Chapter Text
Me llamo Roberto y voy a ser tu narrador por una hora.
My name is Roberto and I will be your narrator for one hour.
Disfruta el espectáculo.
Enjoy the show.
En algún lugar de Van Nuys, esta es la última vez que se quieron.
In some place in Van Nuys, it was the last time they saw each other.
Una tragedia Americana.
An American tragedy.
Helmet Boy y Summer.
Helmet Boy and Summer.
Helmet Boy stared into the camera, his deep brown eyes peering into the heart of the viewer. Meanwhile, the black, white and red lines on his helmet softly clashed against one another. They mirrored the clashing soul of the boy wearing the lines that fit on his sturdy helmet. As the camera drifted farther away from the view of Helmet Boy’s face, he appeared to be walking forward with his head down. His hands carefully gripped the sides of his handlebars and he latched onto them carefully while he hopped onto the leather seat.
The wheels continued to take Helmet Boy further out in his journey throughout the city. He was alone on his bike; Helmet Boy took comfort in his lonesome thoughts. Here, out on the road, he was unbothered by the typical chaotic nature of the world around him. The only thing Helmet Boy cared to take notice of was the dazzling lights that passed by him with every turn of the wheel.
His amazement with the surrounding lights was evident; even more so as he became distracted with an airplane soaring through the sky. Suddenly, he turned away from the airplane and faced back down towards the ground—though, it was unclear why. Shakily, Helmet Boy continued to trudge through the carefully laid out path laid out in front of him. The dim lights of the cars on the road were glaring at him in response to his slow moving vehicle on the sidewalk.
For no apparent reason at all, Helmet Boy jumped off of his bike and began to move it across the street. Cars were still passing through but many were slowing to a stop as they saw him dragging his bike across the road aimlessly. He was on top of the bike, walking it across like he was on a bike without wheels. Eventually, he made it across and resumed riding his bike down what seemed like an infinite road of opportunities. That is, he continued to ride, until he arrived at his destination.
The destination was on Helmet Boy’s right. He rode down a large parking lot, choosing to cruise down the road skillfully—only pausing to push on the pedals when needed. At one point, he pushed his helmet back up as if it was a pair of reading glasses. This was the most movement that he had made all day, aside from pushing his bike across a busy street.
Finally, Helmet Boy reached his friends in a small group at the end of the parking lot. They were clumped up around the side of the car, barely noticing Helmet Boy’s quiet arrival. He wordlessly hopped off of his bike and walked over to sit by the edge of the car door, also indicating his arrival to the present conversation.
Out of nowhere, a car sped by the group at almost the exact same time that Helmet Boy brought out his lighter. The orange light coming from the ignited flame flickered like a shadow in front of his face as he could vaguely hear his friends avidly chattering in the background.
”I got it,” he heard his friend say. “During fourth period—because if you wait ‘til seventh period, then somebody’s already gonna be fucking sliding in that. So during fourth period, what you do is you find a bunch of fucking roses and you take the rose petals and...you put ‘em on a desk. And within the rose petals, you’re gonna put a note. And in the note, there’s gonna be an arrow. And the arrow’s gonna be pointing in a direction. You know where that direction’s gonna be?”
Another voice meekly responded with, “Me?”
”Right to you,” came the confident reassurance of the first friend.
Of course, someone had to break the first boy’s confidence. “Errr,” said somebody else, imitating the sound of a buzzer. “Wrong. If she got to clean that shit up, it’s gonna be awkward as fuck. She gon’ say no. You already know.”
Helmet Boy could already sense the other boy avidly shaking his head to refute the claims. “She’s not gon’ say no, ‘cause that’s a foolproof idea.”
At the same time, the other boy was continuing to say no and shoot down his ideas. Their voices were beginning to drown in and out of Helmet Boy’s attention span.
”You wanna clean that up in front of everybody?”
”No.”
Helmet Boy could barely even keep track of what they were saying anymore. All he knew was that they were bickering back and forth. They were seemingly getting nowhere in their efforts to come up with a promposal idea. Unimpressed with their continuous back and forth bickering, Helmet Boy resumed flicking his lighter. He was losing track of time.
Helmet Boy’s unawareness of how quickly time was passing by caught up to him when he finally regained his attention at the football field. He and the other boys from the parking lot were spelling out ‘Prom?’ on the field, scattering around the paper bags that were full of light. Smoke was even beginning to rise out of the bottom of bags as the boys passed the candles around, hunching around each other in a tight radius.
”Be calm,” one of the boys kept repeating as they frantically hurried to spell out the remaining letters of the word. So far, they only had two letters spelled out.
Eventually, one of the bags caught on fire. The bag lit like a firecracker, sparkling directly in front of the boys. One of the boys stood up to put it out while the other boys cursed in response, not noticing the other group of boys that were entering their field. A football was firmly tucked under their arms, clearly signifying what they were there for. They immediately noticed the candles on the field and one of the boys holding the football started to mock the scene in front of them.
”It’s called Gay Promposal,” he laughed while he tossed the football around in the air with his buddies. They were all wearing their football uniforms as they walked closer and closer to Helmet Boy.
While the group marched forward, the camera begun to zoom in on Summer LaBeouf, a boy with floppy platinum blonde hair. He was laughing along with the three boys that stood in front of him but something was off. His hands were using the football in his arms as something to distract himself while he went along with what everyone else did. Summer was trailing behind the other boys. Clearly, he wasn’t exactly like them.
Ultimately, the candle boys noticed the football boys when one of them yelled out, “You guys gotta get off the field, we have practice.”
They looked over at each other in annoyance. Just like the parking lot, their voices were drifting in and out of Helmet Boy’s attention. Yet again, there was another dispute at the field as the football boys forced the boys with the candles to get off of the field. Helmet Boy’s friends were trying to argue that they should stay on the field but to no avail.
”Have fun. I hope he says yes,” called out one of the football players as Helmet Boy’s friends dejectedly walked off the field.
This was the last thing Helmet Boy heard before returning back to the present.
Summer LaBeouf and Helmet Boy were alone in the center of the football field. Unlike with everyone else, Helmet Boy was staring into Summer’s eyes while he refused to reciprocate the intense gesture—at least, at the beginning. They stood unmoving, their arms gently rested at their sides. Summer was eyeing the ground nervously until he finally looked up to meet the piercing but sweet eyes of the boy in front of him. Once again, he blinked and looked down.
From a far off angle, the remaining boys on the field left. This left Helmet Boy and Summer being the only two left standing by the remaining candles. After a second more, Summer dashed off in the opposite direction. Suddenly, Helmet Boy was alone again in the middle of nowhere.
The camera lingered on Helmet Boy for a bit longer until it focused on him sitting alone in the bleachers. Once again, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He sat hunched over his knees, moving his helmet up again as he had done earlier in the night. Then the camera blacked out.