Pray For Rain
ALAN NAFZGER’s Pray For Rain
Pray For Rain – Pecan Street Press
Lubbock ● Austin ● Fort Worth
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Pray For Rain is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Amazon edition – Pray For Rain
Copyright © 2011 Alan Nafzger
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781072067283
Pray for Rain
Written by Alan Nafzger
Copyright 2015
Pray For Rain FADE IN:
EXT. RURAL CHURCH – PARKING LOT – SUNDAY (CREDIT SEQUENCE)
Pray For Rain AERIAL SHOT:
As the opening credits flash, a pickup truck pulls up to a small rural church. Other vehicles, all are dirty from the West Texas dust, pull into the parking lot. The wind is blowing dust like the dust bowl days. It is summer. Southwest Texas is in the worst drought in modern history. A MAN and a WOMAN leave the truck and enter the church.
There are two horses, with Western saddles, outside the church tied to a hitching post.
EXT. DRY RANCH LAND – EDWARDS PLATEAU, TEXAS – DAY
The land is arid. There have been six long years of of abnormally low rainfall. The grass is dead and the very few trees are very sick. The CAMERA PANS from the dead grass, to mesquite trees and finally to prickly pear.
INT. RURAL CHURCH – Brackettville TEXAS – MORNING
Pray For Rain
RANDY (27) is a rancher and MARY (54) is his mother. They walk in and take a seat in a pew. The CAMERA SLOWLY PANS the CONGREGATION. Their faces are as weathered and worn as the vehicles outside. They look worried. They are very still and sombre and not even the children are fidgety. They appear half paralysed by the drought.
Pray For Rain
PREACHER
The old testiment reading for today is 1 Kings 18:42-45. So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel.
Pray For Rain
EXT. RANCH – HOUSE – DAY
The older rock house is made sturdy. The CAMERA PANS to the hay barn and a horse barn, a wind pump and a garden.
INT. RURAL CHURCH – Brackettville TEXAS – MORNING
PREACHER
The new testament reading today is from James 5:17 and 18. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.
EXT. MOUNTAIN – Old Warrior’s REST – DAY
On the top of a mountain. There is a 120 year old grave covered with rocks. There isn’t a cross or any marker, only a pile of rocks. In all this time, one would think it would have disappeared but someone is fixing the fallen rocks.
INT. RURAL CHURCH – Brackettville TEXAS – MORNING
In the sermon…
PREACHER
Well there are no clouds to hide the sun, and there’s no water in the tanks, and there’s a fear in the congregation, every Sunday when we meet. The devil’s found West Texas and he may never leave, my only advise to you is pay your tithes and pray for rain.
EXT. Brackettville – DOWNTOWN – DAY
In Brackettville, business centers around an old stone bank and a feed store. The CAMERA PANS between them. We see a café, a saddle and leather shop, a courthouse, a cotton gin and a small grain elevator. No person is on the streets on Sunday morning.
INT. RURAL CHURCH – Brackettville TEXAS – MORNING
Two COWBOYS, who have horses tied out in front. They are CORD and VERNON. They are the ghosts of COWBOYS who could have been killed by Comanche Indians in the 1870s. They frequent the plains of West Texas and this film.
While they died over 100 years ago, CORD and VERNON don’t seem out of place in Texas today. They almost always appear on horseback and at locations logical to their chosen mode of transportation. But this morning they are in church.
The COWBOYS, dressed in 1870’s Sunday meeting clothes, are sitting on the back row. They are not particularly dressed for church even back in their time, but they have cleaned up fairly well. They are clean shaven and have combed their hair.
One cowboy, VERNON is paying particular attention to the PREACHER. The other, CORD, is sleeping.
CORD represents cowboy logos. And VERNON represents cowboy ethos.
EXT. Brackettville TEXAS – DAY
The CAMERA PANS across the railroad tracks, to roads dusty, livestock trucks, the Mexican adobes and small frame shacks. Everything is dusty. There is a dilapidated car wash with a large “CLOSED” sign.
EXT. CHURCH YARD – MORNING
The service has ended and we hear the recessional hymn. The sun is bright and the wind is strong. The CONGREGATION is still relatively sedate. They shake hands with the PREACHER while leaving and quietly stand around chatting with each other.
