Bjorn

The writers met Wednesday nights
usually in a confiscated classroom,
an unoccupied 4x4 slab of campus.
Sketches, improvisational monologues,
recurring characters & high concepts--
but never never skits!
Skits were for kids.
These were potential SNL staff,
honing their trade in their early 20's.

One such writer was Bjorn,
a little older than the rest...
not even a student, truth be told.
A Swede with curly tan hair,
open gentle face and rosy tones.
A light talker,
soft voice pitching vague philosophies
& endorsements.
He had been w/ the comedy show for years.
All his ties now graduated,
but like an adopted older son...
he partook week in & week out.

He worked as a librarian @ Cornell,
atop the other hill in far upstate New York.
The producers liked him--
heck! everyone liked Bjorn.
He was supremely dedicated,
a dependable cog in the comedy machine...
despite the fact that none of his sketches
made it past the podium.
The 2 of 3 pages he produced each week,
a little too unformed
gelato concepts melted & boneless.
First draft samples never followed up.
"Next week, Bjorn!" the producers would say,
"Write it up & knock it out of the park!"

But Bjorn would return w/ something new,
equally opaque & lacking.
Mineral water without the nutrition.
A trickle of laughter here,
a potential snort there.

Until one day...

The writer's meeting had reconvened
to the local diner.
A townie's dive down by the highway.
Late night pancakes & milky eggs...
the twenty or so 20somethings jammed in,
boys & girls just striking out adulthood.
Sizing each other up,
who would be the competition this week?
Who would be produced & videotaped that
weekend?
Some of the cast would tag along too,
& boys would cast looks at girls--
"maybe if my sketch gets produced & I cast her?"
Oh, a glorious cut-throat self-succeeding time.
But everyone laughing & having a grand hour,
peers becoming friends.
And Bjorn relating stories of the golden years--
whispering names of past comedic deities.
So-and-so telling this joke,
and then this punchline & the PERFECT timing.
Bjorn would have the floor then,
forks and ketchup bottles idle.
In his sheepish yet insistent narrative,
it became clear his true role-- historian.

The producers were won over...
the conversed in the lot outside,
looking through the plate glass window
of the brick-dirty diner,
watching their fellow writers & players
finish their meals & sort the check.
And Bjorn in their attentive midst.
"It really is time we shot something of Bjorn's,"
they agreed.
"But what?"
So many sketches to pick from,
so many ideas in need of a tuck or re-write.
But they settled on one--
a short short no more than a minute in length.
A quick in & out to open an episode--
Jesus as star football quarterback.
They could even shoot it that Sunday when
the college played Syracuse.
Get a little live cut-away footage & insert it
w/ whatever they shot on Saturday.

Bjorn took the news modestly.
And thanked them like a gentleman.
Seeing him up-close,
although dim in the parking lot moonlight...
the producers noted his true age then.
His simple ambitions nudged by time
& averted adulthood.
This was a man thanking them!
Someone akin to a professor or step-father...
yet?

The producers drove Bjorn home
criss-crossing the desolate inlays & backroads
a cold October in Fingers Lake.
Away from the twin colleges,
out of the valley of mixed townie & mall...
into the dark blowing hills.

The Dodge Dart pulled into the dirt drive
and Bjorn excused himself,
went into the house first.
A minute later he came out & asked for silence,
"My mom's just gone to sleep.
We'll have to be quiet."
And the trio of them tip-toed 'round back,
entered the premises through a cellar door...
a triangular pie-slice like something out of
a Midwestern hurricane shelter.

In the basement were piles...
bric-brac and Busch beer light displays
and a toppled walker.
A bin stuffed with broken umbrellas
and a wood toybox on wheels,
empty except for a few magnet-shaped letters.

The producers were uneasy,
they had never been to Bjorn's before.
But he was smiling & a comfort...
reliving a childhood? a forgotten dream?

"Here," Bjorn said, "This will be perfect."
and he lifted a Jesus head.
A plastic plug-in thing like a lamp.
He found an orange extension cord & socket,
and before the producers startled eyes--
ignited Jesus.

"Woo..." said Bjorn in a spectral voice,
and the Jesus in his grip oscillated before them.
The only glow in the creeping cellar,
the wind shoving outside.

That's when the two producers could take no more,
and looked in the mirror.
A large wall-sized monolith stacked in the corner.

They saw Jesus...
but nothing else.