Frank Ocean publishes ‘Godspeed’ screenplay
“Godspeed,” Boys Don’t Cry, p. 50.
In his new magazine, Boys Don’t Cry, Frank Ocean published a six-part screenplay titled Godspeed. The story follows Steely, a “charismatic and well-liked but emotionally guarded” boy, alongside his friends. In the magazine’s opening letter, Ocean described play as a reimagined part of his boyhood in New Orleans:
I wrote a story in the middle—it’s called “Godspeed.” It’s basically a reimagined part of my boyhood. Boys do cry, but I don’t think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years. It’s surprisingly my favorite part of life so far. Surprising, to me, because the current phase is what I was asking the cosmos for when I was a kid. Maybe that part had its rough stretches too, but in my rearview mirror, it’s getting small enough to convince myself it was all good. And really though… It’s still all good.
The screenplay is titled after the penultimate track of Blonde, Ocean’s studio album released with Boys Don’t Cry on August 20, 2016. It contains other references to the album, including a character who sings “Pink + White.” Additionally, the second scene includes an unattributed quote from C. JoyBell C.’s 2013 book Vade Mecum.
The title artwork seems to be inspired by the ‘island on a cloud’ graphic seen in screenshots of Ocean’s computer desktop background and tattooed on his thigh.
Magazine scans and a transcript of the screenplay are available below.
Scans:
Select a photo below to view it fullscreen.
Transcript:
MAIN CHARACTERS
Steely (Main protagonist):
Charismatic and well liked but emotionally guarded. Steals cars as a hobby though he comes from a well-to-do industrial family.Shoobie (Steely’s girlfriend):
Beautiful and sassy, she’s a gifted product design and mechanical engineering student.Matthew (Steely’s best friend):
Steely’s childhood friend akin to a brother. He’s close to both Steely and Shoobie.Garten (CEO and Inventor):
Genius and foremost scientific mind of his generation who runs his own tech company. Enigmatic but seemingly benevolent.Clark (Steely’s good friend from childhood)
Danny (Steely’s good friend from childhood)
EPISODE 1
SCENE 1
Steely walks down a street with the pace of someone with some place to go but who has left early enough to get there. He holds a rectangular metallic card smaller than his palms with grooves on its surface. The street is quiet, the sidewalk clean. As he walks, he occasionally slows to peer inside the windows of parked cars. The cars have a familiar look though it’s obvious their designs are several generations ahead. The elegant lines, the materials and tech apparent in the construction are the result of years of engineering advances beyond the present.
The city feels simultaneously old and new, weathered by time and progress, lending it a distinctive quality. A modern city embracing technology but somewhat overtaken by nature, still trying to find a balance. There are pick-ups and wagons amongst the luxury cars, very democratic. Steely peers into a car with a cigarette in the ashtray. Using the metallic card, he swipes it against the car’s access strip and gains entry. He steals the cig, lights it and walks a few cars down. He notices a hanging air freshener in another car and decides he likes it, breaks into that car as well taking the fragrant contraband. The stillness is mesmerizing, you can barely hear the autobahn in the distance or the steps of his companion just a few feet ahead.
Caged court centered in a park somewhat densely populated with live oak trees, their limbs perfectly frame rather than reach above the court. Clark is around 5’10” or 11”, lean but strapping and towering compared to a seemingly younger Steely who just beamed a ball at Clark and nearly landed a punch before Robb and Matthew body-blocked. Clark would have hurt him, badly, obviously, as Steely is a few years younger and developing a physique to match his mental toughness.
Robb: ‘Whoa whoa whoa level down…’
Matthew: ‘Kiss and make up, friends. It’s a contact sport.’
Steely: ‘Nah, miss me with that, he always tryna big man somebody.’
Clark: (Checks his face for blood. Spits.) ‘Game point.’Steely steps up to guard him, placing his hand on Clark’s side to telegraph his movements. Clark crosses him, drives and lays the ball up, winning the game.
Clark: ‘Whoo! (RIC FLAIR voice) Did you feel that? Did you sense the sublime finesse and technique just then? You should be grateful. You should be grateful for me. Here.’
Steely: ‘Blah, blah, blah.’ (Shrugs and mimes, picks the dead basketball up off the ground and does a tricky slam dunk with excess energy.)The quiet of the morning scene continues, Steely and Shoobie continue walking as if in a dream. No birds, no other people, no sounds of cars. You see cars though, and you can hear a faint wind occasionally disrupt the silence as it passes between the rubber of the vehicles and the concrete. The skyline is a blended ecosystem of the natural world and school buildings. Tall structures of glass, steel, brick and mortar raised on stilts of a hard clear substance. Limbs of trees reaching out through some windows, you see entire floors made into greenhouses and pocket jungles sprawling off rooftops. They approach a park where we see a sculpture of a child hanging from the sky from a string that goes up forever, touching the surface of a never ending rippling pond below with the tip of his finger. There are no paths of stone or concrete, the grounds are riddled with ever so slight inclines and valleys. There’s a large Olympic sized pool built with Carrara marble, students ice skate it during the winter and skateboard in it in warmer months.
