A young man who fears is father, is sent to America. His father forces him to go as he feels he is distracted from his studies in his home country as he is preoccupied with a lover.

When he arrives in America he is lonely. He visits several tourist attractions and places of "importance" in California. He doesn't care much for it. He eventually gets to where he will be attending school. He feels lonely as many students have not arrived yet. When he writes home to his friends, he receives no response. One day a man knocks at his door who is also lonely. His name is David.

They become extremely close and spend much time together. The relationship is almost intimate as the man comforts David in sickness and David will recite poetry to the man during walks outside. However, David eventually has to leave school because he can no longer afford it. A part of the man dies when David leaves.

The man has eight main friends at his table. Georgia, Aurora, Louise, Greg, Reynalda, Joe, and Wiley. Joe was very close with David as well which allows he and the man to bond.

The man wants to be a painter but his father objects to it. The man falls in love with Georgia and sometimes calls her Georgie. He admires her blonde hair most of all and fell in love with her when he was able to touch it. He loves it especially because people from his country only have dark hair. Eventually they fought and stopped caring for each other.

He becomes upset and thinks only of his lover from home, Vi. He was never mad at her until he saw pictures of her with other boys. Eventually his anger for Vi dissipates as he becomes angry with his father. He writes his father an angry letter blaming him for everything and threatening to quit school and saying he did not care about being cut off.

The man was so angry he became a poet and his angry became a purple flower which his father had rejected. One morning he told his friends he would be leaving and going to New York. He wanted no one to see him off and did not know why he was even leaving his friends as he quite liked them.

In his mind he knows it is not true he is going to New York but rather that he is cutting himself off from his relationships so as to be as lonely as when he first came to America.

He "leaves" and goes to New York. He is very poor and lives in a small place.

One night a paper blows in his window. He thinks of it as God's pure white flower and prays that his rejected purple flower will become the pure white one. He used to pray for family and now he prays for his own flowers.

He travels around the big city and compares it to his travels in California. Later, in his room he thinks about wanting a woman to share his warmth with. He reads a book about a liar.

He admits that all these stories he is telling to you about New York occurred on his bed while he cried. He decides he does not want to pretend go and actually wants to go.

On his way to the bus station for the train station that will take him to New York, he runs into Aurora on campus. She tags along with him. They touch each other's hands. He boards the bus and watches her stand there as it drives away. He wonders why he did not touch her hair. He thinks of her like a possible lover. He wonders if he had touched her hair if he would love her like he loved Georgia. He realizes he did not say good-bye or really care about Georgia anymore.

He arrives at the train station but never boards. He cannot find himself. He feels as if he lost his purple flower and wonders if his father will be laughing now.

Back on campus, everyone says that he fooled them in saying that he was truly leaving. Aurora also mentions this first when he meets her on campus. He wants to touch her hair as that is where he feels his purple flower is. He cannot stop thinking about holding her hands at the bus stop and then seeing her stand there like serenity as he is taken away. He tells her how her hands told him a song of serenity and wants to touch her hair. They touch and his flower becomes pure. He is no longer angry with his father.