Langston "Bitsy" Pittman is born a Mulatto, undersized and glaringly biracial. When he is five years old, Bitsys black mother enrolls him in the Second Street Christian School, the only student there of African descent. His white father abandons the family shortly afterwards, and Bitsys mother dies of a massive heart attack a few years later. The boy turns bitter, blaming his mothers death on a God who could have saved her but failed to do so. Bitsy renounces his faith, quits school, and eventually turns to a life of crime. One night, many years later, Bitsy sets out to burglarize a liquor...