Faience
By Mark Nadal
SCRIPT:
**Ray slouched down on the floor in the bathroom, camera angled outwards with Ray has the bottom and left frame. Ray looking tired and concerned, almost worried**
**Dramatic classical piano theme music pondering**
**Words fade near the upper right into: “Faience” out and then smaller “Produced, Directed, Performed and Composed by Mark Nadal”
**Camera SLOWLY spins**
---------
**Ray wakes up**
**Camera spins to digital clock “11:57 AM”**

[[A movie script I wrote several years ago, but the project failed. I recently found this as well as some composition I had created for it.]]

-
**Profile shot of Ray splashing his face in the bathroom**
He looks up at himself and sighs.
Ray grabs his towel right in front of the camera.
---
**Camera near the bottom of the stairs**
Ray comes down and sees something on the counter.
**Camera twirls around and up behind Ray before he picks up a piece of paper**
Ray reads paper **paper in position for camera to read it also**
“Ray,
As we discussed yesterday we are gone today, we will be back tomorrow night.
Love, dad.”
Ray spins around and winces slightly but then shrugs over it and grins and while shaking his head says, “daaad.”
-
**Camera focused on CD stereo player**
**Ray’s finger pushes “Power” and types “206” for CD stereo player and hits “play” and adjusts the volume**
-
Ray pours out cereal and pours in 1% milk and bustles over past the camera (**Camera pans with Ray**) with the music over to the bar-counter and turns around to sit down. While he is bobbing to the music the doorbell suddenly rings, he suddenly stops and gives a slightly frightened but mainly perplexed look. He then rushes off to the left.
-
Ray’s finger pushes power on stereo player.
-
Ray walks past the camera at the end of the hall and turns into the front hall while **the camera follows behind him** he notices a small letter slipped underneath the front door and he quickly rushes down to pick it up. **The camera spins around to a closer up shot of him crouched, holding the letter with his left hand and his right hand clutching the handle with a perplexed look on his face** **opens the door**
-
**Camera mid-way down the entry** Ray comes out and briskly (**camera follows behind**) walks into the driveway where there is nobody, no cars, and the gate is closed. **Camera arches around to perspective with Ray’s head on the right** Ray looks down and lifts up the letter.
--
**Camera stationary. View field encompassing computer and slider** Ray walks and plops down on the computer chair while pulling out the letter and reads aloud,
“Dear Ray Pith,
With honorable admiration I dearly look forward to meeting you once again; it has been some time. My quest, however, does not lie with in. It has been with great expense that I visit, perhaps even my life. You may find me to be broken - or shattered answers to vexing questions. But in all honesty, it comes down to one question: If your life is pleasant and happy but décored by lies   which is better… to live ignorant of truth or live in the prosperity all American's have sought?
I assume I will be meeting you shortly,
Sincerely,
 Albayno Alcatraz”

**Albayno slowly creeps out from edge of slider and watches Ray while he is reading the letter**
Once Ray finishes the letter something catches his eye and he quickly glances in the way of the slider, but before he does Albayno quickly lurches back.
-
**Camera is focused on the edge of the slider** Ray appears on the right slowly, cautiously approaching the slider. He reaches the slider and slowly peers out, then suddenly Albayno’s face pops into Ray’s reflection, and jumps backwards and yelps.
After a terrified second he stares back at the face and discovers it is him. Ray begins to freak out.
-CLOSEUP-
Ray’s face turns from sudden startlement to fascinated shock.
-
**Camera is over Ray’s left shoulder**  Ray sternly marches up against the glass door while cuffing the locked slider and demands through the glass, “WHO ARE YOU!?”
Albayno grins and half weeks, “I am Ray Pith.”
“WHO ARE YOU!?”
Albayno laughs, “I’m Mr. Alcatraz; now let me in brother.”
Ray insolently waggles his head and then with a jerk of his head and hand he unlocks the slider and backs off.
-wider view-
Ray is backed off with his hands crossed. Albayno raises his arms disappointedly, and then gives in and opens.
Albayno, “Well, that isn’t a very friendly greeting to give your long lost twin.”
Ray: “I never expected a mirror would produce a bum.”
Albayno: “Heey, we have the same attitude. That’s a good start.”
---
Albayno is seated comfortably at the dinner table with a smoking coffee looking content.
“Alright, if you want answers, I need answers.
-
(*Backed up shot. Shows Ray pacing in front of the table with  Albayno sitting.*)
First of all, Mr. Alcatraz, what is your real name? If this is a confrontation of truthes, we are going to be honest.”
