The time is the late 1980s. A police officer has been gunned down. Our narrator, Coddy, a policeman, is underpaid, sleep-deprived and overweight. Coddy's partner, Bellamy, lives out of their shared squad car, littering the back seat with his dirty underwear and empty cigarette packs. Free Box and Barbie are squatters who rob Rainbow Health Foods at gunpoint for something to eat. From the junkies openly shooting up on stoops to the homeless men with their fleets of shopping carts piled high with garbage, Plate's Mission District is 'a catechism in destruction'.