After a lifetime of abuse and loss--from fights with other boys staged for his father's entertainment, to the death of his only son-- sixty one year old Vernon Davidson is angry. He's ready to get back at God, his paper mill coworkers, and everyone else in his north Louisiana town. Constantly drunk to numb his pain, the normally cautious Vernon spirals into recklessness; drinking on the job, facing down a younger man at work over a parking spot, scandalizing his former fellow Baptists with displays of his nakedness. Meanwhile Jody Davidson, Vernon's estranged nephew, struggles to survive a similarly tragic past by self-imposed exile, inserting himself into a new, seemingly different family a thousand miles away. The two men are reunited when Vernon agrees to retrieve Jody for his dying brother so they can say goodbye-and that's when they each embark on a journey that will ultimately change their lives.