The Trojan War is a Friday-night football game. The hero is Ozzy — a wide receiver so shifty they call him “Nobody,” because nobody can catch him. He wins the game with a trick play (the Horse), turns down the after-party, and points himself home to his girl, Penny, and the porch light she keeps burning.
Then he takes the long way. Just to see the sights. And the long way takes him — through a one-eyed barista he never should have crossed, a house full of party crashers he leaves undefended, a BBQ pitmaster, an underworld, a red-light district, and a girl with a leaf who makes him forget he was ever anybody’s at all.
Part One: Nobody Loses. → Part Two: Nobody Wins. · the name spans the whole sentence.
Nobody Can’t Catch Me
the flex — and the flaw
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Act-One curtain. The rager peaks at Nobody’s own front door — Everybody inside, Penny cornered, the eye that meant love now aimed like a threat — while across town Nobody clicks his blinker and takes the long way, certain no one can catch him. He’s right. No one can catch him. That’s the whole problem. Houselights up.
The Long Way Down
the descent to the pit — and the light goes out
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Curtain — end of Part One. Everyone, apart, in the dark. The crew caged. Penny at a porch whose light has gone out. Telly still searching the night, empty-handed. And Nobody — highest of all, lowest of all — forgetting, in the haze, that he was ever anybody’s. The one thing the whole town swore could never happen has happened. Someone caught the uncatchable man. It was himself.
Nobody Loses.
Blackout. — Come back tomorrow night for the light.