Shoobie walks slowly ahead of Steely, carrying a slate of metal, head held high, inhaling deeply and gratefully from a harmless, flavored steam cigarette. She squints her large eyes on a toke and looks back at Steely going inside of someone else’s car. The colors of her eyes change. She keeps walking. Steely catches up and throws his arm around Shoobie—he quickly takes his arm back to himself then grabs both her elbows and turns her toward him.
Shoobie: (Bobbing her head to music that isn’t playing, she sings) ‘That’s the way everyday goes, every time we’ve no control…’
Steely looks up at the sky. A wide, flat translucent aircraft is coasting slowly above, leaving clouds in its wake and filtering sunlight into beautiful prismatic refractions onto him.
He’s looking down at Shoobie, she’s wearing radiation protective gear. Her helmet is mirrored orange and red, the suit has a white body. He focuses on her and not the campus being destroyed behind her by fire.
Steely: ‘Is death a high? I heard it’s like DMT. The guy who told me that isn’t dead. Maybe it’s worth dying. The high I mean. Worst part about it though. We won’t remember being so tight you know? Look at us!’
(Brushes imaginary locks from his face)
Shoobie: ‘…uhh?’
Steely looks down at his feet and there’s ice on the grass though it’s summer. Steely pulls his head up to say ‘snow’ but doesn’t even make the beginning sounds of the word. A single ball of alloy, white encoded with ice, spins around them like a tether ball to its pole. Shoobie still mouthing the words to a song playing in her head. ‘If you could fly then you’d feel south, up north’s gettin’ cold soon… The way it is were on land—still I’m someone to hold true.’
SCENE 2
Steely is walking barefoot through a hardwood hallway into a kitchen space that is futuristic and primitive at the same time. The kitchen consists of a small pool of self-replenishing fresh water, light cleansers instead of soaps, a BBQ pit, a stone oven, cabinets that are refrigerated and store food, dishes and cutlery. The floor is perforated with vents that heat and vacuum the floor for debris. Potted plants are in the windows as well as above the pool of water. Steely takes two bowls out of a cabinet, a knife, two spoons, a jar of milk, honeycomb, and bananas off a hook. He begins to prepare one bowl of oatmeal and one bowl of cereal. He slices a banana on a wood cutting board, places the banana slices on top of both bowls, swirls some honey on the oatmeal then walks back through the hallway.
The hardwood hallway extends into a room where Shoobie is seated in front of a white desk with a translucent top that is eventually lit from beneath. She’s sketching schematics with graphite while 3-D printing small pieces of the design from the sketch paper directly. Steely places the cereal on her table and sits on a full-sized bed cornered against the far left wall. Steely eats and looks around the room. Photos and schematics are placed on the wall, bed sheets spill onto the floor and Shoobie’s wearing PE shorts, varsity hoodie, ankle socks and a messy ponytail. It’s a perfectly lived-in moment that feels right in the ways you’d hope for when two people comfortably cohabitate. Just then he noticed a message in his field of vision.
BEGIN TEXT:
Matthew: ‘wya? wyd?’
Steely: ‘I’m here man. breakfast.’ Matthew: ‘ole oatmeal eatin’ ass boy.’
Danny: ‘all star suck me ups last night.’
Steely: ‘who?’
Danny: ‘imma bring her and her friend out to the water.’
Steely: ‘oh, OK.’
Mathew: ‘about to shower---’
Steely: ‘Yea, I gotta do the same rn.’Steely puts the phone down and finishes his bowl of oatmeal. Shoobie’s cereal sits untouched where he placed it, getting soggy.
Steely returns to the kitchen, puts the bowl in a light wash rack. He pulls on a shallow drawer and grabs a refrigerated metal slate from a stack of four. The slate responds to his touch, turning transparent while a swarm of light particles activate a 3-D projection an inch off its surface, making a mold of his hand. Steely places his hand into the particle mold then gets up and walks into the bathroom down the hall, to the right, then left of two bathrooms. Steely sits on the toilet and begins to masturbate to a video now playing on the slate. The ground changes hue.
There’s a signal that class is about to begin.
Shoobie: ‘I’m going to class.’
