Free Shatterday by Harlan Ellison

inexplicable and invisible materials, but no more or less noble than a cabinetmaker who takes pride in his or her craft, who makes sure the rabbets are tight and smooth; no less approachable than a classy bricklayer who takes joy in the look of a line of bricks laid even and true; no more mysterious or honorable than a schoolteacher who can bring the Wars of the Roses to life for young people.

 
Flop Sweat
    HER FIRST GUEST Of the evening sat across the table from her, there in the tiny broadcast booth, staring at her with unreadable green eyes showing through the mask. She was dead certain he was crazy as a thousand battlefields; but he was, without a doubt, one of the best interviews she'd ever had on the program. She knew it without a doubt because her hands were soaking wet with perspiration and her upper lip above the glossed line of Ultima II was dewy with sweat.
    When she had been in the theater, in the years before she had found that hosting a talk show was easier and steadier work, she had come to understand what the perspiration meant. In show biz they called it "flop sweat," the physical manifestation of nervousness just before going on stage. And during the seven years here at KDID the flop sweat had dampened her palms and upper lip every time she'd had a dynamite show. It was a certain barometer of something happening.
    But to call this strange man, dressed all in black, wearing a cheap K-Mart domino mask, the kind children wear at Halloween, a "happening" was to fling oneself face-forward into understatement. Brother Michael Darkness was more than a happening; he was a force of nature, a powerful presence, a disturbing reality; even if he was obviously a certifiable nut-case, a card-carrying whacko, a psychotic in the top one-tenth of the top percentile of emotional walking woundeds with whom she shared airspace.
    "Reverend Darkness," she said, "it's almost the top of the hour and we have to break now for the network news, but—"
    "Brother Darkness," he said, cutting her off.
    She was nonplused for a moment. His voice. It had the deep, warm, musky timbre of secrets whispered in dark rooms. When he spoke she thought of a stick of butter, squeezed through a fist. "Yes, of course; I'm sorry. You've told me several times you're not a minister. I'll try to remember, Brother Darkness." He nodded politely. She could not read his expression around the mask. He disturbed her fluid ease behind the mike. That didn't happen very often. Seven years at this gig had made her almost unflappable. "What I was about to suggest, Brother Darkness, is that we break for the news and you come back for the second hour of the show. My next guest is Dr. Jacob Theiss, a very well-known psychiatrist who works with the Los Angeles police; he'll be coming on to talk about this epidemic of razorblade killings ... and I think some of what you've been saying about evil in our times might be very interesting to have him comment on."
    "I'd be pleased to stay, Miss Ketchum."
    The way he said it made Theresa Ketchum almost regret she had suggested it. He made his acceptance sound as if they had entered into some kind of unholy alliance. But she signaled to Jerry, the engineer in the control room, and he turned up the network feed pot and the news rushed in with drums and trumpets and the voice of the sixty-thousand-dollar-a-year announcer from New York.
    Now she was alone with Brother Darkness. The on-air studio in which they sat was a claustrophial box, fifteen by ten, with two windowed walls: one side looked into the control room; the other looked into the waiting room where Millie sat taking and screening phone calls from the general public. The studio seemed somehow smaller than usual, and throat-cloggingly filled with menace. And it had started out being such a lovely day.
    She took off her earphones and racked them. She stood up, smoothing her skirt, and was suddenly aware of Brother Darkness looking at her not as a dispassionate