A young boy joins his father on a visit to some of their old family friends – Neddie Bates, Johnny Caroline, and Jimmy McNair. The four men gather at the boiler room where Neddie, the most well-off of the friends, is employed. Johnny Caroline brings a large jug of “forbidden” whiskey that was bought from a nearby voodoo doctor. They pass around the potent drink, and all the men are shocked by how strong it is. The men discuss the dark, poverty-driven times of the Great Depression they are struggling through. All of them are immigrants, and the boy’s father has just acquired citizenship recently and looks forward to voting Hoover out. Neddie serves them some ice cream and gives them some pork chops to take home. Johnny Caroline is too hungry to wait, so they cook up some porkchops on a shovel in the boiler’s furnace. As they eat the charred but delicious meat, Johnny, who has been drinking the most, admits that his wife locked him out the house because he failed to find a job. He has been out searching everyday with no luck. Jimmy and the boy’s father agree to accompany Johnny Caroline home in hopes of convincing his wife to take him back. On the way to his house, Johnny Caroline collapses in the snow with only the boy around. The boy runs to get his father and Jimmy, and Johnny Caroline is dead by the time they return. They bring his body back to Neddie, who plans to leave his body in the alley, like all the others, and report it to the police.