Todd could almost see Billy looking around, as though fearful of being spotted. He imagined him leaning into the phone, flecking the mouthpiece with 100 percent proof saliva. Then:

“Todd, I had the dream again. The dream where you’n’me were in the libe-aree.”

If Todd had been blessed with empathy for other human beings, he might have felt something for a man who’d once been touted as a promising young author, but was now such a lush that he could no longer pronounce the name of the place where books were kept. Instead, whenever Billy called and said, “in the libe-aree,” Todd would generally call out, “‘Library,’ Billy. It’s pronounced ‘library.’”

After revealing that the dream featured Todd and Billy in the libe-aree, Billy would generally start muttering fearfully to himself, and Todd would shout, “Speak up, Bill!” But then Billy would have rung off, having spooked himself back into a terrified silence.

The calls went on like this for a while, but then, like all long-running shows, they began to evolve. This second iteration was in many ways Todd’s favorite, not least because the calls seemed to coincide with Todd’s rest periods. Todd would be sitting back in his chair, enjoying some once-sparkling water or gnawing on an energy bar, when the phone would ring, Janis would invite the caller to speak after the tone, and then Billy would step in and get right to it.

“Todd, Billy,” he’d say. “I got to tell you about the dream. I got to do it.”

“Do it, Billy!” Todd would shout as he tried to soothe his groin with a wet tissue before diapering up again.

“Todd,” Billy would say, “The libe-aree. It was you’n’me in the libe-aree.”

“With the lead pipe, yeah, you said,” shouted Todd. “Get to it, Bill.”

“Except it wasn’t the libe-aree,” Billy would say. “Todd, it wasn’t the libe-aree.”

“You just said it was the libe-aree,” Todd would sing out as he eased his ravaged body back into his seat and loaded more paper into what he now called the Iron Maiden. “Was it the libe-aree or was it not the libe-aree, Billy?”

“Todd, I know you ain’t going to believe me—”

“Aren’t going to,” corrected Todd as he watched his bruised and blistered fingers get ready to go again.

“But that place was the hardware store, Todd. The one I told you about.”

“It’s okay, Billy,” Todd would say, more to himself than out loud, because the old eidetic generator was powering up inside him. “I suppose I could have used that info a while back. But right now”—and suddenly his fingers flew out at the keyboard like bats from an increasingly crowded belfry—”I got problems of my own.”