Caesar Matthew gets away with his first murder but is imprisoned for his second. He knows the most powerful inmates there, Multrey and Cathedral. They tell him that fighting with others over trivial things will show dominance. He follows their advice and fights his cellmate for the lower bunk he doesn't even want. When he gets a new cellmate, he pees on his belongings and beats him up. Eventually, someone murders Multrey. Cathedral begins to have visions of the man he murdered and is institutionalized on and off. During his sentence, Caesar receives letters from his siblings. He rips them up. After his release, he moves into a halfway house and finds work at a restaurant. His now-wealthy brother invites Caesar to have dinner with him and his sister. He initially refuses but agrees once his brother promises that his father won't be there. He discovers that an old girlfriend of his, Yvonne, lives in the halfway house. He starts to visit her with food and cigarettes. She seems unstable and at first thinks he wants something in return, but eventually comes to believe that he does not. The family dinner is more enjoyable than expected. At the end, he tickles his niece and calls her a "little lady." He can see it makes his sister uncomfortable, and is upset by the suggestion that he is a creep. Afterwards, he finds that Yvonne has drunk herself to death in the halfway house. He thinks about what people will say about her, given the circumstances of her death, which leads him to spend the whole night cleaning up her room. He even washes her and changes her clothes. In the morning, he gives Yvonne's savings to a mother of two in the building, and decides to move away. He flips a coin to choose which direction he should go.