It Leader

By late in the evening, a sense of foreboding had settled over Barton. He wandered from one

room to another through his upscale condo, stopping to flip TV channels, sound muted, without

perceiving the images that flashed on screen. Several times he tried to telephone Maggie, the

woman he’d been dating for the past several months. Barton was frustrated that, on top of the

day’s events, he was stuck home alone on a Friday night because Maggie, a management

consultant, was on temporary assignment in another city. She was probably with clients, but it

was odd that she was not answering her mobile phone. Given his overall state of mind, Barton

was inclined to assume the worst.

He thought about going for a run, but he preferred mornings for that. Logging on to his

computer, he discovered that his nephew, a technology, music, and video game buff, had

“gifted” him some music. Jack often sent Barton things via e-mail, like videos or links to

interesting Web pages. Barton and his nephew had a special relationship, although they didn’t

see each other very often (Jack lived in the suburbs, which might as well have been in another

country as often as Barton made it out there).

Delighted with the distraction, he downloaded music by a band called Black Box Recorder.

Barton hoped for something that would lift his spirits, but he could see immediately from the

song titles that he was out of luck: “Girl Singing in the Wreckage” and “It’s Only the End of the

World” didn’t sound upbeat. Barton cued up the new tunes and tapped on the remote to

channel the music to his high-end sound system, cranking up the volume. About halfway

through the album, the lead singer offered some breathy advice that struck Barton as

useful: Life is unfair, the singer whispered, against a stark backdrop of percussion and

bass, Kill yourself or get over it. It made Barton laugh. Seizing the energy in this burst of levity,

he decided to get out of the condo for a while, take a walk, find something else to lift his spirits.