Page 95 of Torch Songs

That one was fun. And Guthrie finally figured out where he got his cavalier regard for Christmas. Suddenly,achingly, he wondered if Tad did the holiday up right, with a tree and tinsel and Christmas songs and everything. He resolved to ask him… in person. Not on text, though, because dammit, that little stretch of property was like the goddamned nineteenth century.

But then there was: “Yeah, it’s not like you didn’t need some fucking medical care. You broke your arm when you were twelve, you fucking faggot. Remember that? Jock and I didn’t have beer money formonths.”

“That’s a lie, and we all know it,” Guthrie told him. “You never paid that hospital bill, and Jock cut the cast off with a fucking Sawzall. I’m lucky to still be alive.” He was also lucky the broken arm was all he’d gotten; what Butch hadn’t mentioned was that he’d broken his arm running away fromButchand getting hit by a car. If the accident hadn’t happened out of town, with an out-of-town hospital and law enforcement, Guthrie probably would have died because he’d had a concussion then, too, and he’d gotten to spend a week in the hospital recovering. Of course Butch had lucked out because Guthrie’s bruises had been blamed on the car. The reason Jock had cut the cast off was that that’d been the first time Guthrie had fought back. Butch had cracked him across the face, and Guthrie had given him a black eye with the cast. Butch had been angry enough to kill him, and Jock had gotten Guthrie out of his sights. The good news was, after that, Guthrie had stopped taking the physical abuse. The rest of that shit was just par for the course.

Or maybe not.

“I can’t fucking believe you let Fiddler go. If you were going to be a cocksucker, the least you could have done was suckedhiscock and made him stay! That kid was our ticket to somethinggood, and you let him walk off the stage and out of our lives!”

And that was enough. Absolutely enough.

“Seth Arnold was better than any of us deserved. None of us—not me, not Jock, not you—noneof us deserved to have that boy in our lives. And he was in love with someone else. They’re married now, Dad, and they’re parents.Goodparents, who are kind and gentle. Hell, they evenfeedtheir kids, and they’re men enough to keep them clothed and toprovidefor them. And they don’t hit, and they don’t abuse, and they don’t yell. So fuckinglive with that, motherfucker. Those people you hate so much, they’rebetter than you, and they always will be.”

Butch sucked in a breath at that—Guthrie was giving him a shower, forcing the old man to wash his own privates, shampooing his hair, the whole nine yards. For the most part, Butch huddled on the shower chair and spewed invective, but at Guthrie’s words he sat up straight and spat, right in Guthrie’s face.

Guthrie was wet from the waist up anyway—and wearing an old pair of Jock’s gym shorts and flip-flips because he’d done this before and he knew the job could be messy. He turned the spray on himself, on his face, spitting and rinsing several times before wiping the water out of his eyes. Then he turned to glare at his father, who was cackling like a demented witch. Deliberately, making sure Butch could see him, he turned the hot water off, leaving what was coming out of the showerhead ice-fucking-cold.

Then he turned it on his father and, ignoring his shouts, bathed the old man’s pits and privates, ignoring the discomfort of the cold water, ignoring his father’s screams and curses. When he was sure the job was done, he stood and sprayed Butch in the face, turning the shower sideways for a moment to say, “You gonna behave, asshole?”

He had to repeat the action three times before Butch nodded his head, his furious expression made less threatening by his shivers. Guthrie turned the water off and gathered the towels, helped the old man dry off in icy silence. Guthrie got him back to bed, worn out, and set him up with the television while Guthrie made lunch. He brought back a warm mug of soup so Butch could maybe heat up his core temp a little, but before he handed it over, he turned off the television, making sure he had the old bastard’s attention.

“Butch, I got you? You hearing me?”

His father nodded, scowling.

“Good. That’s great. Now look. Jock asked me to come help him out, because frankly, you were killing him. I agreed, ’cause Jock was a bright spot in my life when I was a kid and I felt like he deserved that much. But frankly? You don’t. You deserve to die in a ditch, far away from civilization, mewling like an animal where no man can hear you to help.”

Butch stared at him, shocked. “You don’t got no killer in you, boy.”

Guthrie shrugged. He wouldn’t lie—not to this man. “Nope. No, I don’t. But you know what I do have? I have access to the medical system.Youput Jock in this position.Youtold him you wanted to die at home.You’vebeen such a pain in the ass we can’t get a nurse to stay longer than a week. Jock hasn’t had a chance to live alone, but I have. I moved out when I was eighteen, remember? Stayed with the band until Fiddler left, but I know what it’s like to live in my own goddamned place, even if my own goddamned place is my own goddamned truck.” When he’d turned eighteen, he’d started to talk privately to the bar owners, making sure he got his fair share. Turned out if he wasn’t drinking his fair share away, it was enough to get him a used truck and an apartment.

“So? You gonna brag about living in your truck now?” Butch groused, but it was clear he knew where this was going.

“I’m living with afamilynow,” Guthrie told him. “One you can’t fucking touch, not with your meanness, not with your vitriol.Ican get away. But I’m not leaving Jock with you here alone. Before I go, I will take you to the hospital and sign all the fucking papers, and I will surrender your care to the state, old man. I’ll do it freely and gladly, and Jock won’t have to feel one drop of guilt. You wanted to die here—I guess so you could feel the wind on your face from the window, see the sky, smell something besides your own piss. I get that. That’s great. You want that to happen? You will be a goddamned human fuckingbeingto me and to Jock, or the last thing you will see will be white walls, and the last thing you will hear is the beep beep beep of your heart failing, and you will never see sky again, and you damned sure won’t hear any music. I’ll make a point of it. You know how Jock plays the radio for you at night on that country western station? I’ll tell them it makes you crazy. No music for you in your last days. No television. No remote control. Not another human who cares whether you live or die, just some underpaid orderlies hoping you won’t clock out on their shift. This is it, Butch. This is your last stand. You’ve got the power to make your last days decent or a sterile hell, and it all comes down to this: Can you or can you not be a human fucking being?”

Butch glared at him, absolute hatred burning from his eyes. “I shoulda given you to the state,” he said after deep consideration.

But coming from Butch, that was mild.

“Too late now. What’s it gonna be? And you might want to make up your mind ’cause your broth is getting cold.”

Butch shivered, and Guthrie noted that his lips were still a little blue. “Fine. We don’t need to say too much to each other. Too late now to wish your mama woulda flushed you.”

Guthrie had heard that before. “Same could be said of you. Here’s your soup. I’m going outside to do anything but this. You need something, holler.” And with that, he gave Butch the remote control on the television and set up the baby monitor and strode out.

When he got to the front yard—mown now, thanks to Jock’s tireless efforts, and covered with a fine layer of paint dust, thanks to his own—he leaned forward and rested his hands on his thighs and breathed. Just breathed. In and out, shuddering the last of the rage and the hurt and the violence into the quiet around him.

Jock rounded the corner, hauling half a stove on a wheelbarrow, and stopped, seeing him there.

The panic on Jock’s face was enough to tell Guthrie Jock’s worst fear.

“You’re not leaving me here, are you?” he asked, voice shaking with tears.

“No,” Guthrie said. “But Jock, you gotta hear me out.”

With that he stood and outlined the things he’d threatened Butch with, and while his big fear had been that Jock wouldn’t back him up, he’d been gratified to see Jock’s posture straighten, a little at a time.

“So we can do that?” Jock asked. “We can give him to the hospital?”

---