Dan, a recovering alcoholic, attempts to maintain his sobriety but his longest and truest friend, Mack, has been given just two months to live. In Mack's apartment in southern California, the two friends, along with Mack's lover, Lester, attempt some semblance of normalcy, despite the fact that both Mack and Lester are dying of AIDS. One morning, after Lester returns from errands, he opens letters from Mack's less-than-supportive mother and sister. Although they write now, they spent most of Mack's life feeling embarrassed by him. Although Mack is scheduled for a bronchoscopy that evening, Lester suggests they all go to a neighbor's craft sale. Mack is already half asleep in his chair so they postpone. The phone rings, and it's Dan's four-year-old daughter Kit. She's had an argument with her mom and wants him to come home. She asks about Mack dying and hangs up. Dan goes to K-mart to get Mack a cushioned toilet seat. Back at the apartment, Dan helps Mack transcribe a letter to a high-school friend back in Iowa. Mack tells her about his expired belief in miracles, and his now fatal lung cancer. That afternoon, the three of them go to the craft sale. Lester brings their dog, Eberhardt, and, rather than go back with Dan and Mack, Lester takes the dog for a walk and asks Dan to bathe Mack. As Dan lowers Mack into the tub, he is startled by Mack's emaciated body. He bathes him, and removes flakes of dead skin from his body. Lester comes home and sobs next to Mack in the bathroom. The three men drive to the hospital for Mack's bronchoscopy. Dan remembers when it was Mack who dragged him up the ramp nine years ago, drunk and filthy. They enter the waiting room, Mack is called in, and Dan lifts him out of the wheelchair.