A 39-year-old war veteran who has returned home to live with his mother after pushing his ex-wife down the stairs and being kicked out of their home bemoans his lot in life. His mother is constantly insulting him and he is constantly unhelpful to her. His friend, Owen, who isn't really his friend, often comes around to eat stuff from her fridge.

The protagonist has a child who lives with his ex-wife, but his failure to pay child support means he won't be allowed to see the child, and she's threatening to take him to court for not paying.

He is currently out of work. He's worked a bunch of jobs he describes as the jobs "nobody else wanted to do." Lonely, he starts talking to a girl named Janice who he often sees at the store, or the library. She has an ex-husband who's a cop, who the protagonist wants to avoid but figures she doesn't see him a lot. They get to talking about dogs, and she says maybe she'll see him walking his dog. After this, he takes his dog past her house a lot but doesn't knock. He explores the woods a lot, and keeps a survival-kit type duffel there, with a sleeping bag, two knives, and a rifle. It got stolen once, so he started another. He recalls how his parents used to joke he'd "come to a bad end," and as part of this joke, before his dad left, his dad gave his mom a VHS of the movie "Boy's Town." His mom put it on every year and he never really watched, yet he recalls scenes from the movie that stuck with him. One day, he tapes a note to Janet's door: "ARE YOU STILL INTERESTED IN DOG WALKING?" He recalls talking to other owners of his rifle in an online forum and also adopting his dog. He drives his mom to get groceries and she suggests he may have PTSD. Later, she suggests again that she call a psychologist. He recalls a time she used snow to clean the car windshield without asking him to help or purchasing cleaning fluid from a store right next to them. He calls this "one of the saddest things [he] ever saw." His son and wife call while he's gone and a woman whose name his mom doesn't know. He imagines it might be Janice. He gets incredibly anxious and hikes out into the snow. When he gets back home, there are cops at his house. He waits outside until they leave. His mom says they were looking for him. He thinks about how there are many scattered crimes he's committed that they might be coming after him for. He decides to disappear for awhile and gets his survival kit. Two days later, he goes to Janice's house and knocks on her door. A man answers. He asks for her. She comes, then he runs away. They laugh, and he sweats up a flood and keeps thinking of them laughing. He circles back around the house and shoots four rounds from his rifle into the upstairs window. Then he runs into the woods, knowing the cops will easily track him in the snow. He reflects on mental illness and agency. He decides mentally ill people still make deliberate choices. He hides from the cops then they near. He braces himself with the rifle. He thinks about a scene from the movie, where a poor kid says, dejectedly, "I thought if you said we were good, somebody would help us."