Godspeed Screenplay (Episode 1, Scene 2)Frank Ocean

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.

     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.