A Voice In The Night by Brian Matthews Page B

It would usually descend on him for no discernible reason. It could hang there for a day, or dissolve in minutes. It was the central fact of his existence when it came, swallowing everything else in his consciousness. He had come to think of it as an unspecific but profound sadness. And he carried the pain of it alone. How could he explain it to anyone, even Eileen?
    This time it had a reason. There he was the black and white file footage of him on the TV, above Cronkite’s narrative. An interview with Archbishop Sheen followed, offering mild support to the predictions, noting the Vatican’s pronouncements, but acknowledging that The Bishop’s Conference and the normal protocols had been bypassed. “Like the apostles, we must have faith,” the bishop offered, rather unconvincingly. Luke knew it would be a tough night on his show.
    He saw the shift in the crowd’s sentiments as the driver passed through the double security gate at the station. The crazies had emerged from nowhere and they gestured or stared with eyes intense with accusation. “What happened to all the friendlies?” Jake wondered aloud as the limousine passed through the tunnel of angry or sullen faces. Luke slouched back with his hollow sadness welling up higher in his chest, unable to answer.
    The mechanics of getting ready to go on the air now began to fill the hollow space. He pulled on his headset, cleared his throat and drank a slug of his customary Coke to sharpen his voice. Luke checked the log for ads to run and signed the first page. He flipped through the binder of live copy to be read in the first hour. As the news continued on in his headset, he thought how good he had become at all these rituals and his comfort at being on the air. He was more at ease doing this than at living the other parts of his life. Did airline pilots and soldiers feel the same? Surgeons? Lawyers at trial? If the visitor hadn’t come, he and Eileen would be in their own kind of heaven now instead of a life surrounded by chain-link fences and 24-hour security service.
    “This is Luke Trimble, with Voices in The Night from ABC and KOGO, San Diego. As you probably know by now, The American Religious Congress today came out publicly expressing their doubts about what’s been happening here. Let’s talk about that. Our lines are open. Give us a call.”
    The invitation was unnecessary. Already the lines were blinking full.
    “What evidence are they offering one way or the other?”
    “It’s just grandstanding. Who died and left them in charge?”
    “But we can’t get carried away. That’s all they’re really saying.” Four hours later the score between believers and skeptics was about even. Luke’s head throbbed as he wrapped up the headset cord and cleared the studio for the all-night man. Barry Hall slid into the studio chair as Luke signed off the station log. It was a practiced move they wordlessly executed every night. Barry cued up a couple of records on the turntables, and loaded commercials into the tape decks. There was no Jake to engineer the overnight show. “How ya doin’? Barry looked him directly in the eyes. It was a worried look.
    “Hangin’ in there, I guess. Many crazies when you came in?”
    “Nah. Pretty quiet. I guess they have to sleep too. But, the weather is really weird out there.” Just then the newscast wrapped up with the standard San Diego forecast. Clear tonight, sunny and 70 tomorrow.
    “Weird weather?”
    “Well, maybe it’s just the moonlight or the sky or something. Just different.”
    Luke sensed it instantly as he slipped out the back door, Jake right behind. “Fa-uck., Jake intoned looking skyward. Luke felt the hair on his arms stand up and the adrenaline hit was right behind. It wasn’t weather, or moonlight or the sky. This was a new something, a new atmosphere, a plasma or energy that hovered a few thousand feet above.
    “Eastern 106, descend to 25,000. Hold course at 315” Captain Bill Flowers muttered his