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Prairie Home Companion, A (movie tie-in)

Page 11

by Keillor, Garrison


  supper was at five. So she took the radio to

  the dining room. It wasn’t plugged in but by

  then she wasn’t either, so . . . she was happy

  just looking at the dial and moving the knobs.

  GUY NOIR

  I listened to it back in my gumshoe days.

  Saturday night, I’d be tailing some two-timing

  husband who was floozing around with his

  paramour down at the Romeo Motel, I’d sit in

  the parking lot listening to the symphony of

  the bedsprings, and I’d tune in A Prairie Home

  Companion to take my mind off it.

  GUY NOIR grimaces and turns away.

  GUY NOIR

  Hey, I need your help.

  GUY NOIR pulls a sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket and puts it against the wall and writes on it.

  CLOSEUP of note, as he writes: “ANGEL—MAN IN THE BOOTH. MAKE HIM GO AWAY.”

  GUY NOIR

  Take this to that beautiful woman in the

  white raincoat. Backstage.

  MOLLY

  The one with the Mount Rushmore T-shirt?

  GUY NOIR

  You got it.

  MOLLY

  Anything else?

  GUY NOIR

  You know how to jigger the master clock?

  MOLLY

  Al would kill me.

  GUY NOIR

  I just need a few minutes.

  MOLLY

  The clock is sacred. It’s like the law and the

  prophets.

  GUY NOIR

  I just need you to add about five minutes.

  MOLLY

  Guy—

  GUY NOIR

  Five minutes.

  59 INT. ONSTAGE—MOMENTS LATER

  DUSTY, LEFTY, and GK at the microphones. Musicians scurrying into place behind them. The DUCT TAPE fly lowers as the GUY’S SHOES fly rises.

  GK

  It’s Saturday night on A Prairie Home

  Companion—lots more to come—and right

  now, they’ve just come in off the range with a

  brand-new song, it’s the old Trailhands,

  Dusty and Lefty!

  Audience applause, as the musicians kick in.

  DUSTY

  Here’s a brand-new number. Want to send

  this out to our good friends listening out

  around Maple Plain and Renville and the

  folks in Glenwood, and all of your good

  people out there.

  LEFTY (SINGS)

  The blind man’s seeing-eye dog pissed on the blind man’s shoe,

  The blind man said, “Here, Rover, here’s a piece of beef for you.”

  His wife said, “Don’t reward him, you can’t just let that pass.”

  The blind man said, “I’ve got to find his mouth so I can kick him in

  the ass.”

  The BAND plays a chorus.

  CUT TO:

  60 INT. BACKSTAGE—SAME TIME

  The STAGE MANAGER stands at his desk and stares at DUSTY and LEFTY onstage.

  STAGE MANAGER

  Doesn’t make much difference at this point.

  Piss, ass—what the hell? Damn show is on

  the way out anyway.

  DUSTY (SINGS)

  When God created woman

  He gave her not two breasts but three

  But the middle one got in the way

  So God performed surgery.

  Woman stood before God

  With the middle breast in her hand

  She said, “What can we do with the useless boob?”

  And God created man.

  The BAND plays a chorus.

  STAGE MANAGER

  Boobs—why not? Tits, ass—more the merrier.

  Bring it on.

  RHONDA

  What about boobs?

  RHONDA has strolled in to watch the end of the show.

  STAGE MANAGER

  They’re singing a song about boobs and poop

  and who knows what? Hey. Why not?

  He picks up the papers on his desk and tosses them up high in the air.

  STAGE MANAGER

  Let’s have a drink. Let’s get shit-faced.

  RHONDA

  You do it and I’ll watch.

  CUT TO:

  61 INT. ONSTAGE—CONTINUOUS

  DUSTY and LEFTY are hamming it up like a couple of song-and-dance men, and the audience is whooping and laughing.

  LEFTY (SINGS)

  I turned sixty the other day

  And everybody was there

  I was all dressed up in a brand-new suit

  Sitting in my big armchair

  When a beautiful young naked woman

  Stood up in front of the group.

  She offered me some super sex

  And I said, “I’ll take the soup.”

  Big cymbal crash and whoops and the BAND plays a chorus.

  CUT TO:

  62 INT. BACKSTAGE—SAME TIME

  STAGE MANAGER and RHONDA in the wings.

  STAGE MANAGER

  Guess we can all shake our tits now, huh?

  STAGE MANAGER puts his arms around RHONDA.

