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          When I woke again, the fire had gone out. The sun was newly risen, the sky was pale, it was cold. My mouth tasted awful. I stood and thought I would surely puke. When I got back up to Main House, all five of the Exes were sitting on the porch in a semi-circle, having calm coffees and morning cigarettes.

          Dawkins grinned and waved at me. “There’s our man!” he said. “How you doing, warrior, back from battle? Shit, you don’t look so good.”

          He helped me up the last couple steps and into a chair. He got me water and a coffee. The world started to re-coalesce. And I was sitting there with the Your Exes. They regarded me solicitously.

          “So guys,” I said, “those songs last night—are those for your next album?”

          They were all kind of quiet.

          “No, man,” said Fairweather, “those are old songs. Us—we couldn’ta written those songs.”

          I nodded. “But would you ever think about covering some of them on albums? I mean, they were really beautiful.”

          “Nah man nah,” said Dawkins. “It’s different than that. These songs—they’re where our music comes from.” He smiled. “Never heard them before?”

          I shook my head.

          “Well that’s a shame.”

          They all sat there politely expectant, happy to grant an interview.

          “So you guys come on the scene with We Are Arrived,” I said, “and it’s a huge critical success. And then you make Below 48 in the Lower Forty-Eight, and it definitely gets more listeners, and it’s possibly an even bigger success with the critics. Are you feeling nervous at all about coming back for album three?”

          Jones laughed. “You trying to jinx us, man?” he said.

          “Alright,” said Dawkins. He placed his forearms above his knees and leaned forward, holding one hand in the other. “Look man, are you in a band? Ah you don’t gotta tell me, I know you music writers!” He fixed me with his warm eyes. “Plus you’re a killer fiddle player. Alright. So you know all about how being in a band is a bond. Well, for us that’s what it comes down to.   When we make our next album, it’ll be something that we do together. We’ll rely on each other. The listeners, the critical community—they’re not there when we’re making the record. They come later.”

          I looked around at all of them.

          “There’s a reason I’m here, guys,” I said. “There’s a reason you’re getting the attention you do. You’re different. And we’re all haunted by your music.” I held off and none of them said anything. “You guys just seem like you know something. Something about the country.”

          Five or six seconds passed. Dawkins said, “I don’t think we know any—”

          “I think what we know is how it hurts,” interrupted Daniels. We all looked at him.

          “Because everything has its own way of hurting,” he went on. “Like this,” he lightly kicked a pinecone at his feet, “hurts just its own way. And I think sometimes if you really love something, you can pick up on its way. On its it way of hurting.”

          Dawkins looked at him curiously. The five of them sat there on the unenclosed porch in the forest clearing, the sun veiled by the far trees and the nearest town a cross streets twenty miles yonder.

          I had a long drive back to San Francisco before me – and so after bacon and eggs, feeling increasingly like one of the living, I headed to my car.

          I was sitting in the front seat, letting the engine warm up and thinking about the germ of sameness at the core of all the Your Exes’ music. It is like a still pool that you stumble on in a cave system. I had heard it in those old songs, too.

          What is this germ? Why do I know it? How do they tap what is in me already?

          There was a rap on my window. I looked over. Robby Dawkins was standing there, Jimmy Daniels was standing a few feet behind him. I rolled down the window.

          Dawkins settled his forearms on the frame and leaned forward.

          “Hey man,” he said, “we all thought we’d give you a scoop. Our next album’s got a name—it’s gonna be called Roadhouse Circuit.”

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