Steely: ‘Should go together.’
Shoobie: ‘Yea—what about yours?’
Steely: ‘I wasn’t going to go in there till later.’
Shoobie: ‘Irrational fears again?
Steely: ‘Naw…’
Shoobie: ‘They won’t let you come into class late…’ (Steely cuts her off)
Steely: ‘I know.’
Shoobie: ‘Truant.’ (Stares him down)They kiss. Steely leans into it a bit and reaches under her skirt. Students are watching them. She punches him playfully in the chest and he backs off. Steely leaves Shoobie standing there, while he disappears down a decline, through a grove of trees.
Steely arrives at the entrance to a gated community, as behind him a bullet train hydroplanes silently along a narrow band of water. He lights a flavored cigarette, drops it on the ground by accident and picks it up, he puffs it to keep it alive as he walks towards a guard post. As he approaches, a woman in her fifties hangs her head out of the doorway of the security quarters. Her name is Florence and it’s apparent she knows Steely.
Florence works multiple locations as a security guard and as Steely has developed his hobby of breaking into cars, he’s also developed a relationship with Florence. She suspects what he does but looks the other way, treating him as a favorite aunt would. She has a soft spot for him and occasionally Steely brings her cigarettes or coffee or a flower picked up along the way.
There are two mesh steel hates. In front of the gates are a row of solid metal cylindrical posts that swivel up and down into the ground.
Florence: ‘C’mon child.’ (Lazily)
Steely speeds up to a slight jog up to her half door/half window.
Steely: ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Florence: ‘Put that out.’
Steely: ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Florence: ‘I’m proud of you. You know that, don’t you?’
Steely: ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Florence: ‘Give me a square, son.’Steely goes in his parka pocket and hands two to the woman—she puts one to her mouth and lights it.
Florence: ‘Mmmhmm, go head on.’ (Turns an eye without turning her head.)
The gates clear, the posts lower.
Steely walks through the gates and down many stairs. Before exiting the stair well he stops to read a series of text messages from various senders.
BEGIN TEXT:
Mia: ‘Another thought on perfection. The only problem with her is that she is too perfect. She is bad in a way that entices, and good in a way that comforts. She is mischief but then she is the warmth of home. The dreams of the wild and dangerous but the memories of childhood and gladness. She is perfection. And when given something perfect, it is the nature of man to dedicate his mind to finding something wrong with it and then when he is able to find something wrong with it, he rejoices in his find, and sees only the flaw, becoming blind to everything else! And this is why man is never given anything that is perfect, because when given the imperfect and the ugly, man will dedicate his mind to finding what is good with the imperfect and upon finding one good thing with the extremely flawed, he will only see the one good thing, and no longer see everything else that is ugly. And so… man complains to God for having less than what he wants… but this is the only thing that man can handle. Man cannot handle what is perfect. It is the nature. It is the nature of the mortal to rejoice over the one thing that he can proudly say that he found on his own, with no help from another, whether it be a shadow in a perfect diamond, or a faint beautiful reflection in an extremely dull mirror.’ [Unattributed quote from Vade Mecum by C. JoyBell C.]
Steely: ‘Sorry, I hope you feel better.’NEXT TEXT:
Steely: ‘You’re not athletic.’
Clark: ‘We could line it up.’
Steely: ‘You week, haha.’NEXT TEXTS, STEELY READS BUT DOESN’T RESPOND:
Unknown contact: ‘Have a day you dreamed of.’
Andree (Pacific islander): ‘One more pak and I’ll drop it.’
Kio: ‘BITCHES LOVE YOU.’NEXT TEXT:
Shoobie: ‘Who r u with rn?’
Steely: ‘No one :/’
Shoobie: ‘Matthew’s house? bored. misu.’He finishes his correspondence and continues on. The stairwell opens to a strip where two wide roads sit, parallel but not separate. The left-hand road leads to a Cape Cod style country club and what looks like a beach. Near the country club, a split in the main road leads to another wide, two-way road where the opposite directions are paved at different heights, like a shelf. There’s a black sand beach on one side and mature manicured hedges on the other; the tops of homes are visible. Steely walks down the road and as he passes a second block, the road narrows and inclines to a cavernous walkway that winds through the greater community.
A guys with a long curly afro, wearing a white hooded jacket with 3M accents, shorts, waist weights, and Nike running shoes comes out of a property. He jogs in place and does some light stretches. Steely walks up to the guy who turns out to be his friend Matthew, while casually running his fingers across the hedges. The two of them wave low and perfunctorily at each other then cross paths. Though there’s acknowledgement, it seems a bit clandestine as if they’re about to set something in motion.
