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          Dawkins was in scout-leader mode. He was more unshaven than the rest of us – he’d been growing a beard since the final week of the tour – and in his plaid green shirt, open-collared blue sweater and denim jacket, he was looking like the kind of guy who feels at home when the nearest town is a cross streets twenty miles yonder. I’d gone down the steps right after Dawkins – myself followed by the goatee-sporting Daniels and then Fairweather – and standing beside him I was struck by the disconnect between the mere abstraction of his celebrity and the fact of his corporeality. And yet a certain glamour did subtly adhere to him and all his gestures, and even to the maroon scruff upon his face.

          We were looking back at the cabin whose porch we’d just descended from. It is the largest structure on the grounds. Above its door, two overlaid logs meet at a diagonal, forming a triangle with the lintel; under the angle where the logs meet, a wooden sign hangs by wire from a nail. The sign’s face is painted yellow, but letters are carved into it and show in brown relief. Shadows fill, overflow and drain from the gouged letters through the hours of the day. The sign reads “Ponderosa”; such christening signs hang over the front doors of all the cabins. These cabin names are tokens of the site’s history as a camping resort. The Exes, though, just call the cabins after who stays in them – “Jimmy’s place,” “Monty’s place,” etc. – and refer to the big cabin simply as Main House.

          Dawkins made a “thataway” thumb gesture in the direction of Main House, signaling, really, the area past it, the trees back there and the space beyond those.

          “That of course is where the creek’s at,” he told me. “Where we jam at night.” He cleared his throat. “Where we were meditating when you showed up hollering.” He touched my shoulder, at once reassuring me and suggesting I turn to face the other way.

          “Follow us, sir,” he said, “and we’ll show you where Norman Bates waited around for guests before we bought him out.”

          The three of them went slightly ahead of me, crossing the grounds in the direction of a structure that was narrower and longer than the other cabins, and un-raised and porchless. Daniels said something quietly, and Dawkins laughed and placed a hand on the back of his elbow; the two grew up near-neighbors and first were bandmates in high school, and the expressions of their relationship are so natural as to be practically fraternal. Fairweather relaxedly strode beside them at a greater distance from them than they were from each other, as if not quite within their bond but close to their closeness.

          On the ground lay evidence of a game of horseshoes, which I missed until I tripped over it – a U in the dust. Daniels, whose gestures have this pressing-through-water languor, turned his head towards me. “Alright, man?,” he said. And then addressing Fairweather and Dawkins, but so I could overhear, “We need some rules about when we’re done with horseshoes, guys.”

          It’s a funny thing about the Your Exes – they’re crazy for rules. Even at their retreat, they are early risers. They meditate on a strict schedule: individually – in their bedrooms – first thing in the morning, and communally in the afternoon and at night. Their albums, they all confirmed for me, are virtually assembled – they set themselves detailed deadlines before recording ever begins and meet these faithfully. This I was first told later that same day, by Clayton Jones, while he was playing a game of horseshoes with Daniels. Both were drinking beers; it had gotten hot, it smelled foresty, the afternoon meditation session was over and there were many hours to go before the sun would set. Monty and Robby and Kylan and the girls had gotten off to Clayton and Jimmy knew not where (though probably the swimming hole), and every tossed shoe produced a cloud of dust that was spotlit in the sun. It was the start of a new game – Jones had just jogged to Main House and back to get the three of us fresh beers; I insisted that I didn’t want to play, that I was happier watching. I’d been asking whether, with two albums behind them, the Exes have acquired a sense of when they’re ready to start a new record; I reopened that line of questioning and Jones, preparing and releasing his toss, said, “Well I’ll tell you man, once we know pretty much exactly” – toss – “how long each song will take for us to get it like we need it.”

          First I thought he was kidding, and then I got confused. Those aching tracks recorded on some pre-determined schedule? I looked over at Daniels, asking him with my eyes whether Jones was playing or for real, and Daniels gave me a “yeah-that’s-right” nod and turned back to the game. He let his arm heavily prep-swing and said, “Yeah. First we get our songs down. And then we all agree on the album’s name. And after that” – toss – “we’re pretty much ready. How Clayton said.”

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