to her chest. “And some egg crate and blankets. Don’t stay anywhere you’re not welcome, Guthrie. You taught me that.”

“You heard,” he rasped, suddenly afraid. He hadn’t counted on them knowing he planned to sleep in his truck. God, he didn’t want Tad to know how bad this was going to get.

“Every word. Open windows.” She swallowed, her eyes growing red and shiny. “I won’t tell him. But… but you’re coming home, right? Even if home’s in Colton?”

He held open his arms and she went, cat and all. He hugged them both gently. “I know you think Tad’s your only family,” he whispered, “but you’re wrong. I’d come back just so you could be my sister. With your brother waiting here, you can’t keep me away, you understand?”

She wiped her face on his shoulder and pulled back to kiss his cheek. “You’re just like Tad,” she said. “Take that as the compliment it is. Come home when you can. Don’t look back.”

“Will do, hon,” he said. He was good at loading up—had the computer case and the knapsack over his shoulder, both the mugs in one hand and his guitar case in the other. Still clutching Lennon in her arms, April opened the door and nodded her head as he left.

Jock was still waiting in the parking lot for him, and Guthrie walked up and nodded brusquely.

“Grab one,” he said. “And don’t you say another word about the girl who made you coffee.”

Jock smiled hopefully. “Think we can stop in Vacaville for food?” he asked.

“Don’t see why not,” Guthrie said. “I’ll need gas by then anyway. How’s your truck running?”

“Like shit. Exhaust leaks like you can’t believe.”

Awesome. “Then I’ll go in front. Watch for me to pull off. First stop, Vacaville. Any particular place?”

Jock closed his eyes. “Think they got an IHOP?” he asked, and Guthrie almost laughed.

“I know it for sure,” he said. He wanted to text Chris Castro and have him check in on Tad, but he knew the guy would already. He just hoped “check in on” didn’t mean having Tad dump him at the first possible opportunity.

Guthrie had every intention of coming back.

FIVE HOURSlater, his stomach still grumbling from the stop at IHOP when they got gas in Vacaville, Guthrie passed through the tunnel that marked the end of civilized internet and the beginning of the peculiar ecosystem that made up every small town.

The view before the tunnel seemed welcoming—eucalyptus trees, hills, bright sunshine and cool shade was a refreshing change from the Sacramento heat. And the smell… something about the air when you got twenty or so miles from the ocean. Guthrie could admit he missed salt and eucalyptus and the faint tang of fish on the breeze. Living on the edge of a storm was exciting; there were zero lies there.

But there was no rest there either.

The sky in Sand Cut was almost a perpetual fog or storm gray, with the truly sunny days or truly rainy days few and far between. As Guthrie had grown older, had toured some more of the state, he came to recognize the kind of emotional constipation of such a sky. There was no moving on for actual residents of Sand Cut. His father seemed to have known this too. When the band had been doing good, his dad and Jock had kept a trailer in San Rafael. Guthrie had gotten his own apartment—and a better one after they’d cut the Fiddler and the Crabs LP—but just because he’d still been in a band with his father and Jock hadn’t meant he’d wanted tobelike them.

Of course, once Seth had gone, graduated from college, took off for Italy and the destiny he’d earned with all that was good in his heart, Guthrie hadn’t had any reason to visit Sand Cut, to see the crumbling house sitting on an acre of rusting vehicles, nettles, and spiders, or to sit on the hood of his truck, scenting the wind, trying to find proof of sea or farmland or city—becausethis small town between the tunnel and the sea was too far away from any of them for “out there” to be real.

But this was real, Guthrie thought, driving over the cracked pavement of the main drag to take a right after the drug store and before the liquor store. There was a fire station, a library, a grange, and stretches of property after that. And then, about a mile out of town, it appeared. Three acres of overgrown land. A stream sat on a corner of it, so the blackberry bushes had taken over a good quarter of the property without the house. As they’d grown, they’d devoured an entire Honda Civic and an old electric stove. Guthrie had hidden out by them when he was a boy, but all he could make of them now was the occasional glimpse of orange primer or crap green enamel.

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