Matthew jogs downhill with his arms outstretched and banks right into a still narrower canopied alley. Steely stays in place and keeps time. Matthew is now jogging perfectly center though a lane with mesh steel garage door every 50 years. He picks up the pace in his jog as you see the garage door open ten yards ahead—a white single-seater begins to speed out the garage but manages to stop right before hitting Matthew. Matthew acts startled.
Matthew: (Yelling at the Garten, and slamming his hands on the hood) ‘DAMN—NICE BREAKS!’
Matthew then jogs on following the car as it speeds in a straight line away from the scene till it’s no longer visible. Matthew hits a corner, makes a right and meets Steely back in front of Matthew’s house. They walk inside the yard gate through hedges and past fountains down a ramp into a cave like living space with an unobstructed view of the ocean.
They pass cleaning staff and art leaning up against the walls. Outside the window you can see where his yard slopes down to the ocean side cliff. There’s a pool with a high dive, a solarium, a lone, odd colored dog sits gazing at them as they walk through the house and towards Matthew’s bedroom. Matthew changes clothes quickly as Steely is talking to him about weed.
Matthew: ‘Fronto leaves??—You act like you discovered fire.’
Steely: ‘You ever catch Mr. and Mrs. Hagen intimate—in their moment. I’d bet you haven’t, because they’re stuck with you. How free will they be when you’re out on your own? There’s a place for you in this world bro and I’m your friend, ok?’
Matthew: ‘You’re acting out now, you can stop.’
Steely: ‘Mrs. Hagen I’m sure is still very agile on that horse.’
Matthew: ‘You want some water or something?’
Steely: ‘Yea. Do you dance still. You used to be a good dancer.’ (Walks away to kitchen.)
Matthew: ‘Pour my shake out the blender!’
Steely: (Calling out from kitchen) ‘Nah, you don’t have any ice!’
Matthew: (Calling out from bedroom) ‘Who the fuck said anything about ice?!’
Steely: ‘Sorry, you know I really appreciate you buddy. I couldn’t find anything quite right for Shoobie’s birthday—everything’s so generic to her, she just scans it with her computer eyes.’Steely walks into the bedroom again, Matthew is ready to leave. Steely hands him a shake and eats small pieces of fruit while finishing a blue can of Coke. The two of them exit Matthew’s room into an area where nothing else is in the shot apart from a right-hand drive Nissan Skyline from a hundred years ago and a small orange groove. Steely re-lights the fronto leaf blunt.
Matthew: ‘Put the fronto out. Drive.’
Later on the drive.
Steely: ‘I can’t think it’s too many notes.’
Steely: ‘He’s not on the 5 yet. That’s impossible.’
Matthew: ‘People are fucked.’
Steely: ‘He’s taking his time. How did he look when you ran into him?’
Matthew: ‘People are so fucked… Uhh, yea—he looked really happy to see me.’
Steely: ‘What are you talking…?’ (Cuts himself off) ‘Why are people fucked? That include you or nah?’
Matthew: ‘People are just bad, like, toward other people. I should quit giving this traffic… but I can’t.’
Steely: ‘You gonna tell me something I don’t know?’ (Says this with the look on his face and not words.)
Matthew: ‘I showed you this already, but watch again.’ (Handing Steely his phone to watch something.)
Matthew: ‘When the lady gets sent to the neighbors house by her uncle to fight someone and she ends up running and getting chased, then falls down, breaks her shit and they set her on fire…’
Steely: ‘Yea, that hurt my feelings. She seemed to confident.’
Steely: ‘Did you listen to that Goye thing I told you about?’
Matthew: ‘Yeah. Are those lights new?’ (Looking at lights that follow the highway railing.)Topography blurred outside the vehicle grass—suburbia and city overlapping—hyper color—non specific.
Matthew pulls into a sprawling office campus. We see a network of buildings, there are people from the company walking about engaged in conversation. One group in particular is huddled and highlighted.
Colleague #1: ‘Exploded?!’
Colleague #2: ‘Without heat?’
Colleague #3: ‘Yeah, or human shrapnel.’
Colleague #2: ‘So absent of heat, absence of residual bio and absent of our guy.’
Colleague #1: ‘He’s jumped on grenades before and lived.’
Colleague #2: ‘Chemiluminescence isn’t the mark of a grenade.’
Colleague #3: ‘Maybe saving the world a few times makes you eligible for dharmic ascension?’Office campus is a ‘CAR FREE IS A CAREFREE’ zone—there is offsite parking for commuters.
