Родерик Торп: Sunburst

She prodded him awake violently. Still heavy with sleep, he rolled onto his back and blinked her into focus. “What is it, Cyn? What’s the matter?”

“Something terrible’s happening. Get up.” She had his robe over her arm. “I don’t know what it is, Johnny. Come on,please.” She gave him the robe. “I turned on the kitchen radio when I got up — there’s nothing but news. The same on television. The kids wanted to watch their cartoon shows, but there aren’t any—”

“News? News? Make sense, Cyn.” Johnny Loughlin stepped into his slippers. “What news are you talking about? Has the war started?”

“No, thank God. It’s all kind of news — no; all the news is bad, but it’s coming from all over. All bad things—”

Johnny Loughlin felt the energy sag out of him. For her sake, he did not flop down on the bed. It was Saturday, and while she could go back to bed after the kids got off to school, he had only the weekends — rare ones — to catch up on his health. He lit a cigarette. For some reason his hand was shaking. “Cyn, give me an example of this bad news.”

“Senator Clinton was beaten up, Johnny. He was in California last night to give a speech. They have films of him being punched and kicked.”

“For God’s sake.” He nodded. “All right.”

She led the way out of the room. They knew Senator Clinton. They had campaigned for him and he had been a guest — once — in this house. “You’d think the cameramen would have stopped it,” Cynthia said, speaking her husband’s thoughts. “But what happened to him is only part of it, I swear. There’s a demonstration down at Grand Central Station, people lying on the tracks and nobody with the courage to move them.”

“What are they demonstrating for?”

“Not integration. It’s a labor dispute. Grand Central is filled with people waiting to take excursion trains, too.”

Downstairs, the living room was still dark. The two children, dressed in play clothes, were sitting in front of the television set, which was showing newsreels of a fire. “What is that?” Johnny Loughlin asked.

“A tenement fire in Chicago,” Cynthia answered. “It started after midnight and it’s still going. Fifty people are dead and the radio had that two boys set it for a joke. Oh, there’s more, Johnny, I promise you.”

“Good morning, Daddy,” Jodi said. Now Johnny, Jr., realized that he was there.

“Good morning, kids. I’m sorry that your programs aren’t on.”

They said something, he didn’t hear it. “I’ll get you a cup of coffee,” Cynthia said.

The television screen flashed to the news announcer. He seemed to be caught by surprise. Quickly he tried to find something on his desk to read. But slowly his image began to fade, and before he blanked out completely he could be seen looking beyond the camera to a man in the studio. “What the hell do you call that. You told me you were cutting right to the damned commercial!”

“Which of the five leading pain remedies—”

Cynthia reentered the room. “I heard that. They couldn’t seem to get straightened out at the radio station, either.” As she came closer with the coffee, Johnny Loughlin looked carefully into her eyes.

“Did you take your pill this morning?”

“No. I ran out.”

“How did that happen?”

“Don’t yell at me, Johnny. It just happened.”

“I didn’t yell. Call the drugstore and give them the prescription number.”

“In a minute. The bottle is upstairs.” She sat down on the sofa beside Jodi.

He would probably have to run the errand himself. It was unimportant. She could go for days without taking the pills. The television went to a station break and a local commercial. Johnny Loughlin wanted to show his wife that he wasn’t angry about the pills. In the past when she had forgotten to take them his own emotional behavior had done her more damage than the lack of medication. When he had realized that, he had been able to change his attitude. “What else has happened, Cyn?”

“There’s been trouble in China. What kind, nobody knows. Thousands of people have been trying to get into Hong Kong all night — all day, over there. The story is confused because they’re out of control even when they get into Hong Kong. The refugees, I mean. There was one of those telephone hookups and the reporter said that the Hong Kong police have had those water cannon trucks out for hours. Apparently the Communists have had to call out their army. The refugeeshave told of riots and massacres—”

The television station switched to the news announcer while he was in midsentence. “. . Negroes have seized a radio station in Johannesburg. ‘Help us. Help us, free people of the world,’ in the manner of the Hungarian freedom fighters of nineteen fifty-six. No other details are available at the moment. To repeat, monitoring receivers throughout the world have picked up broadcasts from Johannesburg, South Africa. Unsubstantiated reports say that the natives have begun a large-scale, though uncoordinated, revolt. As soon as further bulletins come in, we’ll pass them on to you.”

Now the director went to a two-shot. Beside the announcer sat one of the network’s better-known commentators. They said good morning and the announcer explained that the commentator had been called from his home in the suburbs. “Do you think there’s an explanation for all this, Frank?”

The commentator looked as if he had not had his breakfast. “Oh, it’s difficult to say, Jim,” he said unctuously. “We have a pattern of violence that seems to be sweeping around the world—”

Johnny Loughlin rose. “I’m going to get dressed, Cyn. It would be a good idea to get the kids out and playing.”

She stared at him.

“All right, Jodi,” he said. “Johnny. Outside. I don’t want you watching television on a Saturday.”

“Stay close to the house,” their mother said to them.

“I think you’re overdoing it,” he said when the door closed.

“Well, I don’t! Something’s happening. You know it, I know it. I’m worried, honey.”

He went upstairs. It was possible to reason with her, but he didn’t feel up to it.

When he returned to the living room the announcer was telling the commentator, “I think that the most fantastic theory offered is that something has happened to the sun. As the earth revolves and exposes itself, something is aroused in people in varying degrees.”

“It doesn’t stand up, Jim,” the commentator replied. “First, we have what happened to Senator Clinton in California lastnight. We have the trouble in China, which must have begun some hours back — that is, to have reached the proportions the reports we’ve been getting indicate—”

From the kitchen came Cynthia’s voice as she shouted through the window, “Stop it, you children! Stop it, do you hear me?”

Then, from outside, perhaps from the road fifty feet from the house, a boy’s voice, older than Jodi’s or little Johnny’s: “Oh, be quiet, you crazy old witch!”

Johnny Loughlin was on his feet at once, heading for the kitchen. Cynthia stood rigidly at the window over the sink, her fair skin blanched. Outside, two boys ran away from the fence, where Johnny, Jr.’s, tricycle lay overturned.

“Did you hear that?” Cynthia cried. “Where did they get that. They call mecrazy!”

“Easy, Cynthia, I—”