A big mirror with pictures taped to it. Makeup supplies on the table under it, which is also crowded with pictures in silver frames, a coffeemaker sitting on a microwave, phone books, a stuffed cat, a snow globe, a No Parking sign. There are hand-lettered signs, too: “DO NOT ‘HELP YOURSELF’ TO MAKEUP. ASK FIRST. THIS MEANS YOU.” “COFFEE 25¢—ASK ABOUT OUR WEEKLY & MONTHLY RATES.”
GK stands in the middle of the room, in white shirt, undershorts, red socks, holding a pair of pants, which he is hanging on a hanger. LEFTY sits at a table playing solitaire. DUSTY slouches in a chair, thumbing through a magazine. Other musicians come and go. DONNA, the makeup lady, works on a musician sitting in the makeup chair, at the mirror. GK’s dressing area is a corner of the room, his black suit hanging on a hook, his shoes, an old black Underwood typewriter on a stand, with stuff piled on it.
GK
I don’t know. Thirty years. No, forty. They
were having Mark Twain Days on the
Mississippi and I was hired to dress up as
Huck Finn and run a raft and take people for
rides and one day the raft hit the wake of a
steamboat—
MOLLY enters.
MOLLY
Mr. Keillor, we need you onstage—
LEFTY
Is this the story where the guy flies around
on a kite that’s being pulled by a boat and his
shorts are down around his ankles?
GK
No, that’s another story. This pontoon boat—
DUSTY
I thought it was a raft.
GK
It was a pontoon boat made to look like a
raft.
DUSTY
Oh. You said raft—
GK
It was a pontoon boat that they pretended
was a raft. Anyway, we hit the wake and she
tipped and the barbecue tipped over and red-hot
coals come skittering across the deck of
the boat and they all pitched themselves over
the rail—
LEFTY
What did that have to do with you going into
radio?
GK
I was just about to get to that.
DUSTY
This isn’t the story about the kite?
GK
You know, when you keep interrupting . . .
you break the flow of a story.
LEFTY (TO DUSTY)
Yeah, shut up, let the man talk.
MOLLY
Mr. Keillor? Al is on the verge of a coronary
up there.
GK
Be right there.
He takes his pants off the hanger and steps into them.
10 INT. BACKSTAGE—SAME TIME
The door to the atrium is opened and YOLANDA JOHNSON walks in, carrying two dresses on a hanger covered with plastic and a small traveling suitcase, and behind her, each holding dresses on hangers under clear plastic and traveling bags, are YOLANDA’s sister RHONDA and YOLANDA’s daughter LOLA.
YOLANDA
Thank you, Roberto.
Sorry we’re late. There was a freight train.
Longest train I ever saw.
STAGEHAND 1
Hey, no problemo.
RHONDA
We left the car double-parked in the street—
STAGEHAND 1
I’ll take care of it.
YOLANDA
You’re a sweetheart.—Hi, John. Hi, Peter.
She walks by a little cluster of musicians jamming in the corner, against the brick wall, and stops.
YOLANDA
That’s the—what is that song?—that’s . . .
RHONDA
“Honolulu Mama, could she dance, in her
pink pajamas when she took off her Oahu
Oahu Oahu . . .”
YOLANDA
Naw. It’s a Carter Family song.
LOLA
A what?
YOLANDA
Carter Family, honey. Like us, except famous.
She walks into GUY NOIR’s office. GUY NOIR is dozing in his chair. She sets down her traveling bag and puts her arm around LOLA, wanting her to look at the backstage scene, the crowd, the lowered curtain, the heightened anticipation, and remember it, memorize it.
YOLANDA
Look at this. Just look at it. I wish I had a
picture of
it.
LOLA
So take one.
YOLANDA
This has been—home—since I was your age.
My mom used to drop us off at the door and
go home and listen to us sing on the radio.
LOLA
Fascinating.
GUY NOIR (O.C.)
Miss Yolanda and the luminous Lola.
RHONDA
Don’t forget the resplendent Rhonda.
RHONDA vamps, flutters, as YOLANDA, grinning, reaches for his hand.
YOLANDA
Mr. Noir—once more.
