Late Night

I was watching a Late Night with Conan O'Brien skit, though it felt a lot more like I was in it. Conan and Andy were up on top of a tall building, filming a remote segment. It was night. With them was someone introduced as a writer on the show. The writer seemed to be the real thing, not an actor. If they had wanted an actor, they would have gotten the "Loser At the Beach" guy again. The writer looked quite unusual.

He looked like a cross between Riff-Raff from Rocky Horror and the castle freak from the movie of the same name. The writer was a freakishly skinny albino, bald with long stringy white hair fringing his scalp. He had a hunch and weirdly gnarled limbs, with corpselike skin and sickly bumps. His eyes were cloudy and bulging and his mannerisms jerky and nervous. He wore black jeans and a black button-up shirt, which contrasted his skin shockingly.

His teeth, however, were perfectly straight and gleaming white.

At the conclusion of the sketch, the writer jumped off the building. His only safety equipment was a long rope made of office rubber bands tied together, then secured to his ankles and a heating system vent. Of course, it snapped and sent him plummeting to the busy street below.

There was a punchline and the audience laughed, and Conan and Andy went back in the building.

The flattened albino below picked himself up from the concrete, twisting his bones back into a more human configuration. Blood slowly oozed from many small abrasions on his baggy skin, but it didn't seem to be enough to endanger his health too badly.

He continued realigning his skeletal structure. One of his arms had a huge flap of skin hanging off it, like a huge deflated balloon. He grabbed hold of it and tore it off, then cast it off into the street. It floated down to the sidewalk with surprising grace.

Finally able to move and walk properly, the albino writer started to look for somewhere to telephone for help. He looked up now and then, as though he expected some help from his TV show, but none was forthcoming.

The street was damp and greasy, grey in the yellow light from a few grimy street lamps. Litter and moldering leaves scattered as the writer walked. None of the buildings were lit, and many had their windows broken. The absence of glass on the ground suggested that it had happened a long time ago.

He rounded a corner and saw a sputtering neon sign. Colored tubes were bent to the shape of old 1950s clip art. Oddly, the clip art was of a comical dentist and enormous tooth, even though the building was obviously a garage. Its immense metal doors could belong to no other business.

The albino knocked on the regular door that appeared to be the customers' entrance. No one answered, so he let himself in.

Inside, everything was dark. It was warm and smelled like oil. A telephone was in the distance, illuminated by a single utility lamp. Eagerly, the writer headed towards it. Out of the shadows and straight from central casting appeared several Big Mean Guys. The made as if to attack the already bleeding and twisted writer, but he was able to dodge despite his many deformities. One of the men grabbed an arm but again he sloughed his skin and left his attacker confused.

Still, there were many of them, and he was only one bruised albino humorist. He was backed into a corner. That's when he saw the electric banjo.

It was made of blue plastic, and seemed to glow from within. It was already plugged in, although it was not obvious into what. With the bad guys gaining on him, the writer slipped its strap over his shoulder and started playing. He was pretty good.

When the men came within the glow of the banjo, his playing intensified as a huge bolt of lighting incinerated his attackers, one by one. Finally, only one was left. He cowered in the shadow, having seen his fellows' fate.

A wry smile creased the albino's lips. He unplugged the banjo and started to leave. The thug followed, but at a respectful distance.

Continuing down the street, the banjo continued to glow and the albino continued to play. It didn't seem to need a power source or amplifier, and it zapped a few parked cars and mailboxes as he walked past them.

He walked a few more blocks and it was suddenly day.