  STAGE MANAGER

  It’s over, kid. They’re pulling the plug. The

  show’s gone.

  YOLANDA (O.C.)

  Al . . . Chuck’s dead. He died in his dressing

  room.

  STAGE MANAGER stands stock-still, in disbelief.

  RHONDA

  He went down to his dressing room to take a

  nap and he just never woke up. Sorry, Al.

  STAGE MANAGER takes a deep breath and turns back to his post.

  STAGE MANAGER

  I was supposed to go down and get him and

  I forgot all about him.

  CUT TO:

  63 INT. ONSTAGE—MOMENTS LATER

  DUSTY (SINGS)

  Ole went to the neighborhood dance

  And he won the big door prize

  It was a toilet brush and he took it home

  And the next week one of the guys

  Said, “Ole, how’s that toilet brush?

  Ole said, “Thank you, neighbor.

  The toilet brush, it works pretty good.

  But I prefer toilet paper.”

  CUT TO:

  64 INT. SOUND BOOTH—CONTINUOUS

  The AXEMAN sits in a chair looking at the stage.

  DUSTY (V.O.)

  The farmer had a champion bull

  He bred two hundred times a year.

  The farmer’s wife said, “Two hundred times!

  Isn’t that wonderful, dear?

  DUSTY (V.O.) (CONT’D)

  Maybe you ought to watch him,

  Maybe he’d show you how.”

  The farmer said, “He’s a heck of a bull

  But it wasn’t all with the same cow.”

  DUSTY & LEFTY (V.O.)

  Bad jokes! Lord, how I love ’em.

  Bad jokes! Can’t get enough of ’em.

  Ooo ooo ooo wee

  Bad jokes for me!!

  The song ends, to applause. GK comes out onstage.

  GK

  Dusty and Lefty, the old Trailhands, brought

  to you by Jack’s Auto Repair. Right back after

  this message.

  He steps away from the microphone and we hear a recorded commercial in the background.

  CUT TO:

  65 INT. FITZGERALD WINGS—SAME TIME

  STAGE MANAGER stands in the wings, RHONDA is hugging him. GK is there with YOLANDA, LOLA, and DONNA.

  STAGE MANAGER

  This is the first time anybody died at the

  show. First time.

  RHONDA

  We’re all getting older, Al.

  LOLA

  The show’s not over, is it?

  YOLANDA

  He’s dead?

  STAGE MANAGER

  We’ve got a dead man backstage.


  RHONDA

  Be glad we don’t have one onstage.

  YOLANDA

  When did this happen?

  DONNA

  I found him about an hour ago. I walked

  away, I dunno, I guess I thought that when I

  came back maybe he’d be okay again—

  GK

  Was he dead when you found him?

  She nods.

  GK

  Where’s Evelyn?

  STAGE MANAGER

  One of the stagehands took her home. She

  was all broken up over it. We didn’t want

  Chuck’s wife to run into her.

  RHONDA

  He was down there waiting for Evelyn when

  he passed away.

  YOLANDA (BRIGHTENING)

  So—

  RHONDA

  He died with a heart full of hope.

  YOLANDA

  Not the worst way to go. Sitting in the dark

  in your underwear, waiting for your lover to

  come rap-tap-tapping on the door.

  LOLA

  He was in his underwear?

  STAGE MANAGER

  According to Donna—

  DONNA

  I don’t think we have to tell everything we

  know—

  RHONDA

  He was wearing boxer shorts with

  raspberries on ’em and he had a bottle of

  massage oil and a bayberry candle burning

  and he was playing an LP record of the Mills

  Brothers’ greatest hits.

  GK

  He was all set. He was loaded for Evelyn.

  LOLA

  He was fooling around with the lunch lady?

  Mrs. Macaroni and Cheese?

  STAGE MANAGER (TO GK)

  You’ve got a couple minutes if you want to

  say something about Chuck.

  GK

  Say what?

  YOLANDA

  Well, he was on the show for all those years—

  GK

  I don’t do eulogies.

  RHONDA

  Why not?

  GK

  I don’t do them.

  RHONDA

  Some reason for this or you just don’t care for

  people?

  GK

  I’m getting to an age where if I did eulogies,

  I’d be doing nothing but—

  YOLANDA

  How about a moment of silence?

  GK

  Silence on the radio? How does that work?

  RHONDA

  We could sing “Nearer My God to Thee.”

  Though in Chuck’s case, I’m not sure that’s

  the literal truth.

  GK

  I don’t think so.