Albayno standing up: “Careful, my real name is Albayno Alcatraz, at least it is more real than some old, scraggly piece of legal documentation. What you want is my birthname, which is … Jesse. Jesse Pith.”
“Alright, Jesse. Second-“
Albayno: “ALBAYNO!”
“Not under this house, sir.”
Jesse gives a stiffened look.
“Now, secondly. What is this-“ Ray holds up the letter “-all about; the ignorance of truth?”
-Closeup-
Jesse: “You can’t handle the truth.”
-Closeup-
“Look, you don’t lecture me on truth. You’re the one who has dragged himself here, you’re the one in some kind of trouble. You are the one who is searching for the answers.”
-closeup-
Jesse sits down: “Mmm, feisty in ignorance. We haven’t developed twin telepathic traits yet, so sit down brother. Let’s work our lives out like civilized men, not the dueling brutes, we both have a tale to tell. I certainly intend to recount mine; but I’ve come looking for answers about dad. Alright?”
-backed-
Ray sits down sighing, “Alright. But I’m not telling you anything till you’ve weaved your web.”
-rotating perspective closeup-
Jesse dips his head and rests his hand on his chin: “I’ve never known momma or dad. My earliest memory is playing with blocks on musty, stained, old carpet across the room from a desk where a man sat. He was my father, but I always called him my ‘Old Man’. That dirty old wooden desk and the squeaky robust chair was his thrown; although he was always an incredibly busy man he would normally just sit and watch me… for hours. Oddly, at that young age those pathetic little ABC blocks entertained me just as long, occasionally I would look around me or scuttle around chasing a ball – I couldn’t even walk. The sheer presence of the man is what has impressed the memory so firmly into my mind. A living guardian angel. Haha, but not a fit one. My Old Man was excessively rotund, but legs of steel, eyes of a bear, and a mouth filled with gaping caves. **nods**.” **Camera stationary on profile** “I grew up with simpleton traits and toys, nothing exotic or eccentric. Practically all of life was spent in that warehouse factory, but the few employees were dedicated, loyal and relaxed chaps, they became my brothers and friends despite the fact that I was just a child and they were grown men struggling through life and trying to put meat on the table for their family. They engaged and encouraged me, these are men who have had the most troubled lives and are still processing; rejection and hate greeted them at every threshold they crossed, but these men had an unquenchable excellence and they understood from their own experiences the necessity of a cherished and loving childhood. Now don’t get me wrong, these men aren’t the ones you want to meet on the street, they get jobs done and they victory to each success, they are the lowest-layer of brutes and addicts you can meet, but if you’re their family or work side-by-side with you then you know these are the bravest and courageous men. They won’t leave you behind. They will cover your back. And they’ll take the bullet that was suppose to bite you.
    We imported goods and then delivered them. I was never allowed to go out on the field until I was thirteen. So I was responsible for unpacking the crates and preparing them for delivery runs. I clearly remember one night, when I was nine years old… I was told not to touch the packets – they were much too expensive for any taste testing-” **Front closeup** “but that damp night I finally had a revelation, what I was doing, and the urge was irresistible. Nobody had a problem with me trying it, but simply with tampering with packages. So I very carefully sliced the seal and took a finger-fill. Haha. It was the most horrible thing I had ever tasted, my mouth couldn’t handle it so I spit till my glands were dry, and I heard somebody laughing.” **Side. Table-up** Derek had caught me sneaking the snitch, he languidly walked over to me while I was keeled over and addressed, ‘So it is your first time, son. It isn’t a pleasant feast. The first time I doped up I was in such grief I could hardly taste the stuff, the second time I vomited up three’square meals!” Derek was a great guy, just like all the other workers, he had struggled through his teenager and twenties with the stuff, but by the time he was thirty he realized why everything was wrong in his life – and while addicted he put an end to it, right hard. However, once you’re in there isn’t a backing out, and that’s why he joined “the force” –as we called it- but after that revealing night of puking blood into moldy toilet when he was 31, he hasn’t had a sniff for a straight 6 years.” **Front. Slightly left.** “Most of the employees had similar stories. But we were all men of pride, and being the young one on deck my embarrassment was five-fold. Oh my, but Derek insisted on a party that night, so all the co-workers and I gathered around that stoic table and we all had a couple rounds of booze at my expense; the beer helped clear my embarrassment, - I still didn’t like the stuff but it had an edgy taste so I grew after a few years to liking it. Well, that time I was let off the hook with a hefty laughter from my Old Man and the crew, but I got a severe lecture on infecting the packets. After that I became chaste, for the sake of my stomach and ride clear with my familial workers.” Jesse light-heartedly sighs.