Matthew’s car is stopped. They trade places at the wheel and Steely gets out. He walks towards the outskirts of the office campus. Matthew tries to pull unto the parking structure which is multi-level and underground. He begins to argue with the security person manning the entrance.
Matthew: ‘Why are you telling me I can’t park here?? It’s a free world.’
Parking Security: ‘Credentials please, sir? Sir. Sir. This is a corporate facility, credentials please.’
Matthew: ‘What’s the corporate ever done for me?! Huh? Since you know every God damn thing. What they done?? I should sit down right here and take a hot shit in the facilities.’Steely walks down the ramp into the structure casually, trying not to be noticed—the distracted guard notices and chases after him shouting about credentials. Steely breaks into a sprint. Seconds later a small low flying autonomous aircraft is heard in pursuit of Steely down the structure. Steely spot’s Garten’s car, the one that almost hit Matthew earlier, slides over the tip of it and almost falls of the edge of the parking structure which cascades into a waterfall, leading down into channels below street level.
Steely regains his balance and struggles with his car boosting key card, trying to gain access to Garten’s car. It isn’t letting him into the car and he begins to panic, but finally it clicks on—you can hear the whistle and the buzz of the security drone flying towards him. He slides down the seat so as not to be visible from the window. The drone flies to the edge of the parking structure and hovers, observing downward as the water flows. It then turns around and heads back to continue its search elsewhere. Just then Steely feels the vibration of an incoming message.
BEGIN TEXT:
Unknown contact: ‘Chase the rabbit three ways down, a ways to go.’
Steely: ‘Who’s there?’
Unknown contact: ‘Do you have time?’Steely’s baffled by the text but doesn’t have time to dwell on it, he starts the car and begins looking for another spot to park it, far enough from the original spot so as not to be noticed but still within the same parking structure. The perfect spot is three levels down. He carefully exits the car, makes his way into a common walkway towards a lift, gets inside though it’s crammed with people, and squeezes in amongst the plain-clothed engineers and corp. Employees all talking in code and oblivious to Steely.
Elevator doors open. Above ground it’s raining. Everyone braces for the rain as they exit. Steely puts his hood on and walks into an overpass. Billboards tower above it showing blue skies, a beach scene and a slogan that reads: “It’s June in Miami.” The rain continues pouring down, he’s still in the thick of the crowd. Steely exits down a ramp, jumps over a shallow ledge, walks under an overpass—there’s traffic speeding past him blurred—and begins to wait. Matthew pulls his car over, shining his lights on Steely. Steely gets into the car and steals the cigarette Matthew just lit from his mouth. Cars speed past going under and over intersections. A song played.
SCENE 3
Steely and Matthew split up in a corridor and go into different classrooms that are stand-alone trailers.
In one class, a smooth but occasionally glitchy 3-D projection of a teacher greets Steely. The teacher is severe in appearance and manner. Though her projection corresponds to a live human being somewhere else on the planet, she might as well be a robot or at least the ghost of a human once capable of warm emotion.
Teacher: ‘Punctuality appears to be your Achilles’ heel, Mr. Grude. Alas, you’ve cleared H3, admirable. Quiet your ears, then solve the riddle.’
The teacher trails away.
Steely exhales loudly. Takes his bag off and hangs it on a hook. There is a digital 24-hour clock in the top left corner, it’s black steel with white numbers. The walls are covered in floral wallpaper, overhead there’s a clear paneled mechanical ceiling. The mahogany floors ramp up to class seating, with curves and layers dynamically represented. A wall for projection wrapped in a semi circle lies at the head of the class.
Steely breathes in deeply, dropping his shoulders. The room is so quiet. He closes his eyes. A montage flashing in his head: Shoobie’s mouth, himself as a small boy calling up from a pit, fencing, climbing a fence, running. A small quiet click comes into his ears from a clock. The memory of his father first forgetting while giving a lecture at his school. The silence. The stutter. The angry burst at someone touching his arm. He remembers his father not remembering him. His mother throwing things out of focus. The canopied street. The first car he stole on a spinning platter. His father’s car.
Steely is mumbling a mantra and slowly his memories whitewash away. He opens his eyes and he is seated on a chair in full lotus. He breaks position and pulls a tray out of a side compartment and now he has a surface with a bowl in its center, a few gauges and a small loupe. It’s what seems to be a mini solar system that he’s manipulating with the gauges.
The teacher swarms back in and places a decades-old transparency paper on a projector.
The riddle:
Teacher: ‘You poured it hot and you’re stirring it up, now what’s moving faster, the tea or the cup?’
Steely: ‘The tea.’
Teacher: ‘What’s harder Mr. Grude, a liquid or a solid?’