  LOLA

  If my mom died, you wouldn’t . . . say

  anything? You’d just ignore it? Like she never

  existed? How can you do that?

  GK

  We don’t look back, kid. That’s the beauty of

  radio: it vanishes the moment you do it.

  There is no past; we never get old, never die.

  We just . . . keep on going.

  LOLA

  What if you died—

  GK

  I will.

  LOLA

  You don’t want people to remember you?

  GK

  I don’t want somebody telling them to

  remember me.

  LOLA is in tears.

  LOLA

  He died down there. We don’t even pay

  attention—

  GK

  The way to pay attention, kid, is to do your

  job.

  Audience applause as music ends and GK goes out.

  CUT TO:

  66 INT. ONSTAGE—MOMENTS LATER

  Musicians changing positions between numbers. STAGEHAND moves microphones.

  GK

  I hope you all had a good time here at the

  show—I know we did—and I want to thank

  Mr. Chuck Akers for being here and Jearlyn

  Steele—

  STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)

  Great God in heaven—holy shit—

  CUT TO:

  67 INT. BACKSTAGE—SAME TIME

  STAGE MANAGER looks up from his desk, toward the stage.

  STAGE MANAGER

  What’s he doing saying good night? We’ve

  got eight minutes left!!! Lola!!!

  LOLA, heading toward the stairs to the dressing room, turns.

  STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)

  You want to sing a song? Get out there.

  LOLA is stunned.

  LOLA

  Now?

  STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)

  Now or never.

  LOLA grins. She turns and takes off running. She gallops down the stairs.

  CUT TO:

  68 INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE DRESSING ROOM

  LOLA dashes down the hall, skids past the door to the

  dressing room, comes back, opens the door, disappears inside.

  CUT TO:

  69 INT. DRESSING ROOM—SAME TIME

  LOLA bursts into the room.

  LOLA

  I’m on!

  YOLANDA at the dressing table with a stack of CDs, counting one-dollar bills into a stack, as LOLA rushes to the table and rummages frantically through a mélange of papers, clothing, effluvia, in search of a paper.

  YOLANDA

  Forty-two, forty-three, forty-four, forty-five . . .

  Fifty. You’re on what?

  LOLA

  Onstage. Now. Where’s my lyrics?

  YOLANDA

  What lyrics?

  LOLA snatches up a sheet of paper.

  LOLA

  Got it.

  LOLA whirls away, then comes back. She puts her hand on YOLANDA’s back. YOLANDA turns. LOLA kisses her lightly on the lips, a delicate mother-daughter kiss.

  LOLA

  Thank you, Mama.

  LOLA dashes for the door. We hear it slam.

  CUT TO:

  70 INT. BACKSTAGE—MOMENTS LATER

  LOLA comes galloping up the stairs, whirls around the corner of backstage, through a few musicians who are headed downstairs, and skids to a stop and glances at the sheet of paper in her hand.

  STAGE MANAGER (O.C.)

  You’re on, kid.

  She looks at the paper in disbelief.

  LOLA

  Addresses!

  (TO STAGE MANAGER)

  It’s a list of addresses.

  She throws the paper away, squares her shoulders, and walks forward.

  CUT TO:

  71 INT. FITZGERALD STAGE—SAME TIME

  GK

  And we’ll be hoping to see you back here at

  the Fitzgerald next week at this same time—

  MOLLY sidles up next to him, her back to the audience.

  MOLLY

  Six minutes. Lola’s going to sing a song. Your

  barn door is open.

  GK

  And in the meantime, we’d like to bring on a

  young lady to make her debut on the show.

  LOLA upstage from the center stage microphone smiles at the audience and turns to the SHOE BAND.

  GK (O.C.)

  You know her mother and her aunt, Yolanda

  and Rhonda Johnson—the Johnson Girls, so

  she comes from good stock, and now won’t

  you welcome the very lovely and talented

  Miss Lola Johnson.

  LOLA (TO BANDLEADER, AS GK TALKS)

  You know “Frankie and Johnny were

  sweethearts, O Lordy how they could love”?

  BANDLEADER (RICH DWORSKY)

  What key?

  LOLA

  No idea.

  BANDLEADER

  D?

  LOLA (TURNING BACK TO AUDIENCE)

  Whatever.

  The BAND strikes up.

  LOLA (SINGS)

&nbs
p; Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts,

  But he was doing her wrong.

  He was doing her wrong in a bad way,

  But she was good and strong.

 

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