Young & Wicked is the story of William Flannelly and his "girl" Polly Sexton. Willie and Polly started down the wrong path early and spent (more properly "misspent") their youth slaloming down the slippery slope of petty criminality and anti-social behavior. They fled their homes in Jersey City to escape arrest and with the intention of disappearing into the shadows of Manhattan's Bowery district. In the end, they not only disappeared, they lost themselves, one in body and the other in soul.