--
**Camera behind Jesse’s right shoulder and encompasses Jesse on the left and Ray diagonally across the table.**
Ray, a little taken back but seemingly expecting it. Comments raising his eyebrow.: “Woah. **pause** Do you mind if I ask a technical question?”
Jesse: “Nah.”
**closeup** “How was the drug business able to operate for so long without getting shut down by local authorities?”
Jesse: “**Chuckles**. The East coast works in the same way as the West coast. The answer is: crack.” **Switches back to Jesse** “The local authority, may it be  mayor or anywhere all the way up to the governor, all have their own little problems. You know, that’s life. But when you have the power to manipulate the law things work out pretty smoothly. There was a compromise, well, I bribery. My Old Man supplied our fellow anonymous political citizen with free grass in exchange for liberty and no cop infringement. It works impeccably. However, -may I borrow the cliché- our Mr. Citizen Kane considered the grass to be greener on the other side. One day out of the years that our inventory and operation became slightly skewed, he never received his crack. As a feisty, senseless politician –with an extraordinarily short temper- he tipped off the S.W.A.T. team about our location. All executed in silence, because he had to cover his slapping rear-end from anybody that could trace the event back to him sniffing, accepting bribes, and allowing for drug operations to run. While he is the classic imbecile, he is incredibly crafty and completely covered his tracks. The operation that S.W.A.T. team commenced never happened. But his intricacy with loopholes in the government was also his flaw and our advantage. It was precisely two weeks before my thirteenth birthday, and as the fool I was I had begged to help a delivery for my birthday present, I was fascinated with all the exciting stories by brothers often came back with, the sweat and occasional scars, I wanted in on the action. But after that day, my perspective changed. The action was at home, our discrete factory. We weren’t ignorant of what was going on, we always had silent eyes on that bastard in office. When the automatics, rifles and pistols were unloaded from their corners everybody – including me – were locked and loaded. Ready to rock and roll. Our fine force of 16 against a whole unit of S.W.A.T..
    I’ll be straight out. I’m not lacking, for the last 8 years I was trained for emergencies. I can’t match the excellence that my co-workers had perfected with guns&bullets, but I’ve always had the competitive hand in buck-knife duels.
    Now, I don’t like it. I don’t like placing a bullet through another man’s eyesocket. I don’t like it the way they sympathetically in their courageous acts leave their guns in the dust on the front lines. I don’t like it. To kill man. The way their cognizant eyes, the soul hidden in a crystal sheath, fade away. They aren’t thinking about themselves, in their dying breaths they don’t consider the pain that wrought the wound, they are thinking about the uncontrollable mixture of grief and anger their wives will befall. They live. Dying. Thinking about their toddler son, he never got to cradle him enough, he never got to caress him with love enough, he never got to soak the endless joy of his little boy. And as his head aligns parallel with the dirty asphalt and his lifeblood disgorges from his fading lips, it lingers around his soft face that represents the human being, but his spirit still flickers in dead eyes with flashbacks of his life, but his spirit is not concerned with himself, because he is over now, the memories of all his cherished friends and family echo in his lifeless cornea. His spirit still coerced in his blood screams out and reaches in all directions… just to hug his beloved one final time, and then in a climatic desperation it shatters from his blood in a shockwave that enwraps his temporal, earthly world. **pause** And at that moment, his wife looks up, and his son is no longer interested in his toy ambulance, as they feel the deep spiritual shockwave break wake upon their soul’s epicenter. **pause** And then it is gone. And the world returns to its orbit, and the earth’s axis grinds once more in Hell’s deep.”
**switch to Ray** Ray closes his eye and bows his head soberly.
**switch to Jesse after a long pause.** “I’ve killed a man, not once, not twice, not thrice. I have pity on their souls, but it isn’t my time to bite the dust. And so I have to overcome. And we do. We did. We had the strategic location, all they had were empty parking lots and choppers, we took down a whole unit of S.W.A.T. without any causalities, only plenty of wounds. A tale that sounds impossible. We didn’t win because we were stronger or superior, we won because we cannot be defeated. The S.W.A.T. was trying to take out men who even addiction, depression and suicide failed to defeat. The S.W.A.T. Team that didn’t exist, no longer existed. A bullet can’t stop us; we are untouchable. **pause** Once that fiend in office found out that we had taken down the whole S.W.A.T. unit of his invisible operation, let’s just say… he didn’t bother us anymore.”
**Shot of Ray with raised eyebrows.**
After a pause, “Now play your card.”
Ray, pondering and edging his mouth, “Let’s go outside… get some fresh air.”
