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galleries and see if someone wants to give me a show, or at least represent me.”
    “That one painting? The gray one? Or are you talking about what you worked on in school?”
    “The new stuff. I don’t care as much about the old stuff. Okay, maybe the old stuff too. But these new paintings I’m going to be working on—someone will want to show them. I’ve got to reactivate my old contacts.”
    Dad had eaten only a quarter of the Pop-Tart. “You know what I’m going to say, right?” I asked. “Before I even say it?” I reached toward him, and he did the high-five. “How about just painting for fun and not worrying about the rest of it?”
    “Because those of us who have special gifts are obligated to share them with others,” he said, as if it were self-explanatory. He leaned closer and whispered again. “We carry the fire, Billy.”
    For a second I thought he meant “we” as in him and me. When I realized he probably didn’t I snorted and didn’t really care. I could take my family in stride today. Tonight I would have my first Listeners shift, manning the phones and saving actual callers from suicide.
    “Bill Senior, you’re still standing in the same spot! You’ve got to get moving!” Mom said as she kissed Dad and not me.
    “Now she thinks she’s my boss too.” Dad laughed and rushed down the hall to take a shower.

16.
shift 1, november 4
    I clipped my Listeners photo ID to my shirt pocket and slid my passcard through the electronic reader outside the elevator. Pep had scheduled me on the five-to-nine shift Tuesdays and Fridays with Margaret and Richie. It would be a busy shift because the Incomings who worked all day or went to school would be getting home and ready to talk.
    I arrived fifteen minutes early, as Pep requested, so I had some time to chill with my mates. I felt nervous—but a good, preshow, big-game nervous. Purposeful. I asked Margaret why she had joined Listeners.
    Margaret, it turned out, started with Listeners six months ago. She joined because of her religious beliefs. She didn’t believe in any kind of killing, including suicide, abortion, or capital punishment.
    I asked her if she killed bugs, and she said she tried not to.
    Richie said he wanted to save lives but he was notentirely against suicide. Although Listeners said the most tragic thing about suicide was that it was a permanent solution to a temporary problem, Richie believed it was a legitimate choice in some circumstances, such as terminal illness. He said, in fact, that he would consider offing himself if he were terminally ill. I looked closely at Richie, with his new-for-school pencil case and his Ninja Turtles T-shirt. How would he do it—stage a head-on collision in his go-kart?
    Margaret asked why I had joined. She called me Mr. Newcomer. I told her that, like some of the volunteers in the website video, I had a close family member who had been suicidal. As I told her this I placed my hand on the phone, and even though Dad’s heart was in his artwork these days and not in our relationship, I said aloud that I dedicated my service at Listeners to my CFM.
    Margaret announced that it was ten minutes to five, a transitional moment. She went to a cabinet in the corner of the room that was labeled with a brass plaque:
    EMMA P. BRAUMANN
    MEMORIAL SNACK CABINET
    FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE LISTENERS
    IN PERPETUITY FOREVER
    ENJOY!
    Richie told me this cabinet was restocked daily from an endless supply of snacks. The snacks came in handy, especially during the overnight shifts the college-age Listeners were required to man. The selection of food wasnot great—not microwave nachos or anything—but it was always there.
    Margaret came back with a plastic bag.
    Inside were circus peanuts, that strange food that is pale orange, resembles a bloated peanut, and tastes neither like peanuts nor like anything orange but like marshmallow.
    Richie warned me not to get caught chewing when the phone rang.
    I swallowed the pale