Joe, a writer in Chicago, is typing in his basement. A Black man grips at the bars of the window, asking Joe how to get to the lake and if it has benches he can sleep on. He also asks Joe what he’s working on, and Joe reveals he makes a living writing two-line jokes. The man tells Joe to let him and he’ll tell him good stories. Joe lets him inside and sees the man is actually a boy of about sixteen years of age. He had a twisted back and facial paralysis. The boy first tells Joe a story of when he worked with greyhound racing in Tia Juana. He then tells Joe about his experiences in a Florida turpentine camp he had recently escaped from. He shows Joe his back, full of scars from being whipped. He says he made his way to Chicago after his friend from the turpentine camp promised him a job there, his friend recently died. Joe and the boy smoke cigarettes, and the boy tells him about someone named Heavy Henderson, who is the reason for the burn marks on his arm and his peculiar way of walking on his heels. The boy explains that when he was around 10, he left home to work with a man named Heavy Henderson in Idaho. They were involved in criminal work, and Heavy would burn the boy's arms with blister beetles whenever he got angry with him. One night, the boy and Heavy were drunk and got on a train in Dakota. Heavy was determined to ride the bumpers but fell asleep while sitting on them. His foot slipped, causing his heel to smash off. The boy ran to the engine car to attempt to turn off the train. As the boy precariously ran atop the train cars, he remembered when his school taught him to dance in fourth grade. He recalled the tune of the dance, "heel, Toe, and a 1, 2, 3, 4," and danced its steps on the way. When he got to the engine car, the workers successfully stopped the train and took Heavy out of it. Ever since that incident, the boy would hear the steps and count for everything: as he helped to carry Heavy, when the train started up again, when the doctor administered fluids to Heavy, and even when Heavy’s leg was amputated. Heavy ended up dying of lock-jaw, and at his funeral, the boy heard the tune and steps in the funeral wagon's wheels. Now, when the boy walks, he still walks to the same beat. When the boy finishes his story, Joe tells him that his stories gave him many ideas. Joe attempts to write a new joke when the boy leaves. He hears the boy’s feet click in beat as he walks away.