Steely: ‘Shit’
Teacher: ‘Of course. And what does your understanding of physics inform you of as it relates to softness and hardness of matter, Mr. Grude?’
Steely: ‘That, from a sub-atomic perspective, my shit is composed of particles mostly vibrating at a higher rate than my piss.’
Teacher: ‘Thank you, Mr. Grude. Your deft articulation leaves little to the imagination.’
Steely: ‘You don’t have an imagination.’
Teacher: ‘Well, congratulations Mr. Grude. It has been my pleasure watering yours.’The teacher swarms off. A status bar appears on the projection wall as if loading something. When full, a dozen other desks appear next to Steely each with a student projection seated in them, creating trails with their movements. These projections seem almost real. Unlike the microcosm whose projections are light based, the students’ apparitions are hard particle nano projections whose touch have a light weight, thus they can interact with the physical world on a low level. The teacher re-materializes.
Teacher: ‘Grad students, the last movie of your lives here. “Giant”—1956. Enjoy.’
Steely looks down at his desk. His microcosm is developing well, thriving. There are 64 life harboring planets in his system. He looks through his scope. He monitors his gauges, adjusting tension and gravity here and there.
Steely receives a tummy rub via instant messaging from Shoobie, and a pouty face. He replies with a blush face. The movie plays and a couple of the students are watching. The class is 50/50 male to female. A swirl of different races and creeds. Someone’s nose starts bleeding. A Japanese student crinkles plastic in a Russian girl’s ear to annoy her. Two students are reading palms. Steely extends his hand, taps a blue eyed Korean kid named Kio.
Steely: ‘Howdy.’
Kio: ‘Listen. It’s out of control. My parents are hiring a load of lifeguards for this weekend. Apparently someone drowned last year at the pool party I’ve never had. Been on my Kegel exercises since last week.’(Kio’s projection spreads hair on Steely’s scalp with his swarm fingers and examines it before Steely shakes him away)
Kio: ‘Your hair is so clean?’
Steely: ‘Kio—get off.’ (Doesn’t move. Focuses his sight through the scope down into the microcosm.)
Kio: (Speaking out loud) ‘Western hygiene has lacked as fuck—these guys look dank.’
Blonde Girl: ‘Close your mouth!’
Kio: ‘Only if you keep yours open.’
Blonde Girl: ‘You’re small.’
Kio: ‘She didn’t talk to me like this last night. I’m so confused. This sucks.’
Blonde Girl: ‘Do you know I can hear you? What was last night? I’m in Morocco.’
Kio: ‘Last night, last month—whenever this loud sex was. I forget.’ (Kio turns his head and is punched in the nose by Blonde’s swarm hand.)
Blonde Girl: (Warns) ‘You are a small feeling. Do not!’The downpour outside intensifies.
Steely: ‘She didn’t like that one, Kio.’
Kio: ‘Bro, whatever, she’s a lunatic, and she just got herself un-invited.’
Steely: (Laughs and shakes his head.)Dree, the Pacific islander student, taps Steely.
Steely: ‘That’s TWO cartridges.’
Dree: (Says ‘okay’ without saying anything.)It thunders soon after a grand flash of lightning. Rain comes down heavier and heavier, then a black out.
The 3-D swarms of students and teacher disappear and the room goes dark. The glow of Steely’s experiment is the only light source in the room. His gaze stays stuck on the system, its glow upon his face. Just then a message notice activates.
GROUP TEXT:
Matthew: ‘Anybody seen Robb? I think we lost Robb black ass.’
Robb: ‘A piece of me with always be inside of you.’
Shoobie: ‘lol’ (emoticon)Steely gets up from his desk, pulls his hoody over hid head and goes to use the urinals outside in the storm.
It’s pouring as he walks toward a small shallow tower of urinals—they resemble a merry-go-round. He pisses with the rain falling on him hard. No one is outside. He washes his hands on a faucet above the urinal then heads back toward his class. Sunlight cuts through the rain. He gets back to his seat, soaked, and sits down in the naturally lit room. He looks down at his bowl for a moment, lights a cigarette and stares at it for a moment. Spinning it around and staring at the ember trails. The sunlight creates streaks across the classroom through the ceiling. He pushes everything back into a single point then folds the desktop back into the compartment.
Steely’s eyes well up.
SCENE 4
Steely’s eyes are watering from the wind rushing in his face as he’s smiling, then laughing, going full throttle on a speedboat with Shoobie, Matthew, Clark, Danny, Grad Girl #1, Rob, Grad Girl #2 and Grad Girl #3 in tow.
Matthew (to Shoobie): ‘So how’d you shut the power off? Generators didn’t even come back.’
