Tangerine Prologue Summary

  • We first meet Paul Fisher as he and his mom are tossing out the last bag of trash at their old house in Houston.
  • They are moving to Tangerine County, Florida, and Paul's dad and brother are already waiting for them there. Real considerate of them to leave all the heavy cleaning to mom and little bro, right?
  • As Mrs. Fisher looks around the house one last time, Paul lugs the trash bag to the car, and then takes a breather, staring off into the sunrise. Whoa, dude, didn't anyone ever tell you not to stare directly at the sun?
  • It turns out someone has. His older brother Erik told him his glasses were so thick, that if he looked at the sun through them, his eyes would spontaneously combust. Sounds like a nice guy, that Erik.
  • All this thinking about his jerk of a brother and looking around his neighborhood triggers an old memory…flashback alert!
  • Paul remembers riding his bike down this street as a little kid, and being startled by a guy in a ski mask suddenly driving up behind him.
  • The creepy masked guy chases poor little Paul, waving a metal baseball bat out the window. Whaaaat?
  • Mini-Paul is in a panic, but manages to dodge right as the bad guy smashes his mailbox in with the bat.
  • Now here comes the really weird part. Paul runs inside to his parents, hysterically crying, and insists that it was Erik, his brother, trying to kill him.
  • His parents are baffled, and simply point at Erik, doing his homework at the dining room table.
  • They blame it on his bad eyesight. But we start to get the feeling there's more than meets the eye to Erik.
  • Flashback successfully completed, Paul realizes his mom is talking to him.
  • She's found a cigarette butt in the garage, and wants to know if Paul knows anything about it. Oooooh, somebody's gonna get busted!
  • Or not. He doesn't know where it came from, so they lock the door and drive away.