**Farther away shot, both of them**
Ray gets up while Jesse comments, “Good idea” and lingers taking a final sip of his coffee. Ray goes up to the slider blind and pulls in smooth momentous motion the whole thing across, the light floods in and the camera refocuses the light distribution. Jesse goes off to the left to put the mug on the counter----------
**Shot at ground level looking up** Ray and Jesse walk by.
-
**Stationary shot of the view, the pool and the rock on the right** Ray walks over and puts his foot on the rock and they both turn out towards the view.
**Close shot of them standing next to each other, profile to profile**
Jesse: “Wow… this is really a nice house.”
Ray: “Yeah… I know, I’ve been blessed. And really, that is my card, that is my life.”
Jesse (turning to Ray): “How so?”
Ray and Jesse look at each other for a moment, and breathing in the human brotherliness of the other.
**Jesse on left, Ray on right as borders **
Ray sighs and turns to sit on the rock, “Blessed, but not cherished or memorable. We moved here when I was five years old from the East coast, I don’t have much recollection of it besides a dumpy, musty old house… and the humidity. I don’t really know, my parents never really wanted to talk about it, so I respected that… heh, but they never really wanted to talk about anything.”
*Close up with Western view behind Ray*
“Dad is… uh… a painter, he paints things. He takes a piece of clean and innocent paper and depicts a mask, he gives it a lie and aged wrinkles. He takes an empty life… and pains it. He takes an empty canvas… and strokes a history it never had. He paints it. He paints it. He paints it. He is a painter. He changes the beautiful into the malice; depression into stone smile. …Stone, I always wondered how architects of marble could create something so solid into soft flesh, and something so cold into warm radiance. My father painted himself, his wife, his life, his house. Concentrating on the appearance, rather than the heart. Look around me, I have possessions, I have comfort, I have expensive luxuries and items, I have prosperity. This is the blessing I am given, and that many ignorant eyes lust for. But it comes with a price, it comes with a curse… touch us, and you will see, we are cold like crying marble, and solid like ice – yet we appear beautiful and warm. My card is an ace, it boasts to beat kings and queens, but it is lower than all the rest.”
**Original shot, each on each side border. Jesse is squatted with his arms casually crossed.**
“Don’t get me wrong though **slight laugh**, I’ve enjoyed all the luxurious of life. But even out of the exotic pleasures… the simple ones are truly the best. Fresh orange juice… cold strawberries.”
**Close up**
“But there is a fine line, a line of moderation and temperance. I don’t have any friends, I never get out… I don’t know what the world is like… I don’t have a family. Because my family is painted… our life is lived to fancy jealousy, but lived in denial; the irony in the painters face.”
**Remix cut**
“As far as my family, to be honest, we are incredibly open and free about things, like confessing the scornful taste of breakfast, admitting the fault in the other, and smashing any edification. I know no family, but a broken mantle, and a wounded infrastructure.”
**Front close up**
Jesse: “Then you hate your father?”
**Almost close up**
Ray stands up, “No.”
**cut back to Jesse, quizzical look**
**Head to head, profile**
Ray: “I hate the sins he’s committed. But I love the man.”
Jesse stands aback with questioning look, searching to understand. A pause.
**Cut back to Ray, close up**
Ray droops eyelids, “He’s changed. My father is a good man, he really is… he is just … struggling. Sometimes is mask is broken, and he pleads and swears to himself to change. But every broken mask, is met with a broken hope. At least… until last year, he stumbled into the house one night, looking sober and shocked, and confessed in the dayless moment, to me, ‘I met a man. With a broken heart. A bruised man, with a dismantled soul. I looked into the mirror, and the reflection in his eyes was of hurt and regret, success in life, but failure in all that is important. Ray, Ray, I am saved. Ray, I crossed a man on a street, who asked if I was lost, I told him no. I told him no. But he looked in my eye and told me my secrets, … I cried… I died… Ray, Ray, I love you. I’ve painted your face, cause you look too much like me. All I’ve ever wanted is happiness.’ – he grabbed my face, but I resisted – “I’ve been wrong! I’ve been wrong! I’m sorry.’ He promised me he would change, and I laughed in his face.
**remix**
“But I was wrong. He did change, and I am proud of him, he’s picked up the broken hearth, and mended the family. We can laugh together… and not feel ashamed. A well has broken forth. My father has changed! …our father has changed.”
**cut to Jesse, zooming close up**
Jesse: “You lie, nothing can change a man for the better.”
**Cut back to Ray**
Ray: “Our father has, the truth does.”
**Cut to both of them, standing on the world**
Jesse as he thrusts his buck-knife to a threatening distance of Ray’s throat, screams, “You know no truth!” A moment of intensity.
**close up of Jesse with knife spiraling into the camera**
Jesse’s nostrils flare, “Get inside.”