Shoobie: ‘No—I had a finals presentation.’
Clark: ‘Thought you handled your finals midterm’
Shoobie: ‘Extra credit.’
Matthew: ‘What are you?’(Bonfire being set aflame on the beach)
Robb: ‘They’re gonna shut that down any moment now’
Grad Girl #1: (Eyes Robb while he takes off his clothes and puts on his wet suit.)
Robb: ‘Yea. I’m tryna get fit. So what. Swim.’Robb pulls Junior Girl #1 back into the water while the boat moves at a slower speed. Underwater shot shows Robb on a wake board being pulled by an aluminum speedboat. We see the turns and the flips and the fun.
Matthew: ‘I’m Shamu!’ (Heard from underwater.)
Junior girls push Matthew and Danny. All fall in.
Sun going down—having brews—group talk.
Robb: ‘Always thought he had the better things.’
Matthew: ‘Kinda did.’
Steely: ‘Better looking staff, and the crazier grounds.’
Grad Girl #1: ‘I heard you have a woman in your shower who washes your back.’
Steely: ‘She’s not a real woman.’
Danny: (to Shoobie) ‘When do you have to be over there? I heard that building is nuke-proof.’
Shoobie: ‘Yeah aren’t they all now.’
Danny: ‘That’s Central for you. Jesus.’
Robb: ‘You’re not moving because of all this rain?’ (Laughs)
Shoobie: ‘I’ve got all summer. The world’s small. Day trips.’
Steely: ‘Whole crew’s going different ways now.’
Grad Girl #2: ‘I’m taking over my parents’ machine.’
Grad Girl #3: ‘You mean your parents’ money.’
Matthew: ‘That’s one thing that brings us all together, our parents’ cash… You too, my dear mid-caste offspring. Even you.’
Shoobie: ‘That’s not what brings us together. But look, nepotism aside, I think you’ve done well for an underdeveloped intellect.’
Matthew: (Grins in agreement) ‘I would’ve quit this head job at first chance to climb locals and surf my life away. But the trust says I can’t participate without taking my part in this ceremony.’
Grad Girl #1: ‘All I care about is world peace. All they taught me here was how to take notes.’
Robb: ‘OK, Miss Argentina.’
Clark: ‘I quite liked it here.’
Steely: ‘So that’s why you didn’t clear?’
Clark: ‘I cleeeaared.’
Clark: ‘Hey guys, listen. Alright, so. If I’m not fucking this person in person, but we get off to each other through the mesh all the time is it the same? Or am I trying to sell myself something? I asked em to take a job as my massage therapist to like simulate intimacy. Thought it was a long shot, but it worked out. It’s been beautiful.’
Shoobie: ‘Who are we talking about?’
Clark: ‘That doesn’t matter’
Matthew: ‘Is this person local?’
Clark: ‘Nah, isn’t. It really doesn’t matter guys.’
Matthew: ‘I think it’s brilliant. Sounds perfect. Nothing left to be desired from my vantage point.’
Danny: ‘Hmm, I think it’s nearly there. There’s something missing that you might want—then again you might not want that at all.’
Clark: ‘Yea. It won’t ever be like that.’Steely drifts off imagining a frozen lake with another lake shining like stardust on its surface, the lakes reflecting a seamless white sky. White water.
Dream interrupted—RENNN RENNN RENNN!!! SMACK. SMACK. SMACK. An aluminum catamaran cuts through the water. Campus pull up on boats. Steely pours his beer out. Everyone hides their drinks. Water turns color.
Campus Police: ‘Please dock all watercraft and exit campus beach immediately.’
Grad Girl #1: ‘It’s drop day!’ (Yelling at the police boat.)
Campus Police: ‘Please dock all watercraft and exit campus beach immediately.’Campus Police speed away back to the shore. Students throw bottles at the police boat. Rather than head back to the shore and wait for the police, Steely pulls away in a different direction. The Police re-engage and give chase. Steely beaches the boat by sliding onto a black sand beach. All the students jump off the speedboat and run up the incline making an escape with the rest of the party.
Steely: (Across the crowd to Shoobie) ‘Meet at mine.’
SCENE 5
Steely walks up to the parking structure of the corporate campus where Garten’s car is located. Florence is manning the security desk. Looks on at Steely knowingly. This is one of Florence’s gigs.
Florence: ‘C’mon.’
Florence: ‘Don’t get yourself into anything you can’t get out of child.’