However, VERNON is laughing uncontrollably as the CONGREGATION exits the church into the hot sun. Everyone is oblivious to him, except CORD.
VERNON
Two dollars! Ha! ha!
VERNON does a little Irish jig.
VERNON
I just won two dollars myself.
VERNON now has CORD’s attention.
VERNON
A while back, I bet that feller over there that it would never rain again. And he just paid up.
VERNON smiles confidently. They mount their horses and ride off into the morning.
EXT. RANCH – CATTLE PENS – DAY
There is a waterpump and the CAMERA PANS DOWN to a trickle of water spilling out into a long concrete trough. PAN again to, gentle whiteface Hereford cows who crowd around and drink cool water.
EXT – Alamo Village, NORTHEAST OF Brackettville – DAY
RAIN (20) is a starlet.
PRODUCER
You are standing exactly where John Wayne stood in 1960 when THE ALAMO was shot here.
RAIN
I am.
PRODUCER
And you look 100 times better.
RAIN
I should hope so.
PRODUCER
(chucking at his heterosexuality)
Love ya.
RAIN is quintessential Hollywood. She has had a charmed adult life and is already a huge box-office draw.
She has winked and flirted her way to the top and the public loves her. She is the proverbial girl next door.
Like nearly everyone, RAIN is controlled by the Hollywood money machine and she will make almost any movie they bring her, if the price is right.
The DIRECTOR, who is barking orders. He is worried about the wind and the light what this story is going to do to his career.
DIRECTOR
What is the wind speed?
(pause)
Move that light.
(pause)
No the wrong way.
(pause)
What in the hell am I doing in this movie?
A studio executive. He is explaining to ANOTHER EXECUTIVE just how smart he really is.
executive
It is all about the demographics. You will learn that. And we have done our market research and the demographics clearly calls for this movie. Thirty three Los Angeles area focus groups can’t be wrong.
They are making a film with a woman hero at the Alamo and of course an upbeat ending. Central to this film is that this Alamo movie is a farce. It is what a “reasonable” person would describe as a “ridiculous” film. No one seems to care; it has funding.
The PRODUCER is selling the movie to some INVESTORS.
PRODUCER
We are making a “guaranteed profitable” film about the Alamo. It is a film where the Texans win the Battle of the Alamo and the lead heroic character is a woman. Its violent, upbeat and its sexy.
In front of the camera, RAIN is in a period costume. She is still flirting and winking at everyone. She acts on film and off. She is 100% charm.
She is getting into character and the makeup people are working on her.
The ASSISTANT PRODUCER has the job of preventing heat strokes and is pushing bottled water on everyone.
ASSISTANT PRODUCER
If you die, I am fired.
Several members of the crew refuse.
ASSISTANT PRODUCER
I don’t care; take one.
The film has a LOOKOUT up on top of the famous Alamo wall looking for dust devils. It seems shooting has been interrupted in the recent past and they now have employed a MAN with a walkie-talkie.
LOOKOUT
(into his radio)
I see one.
The film’s DIRECTOR stops and looks up. The LOOKOUT points.
The DIRECTOR gestures for a time.
The LOOKOUT shrugs.
LOOKOUT
A few minutes if it doesn’t turn.
The filming begins again.
PRAY FOR RAIN
It’s hard to imagine Wichita Falls drying up, but many in Texoma are beginning to fear for the worst. However, while others think about or talk about moving away, Manon McMullen says she’s staying put in the Falls and it’s the “Pray For Rain” sign in her front yard that explains why.
“That’s first Thessalonians on that sign. I feel like it’s in the lord’s hands and I hope he hears our prayers soon,” said McMullen.
While walking around her home McMullen said she’s worried that the drought conditions and restrictions on watering will dry up her front yard.
“Just worrying about the trees these old trees here that have been here for so long. I just would hate to see the trees go by the by,” said McMullen.
Though her yard might be drying up McMullen said it’s her soul that continues to be flooded with faith that the rain will come.
“I just hope that the lord here our prayers and send us rain in abundance and so often he does just that he sends us more than we ask or think, so we’re praying he does that this go around,” said McMullen.
One sign can do a lot for the community and McMullen said that if more pray Wichita Falls will get more rain.