GUY NOIR
A pleasure.
GUY NOIR stands, takes YOLANDA’s hand and bows. He kisses LOLA’s hand and kisses RHONDA on the cheek. He picks up YOLANDA’s traveling bag and takes the dress on the hanger, and also the dress that LOLA is carrying, and tucks her traveling bag under one arm, and leads them through the backstage crowd.
GUY NOIR
I don’t carry luggage in my line of work but I
make an exception for certain friends.
They turn across the stage in front of the Prairie Home house and YOLANDA stops and touches the railing.
YOLANDA
Good-bye my old house. Good-bye porch.
We sat up here when we were kids,
remember?
RHONDA
Sat and shot rubber bands into the audience.
People thought they were fruit bats.
YOLANDA
What are they going to do with the house,
Guy?
GUY NOIR
They moved in a huge Dumpster yesterday.
(TO LOLA)
One of these gowns belong to you, ma
cherie?
With GUY NOIR leading the way, YOLANDA, LOLA, and RHONDA make their way past the stage.
LOLA
Not really.
YOLANDA
Try it on. I’d just like to see it on you.
LOLA
I’d like to see it on you. It looks like
somebody’s old bridesmaid dress. It’s the
color of cat urine.
YOLANDA smiles a forced smile for the bystanders and then stops, noticing a paper tacked to a bulletin board at the head of the stairs. She reads it.
YOLANDA
What is this supposed to mean?
The notice on the bulletin board. In large black letters:
“ALL PERSONAL PROPERTY MUST BE REMOVED FROM PREMISES IMMEDIATELY AFTER SHOW OR IT WILL BE DESTROYED. NO EXCEPTIONS. MANAGEMENT.”
YOLANDA (O.C.)
Who put this up here?
GUY NOIR
The boys upstairs, of course.
RHONDA (O.C.)
So it’s true?
YOLANDA (O.C.)
I don’t even want to think about it.
She looks at the notice, shudders, and heads down the stairs.
LOLA
What’s the big deal?
YOLANDA
I can’t talk about it.
MOLLY ON P.A. (O.C.)
Ladies and gentlemen—we are now eight
minutes from broadcast. Eight minutes.
Places, please.
STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)
Where’d Guy Noir go to? Hey, Noir! Noir!!!
10A INT. MAKEUP ROOM—SAME TIME
GK is pulling on his pants.
STAGE MANAGER ON P.A.
Guy Noir to the stage, please.
DONNA, the makeup lady, is spraying DUSTY’s hair. LEFTY shuffles the cards for another hand of so
litaire.
DONNA
So how did you get into radio?
GK
One of those guys who fell off the raft was
Old Man Soderberg and he couldn’t swim
and I got him to shore.
DUSTY
So you saved his life.
GK
Well, the water was fairly shallow but he
didn’t know that because I was towing him
pretty fast.
LEFTY
And he gave you a job here at WLT.
GK
His brother did.
DONNA
Art Soderberg.
GK
Right. The one on the raft was Ray
Soderberg.
LEFTY
So Art Soderberg gave you the job—
DONNA
It was on the early-morning show.
LEFTY
Dusty and I used to have an early-morning
show.
DUSTY
Breakfast in the Bunkhouse . . . TV show. We
showed cartoons.
GK
It was a show called The Rise and Shine Show,
with a guy named Wilmer Scott.
DONNA
Came on at five o’clock in the morning.
Gospel show.
GK
Right. Inspirational show.
LEFTY
Wasn’t Wilmer Scott a famous aviator?
GK
You’re thinking of Wilbur Scott.
LEFTY
First man to fly solo the length of the
Mississippi River.
GK
Wilbur Scott.
LEFTY
Flew from New Orleans to Memphis to
Minnesota all the way to Lake Itasca and
celebrated his success by firing a signal
rocket out the cockpit window and became
the first civilian pilot to shoot himself down.
DUSTY
You made that up.
LEFTY
Crashed in the lake at his moment of
triumph.
GK
Anyway, this was his brother Wilmer Scott.
DONNA
The Rise and Shine Show . . .