---------
**Camera angled with hearth in background, room for both**
Jesse herds Ray onto the hearth, “Get on your knees. I have things to tell you, fool. I’ve waited eight weeks for your parents to be out of town, and I’ve searched for years to find you all – I couldn’t believe you were all still in one house. Now look –“
Ray interrupts, “Ha! So you don’t want your family… money? I’ll give it to you, just ask.”
Jesse, “**chuckle** I’ve plenty of money, and I’ve spent most of it searching for you. Now shut up and let me talk.” He sighs.
**Close up of side**
“A few years ago my old man died, he knew it was coming and told me everything… everything. His trust was entitled to me with a sum of $372 thousand dollars, after he died the operation shut down and he wanted me to go off and get an education and live a life he never had. But he couldn’t die without telling me the truth. I thought you’d want to pick up your life and put away the old pain; cause we can make a team together, we can be untouchable.”
**Cut to close up of Ray**
Ray: “Cut the limelight and get to the message.”
**Camera a bit off of Ray’s shoulder**
Jesse scornfully looks down at Ray. After a pause he speaks, “Alright. My father had a cocaine debt to my old man. In our business, we never let our customers break contract. That’s right, our old man is a filthy crack addict that could never pay the price. But luckily enough for our father, he had two unwanted kids, so he bartered his life for his own child. It was either you, or me. So my old man accepted the deal, having an heir was more use than him dead. My father selfishly traded his life for mine.” Jesse paused, and squatted down, “Ironically, I have had a better life than you, cause I wasn’t stuck with our father.” He paused again and deviously cocked his head, and twirled his buckknife’s handle towards Ray, presenting it as a gift. “I seek revenge, but perhaps you do more.”
Ray takes a deep breath.
-
**Close up front of Ray**
Ray with eyes fluttering open and tilting his head: “You seek revengeance; I seek redemption.”
**remix**
“Jesse, this morning you asked me a question: Would I rather live in a content lie or suffer with truth?” **pause** “I have a final card to play, and my answer to your question is, ‘No, I’d prefer to know truth.’ Because you cannot have happiness without truth; you cannot be content without truth. But truth is greater than the accountability of man, for it abides in Heaven. It is love. Christ’s love. If you would have offered this opportunity to me half a year ago, I would have accepted with delight.
Jesse, why do you think our parents are gone?
I was up till 3 in the morning last night, crying, because of something my father told me. Something I did not know, something I could not believe until this very day. When all your life you’ve been lonely and always wanted a brother, always wanted a friend, always wanted someone to hang onto, and then your very own father tells you that 13 years ago he betrayed… me, himself, and most importantly… the brother that never was. It hurts. Especially after your family has finally mended for the first time- to discover that your family is incomplete.”
Jesse: “You punk…”
Ray: “NO!!! Look here. Your father loves you. Your father loves you. Every day of his freaking life has been miserable because of the choice he made. Regret haunts his face.”
**Cut to both**
Jesse: “SHUT UP!!”  Jesse threatens with his knife.
**Close up of Ray**
Ray: “HE LOVES YOU!!!”
**back**
Jesse: “NO!!!” His eyes begin to well, “Shut up. Liar. Liar!!”
**back**
Ray: “LOVE! Love is the redeeming factor.”
**Jesse closeup**
Jesse: “Shut up. Or I’ll KILL you LIAR.”
**Close up of Ray**
Ray snarls, “I dare you. You couldn’t stick your own brother.”
**both**
“We all are broken earthen vessel, we are crumbling inside. -“
Jesse screams and clenches.
“-you’re a clay pot trying to wear a metallic coating. We are earthenware; we can only be mended by the same love that the formed us. Jesse, God loves you. Jesse, your father loves you still.”
Ray stands up and out stretches his arm.
**close up on Jesse**
Jesse’s heart breaks, and his voice leaks. The knife falls from his shaken clutch.
Ray: “We’ve all broken down; and here is a stranger to pick you up.”
**cut to outreached hand in front of the hearth**
Jesse’s black sleeved arm reaches up and clasps. “-In God’s hand, with love.”
**cut to both, progresses into slow motion**
Albayno Alcatraz accepts the loving hug of his brother, Ray Pith.
**Music scores**
**Motion finally ceases. Film tatters to sepia**
**Holds for a while**

**Font fades into the center, “the beginning” and slowly fades away. [Optional] Credits fade in, “Produced … Mark Nadal
Directed … Mark Nadal
Performed … Mark Nadal
Composed … Mark Nadal
Filmed by Daniel Nadal.”
And fades**
**slowly fades into a dim and complete dark**