Florence: ‘Gimme.’ (Pointing at the bulge in his pocket.)Walks past security into the empty underworld of parking levels—few overnighted vehicles here and there. He goes to where he left Garten’s car and gets in. He pulls out a box of smokes and reads the warning label. He smokes a cigarette and begins looking at his teeth in the mirror. Garten’s keys are inside as before. He starts the car. He drives normally, calmly, making his way off the corporate campus onto the highway, and getting off at an exit leading to a neighborhood nestled by woods. There is a subdivision ahead of him comprised mostly of high-rises. There’s a lake passed.
SCENE 6
Cut to Steely inside of a wide industrial lift. Steely’s still inside the car, smoking another cigarette as the lift moves upward. Garten’s car comes up through the floor, facing Shoobie. There’s reflection on the glass behind her, faint speckles of light imply a city view in the distance. Shoobie’s seated in a white swivel chair with large perforations. Wide white flooring with a desk complex. Neutral furniture. Fluorescent lights overhead in rails—glass all around. A potted plant caged with a bird. Shoobie sits there in the nude anticipating a party but covers herself once she sees the car. In disbelief she walks toward Steely but continues past him, covering her mouth as she stares at the vehicle.
Steely walks down a ramp into a living space, a bar that looks off into the distance. Outdoorsman photography and console portraits line a wall. A photo of Steely and his dad holding a catch by the sea, another of him climbing a half dome. There’s a jellyfish aquarium. The seating area is an ecosystem all its own with more plants and contained living micro systems. He eats pasta and watches television. Once he finishes eating he gets up, undresses, grabs his recall device and heads to the bathroom. Steely walks into a yellow shower. A 3-D projection of a woman in blue washes his back.
Dunk. Break for the curb. Clark taps Steely on the ass, blows him a kiss. Clark shoves him. Steely stumbles and walks over to a vehicle parked on the side. Steely leans on the driver window and kisses the driver. Steely circles to the other side and sits in the passenger seat. Driver puts a dutch to Steely’s mouth. Steely hits it. Steely and driver kiss blowing smoke out of their noses.
Driver (Shoobie): ‘Relaxxx…’
Steely: (Shakes head) ‘Awe man—don’t do that—I don’t even know how it started.’ (Leans in to kiss her again.)
Shoobie: ‘Nope.’
Steely: (Kisses her face still) ‘What you do all day anyway? When’d you even get here?’Shoobie ignores him, and changes a song on the playlist (she was his ride there in the first place). Steely crawls out of passenger window and talks over the car.
Steely: ‘So what’s good for later? I need to shower.’
Matthew and Clark walk over to the car—Danny goes inside to shower.
Clark: ‘W’sup Shoobie.’ (Kisses her on the cheek.)
Clark: ‘So you gon’ draw my blood and I can’t hit the blunt? You cold.’Shoobie passes it to Clark.
Steely: ‘Imma be back later I left some shit in your house.’
Matthew: ‘What is it? I’ll grab it for you now. You ain’t comin’ back. Y’all are about to get weird.’
Steely: ‘What an angel—but naw, imma come back though.’
Matthew: ‘Smiley faces…’Wide road. Canopy of live oak trees and filtered sunlight. Low radio. Engine noise layered with shower scene. Engine noise. Love scene. Engine noise. Cut to black.
Steely is high off endorphins while his back is being rubbed by the lady in blue. He finishes his shower, heads to his bed and crash into sleep. Steely’s blurry eyes open up to Shoobie lying next to him with the look of Christmas morning on her face. It’s 5am-ish. The glass now gives the views pass up on the level. Shoobie has been dealing with Garten’s vehicle for the last several hours.
Shoobie: ‘The majority of Garten’s designs contain two access points. It’s a motif of his.’ ‘This design in particular has nearly complete function solely from one key point. The second key point is hidden. I got its location off this thing’s own thoughts. Whatever, take a seat.’ (Pointing to the car.)
Steely takes a seat. Black cup of coffee in his hand. Shoobie has a rainbow coil of wires running from a handheld device into a port on the headlight of Garten’s car.
Shoobie: ‘Wait for it.’ (As she works.)
In a moment Steely’s vision through the windshield glows and the city past the woods falls off into sky. His entire surroundings glow golden and white and the edges of his view fall off into endless sky. He seems to be on an island, floating high above any water. Steely jumps a bit, spills the coffee on his boxer shorts. It takes a moment for him to feel the sensation.
Steely: ‘Fuuuck…’
Steely jumps out of the car. Pulling off his burning shorts, eyes affixed to the fantastic view, which is fading back into reality all around him. His vision goes back to normal again. Shoobie smiles. Steely starts to wring out his shorts when he gets a new message notification.
BEGIN TEXT:
UNKNOWN CONTACT: ‘=====:::::::::=====:::::::::::
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[END OF EPISODE 1]
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