GK
He’d been doing the show for thirty years
and the only way he could form words and
sentences at 5 AM—
MOLLY enters, breathless.
MOLLY
Really—we need you upstairs—okay?
GK
Be right there.—The only way he could talk
at 5 AM—
DONNA
—was to pour himself a little eye-opener—
MOLLY
Al is about to self-destruct—
DONNA
—and by the time GK was hired, the old
bugger was pouring himself about five or six
eye-openers—
MOLLY
He is stripping his gears.
GK
I’ll be right up. Just as soon as she finishes
telling my story.
DUSTY
Lefty and me never drank. We learned how
to take little naps sitting up with our eyes
open.
DONNA
GK’s first day on the job, old Wilmer went on
the air and told eight or ten dirty limericks—
LEFTY
On the air?
GK
On the air.
DUSTY
I think I remember hearing that. I was a small
child—
MOLLY
I am going to lose my job if you don’t come.
Think about the baby!
She grimaces and ducks out.
11 INT. BACKSTAGE—CONTINUOUS
GUY NOIR sits at the stage-door security desk, pouring powdered creamer into a cup of coffee and stirring it.
GUY NOIR
I was helping her with her luggage.
STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)
You’re supposed to be guarding the door.
GUY NOIR reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a silver flask and unscrews the cap and pours liquid into the coffee to the very rim of the cup, stops, leans down, and sips from the cup where it sits on the desk so as not to waste a drop.
GUY NOIR
What you worried about?
STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)
We had some weird call from a crazy lady.
GUY NOIR rummages in the desk drawer and comes up with a ruler, a pair of pliers, a length of electric cord, a paperback, a bobblehead, a cell phone, various flotsam, before finding what he wants: a pack of matches. From his breast pocket, he pulls out a cigar, puts it in his mouth, and lights it.
GUY NOIR
She ain’t that crazy.
STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)
How do you know?
GUY NOIR
She came in this afternoon.
STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)
You get a description?
GUY NOIR
She was beautiful. Her hair was what God
had in mind when he said, “Let there be hair.”
GUY NOIR stands, walks toward the camera.
GUY NOIR
She gave me a smile so sweet you coulda
poured it on your pancakes.
The camera pulls back as GUY NOIR stops and leans forward to whisper into the STAGE MANAGER’s ear.
GUY NOIR
Her jeans were so tight I could read the label
on her underwear. It said, “Tuesday. Wash in
lukewarm water and spin lightly.”
STAGE MANAGER
You’re making it up.
GUY NOIR
She was wearing a Mount Rushmore T-shirt
and I never saw those guys look so good.
Especially Jefferson and Lincoln. It was an
honor to sit and inhale the same air that she
had so recently exhaled . . . just to . . . exchange
the atmosphere between us. So to speak.
STAGE MANAGER
What’d she want?
GUY NOIR
She had the wrong address. She was looking
for the Presbyterian church. And like a dope I
told her where it was . . . and away she went.
Gone.
He looks to his left and does a double take at MOLLY, standing there.
GUY NOIR
I didn’t know you were pregnant. My God.
When did this take place?
MOLLY
Guy—buddy—pal—
GUY NOIR
Who did this to you, honey?
He slips a protective arm around her.
MOLLY
For a detective, there’s a lot you don’t detect.
GUY NOIR
Who was it?
MOLLY
I don’t mean this in a critical way, but the
word clueless comes to mind.
DUSTY and LEFTY, passing by, stop.
GUY NOIR
Tell me it wasn’t anybody from around the
show.
MOLLY
It wasn’t anybody from around the show.
GUY NOIR
That’s good.
(TO DUSTY & LEFTY)
Our little girl is going to be a single mother.
LEFTY
You poor thing.
DUSTY
It wasn’t me, darling! I swear on the Bible.
LEFTY (SINGS)
“Do not scorn her with words fierce and bitter
Do not laugh at her shame and downfall.”
DUSTY & LEFTY (SING)
“For a moment just stop and consider
That a man was the cause of it all.”
STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)
Dusty!
DUSTY
Yo!
STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)
About that obscene song you sang on the
show l
ast week—
Prairie Home Companion, A (movie tie-in) Page 3