The protagonist, a young Black man living in New York City, stands on a rooftop and sings out loud. He can hear an increasingly loud rumble, a growling, coming from within the city. Later, he meets up with Paulo in a cafe. Paulo is older than him; he’s graying at the temples. He buys the protagonist breakfast and talks to him about listening to the city and paying attention to the growing supernatural energy in the city–the roots and teeth within the city’s sewers, which he only first saw when a mentor, Hong, pointed it out to him. A cop enters the cafe, but doesn’t see the protagonist, allowing him to escape. The protagonist enjoys painting, as he had learned to do so in school from a Black artist. While he is out painting on a building at night, he hears a strange sound and feels the art he has created of a breathing hole exhaling on him. He stays up late painting the same image across the city on the next two days, and then he meets Paulo again at the cafe. Paulo compliments him for doing a good job helping the city breathe, even without being trained. Paulo reveals that he grew up in the favelas. He warns the protagonist that New York City will die, if he does not learn what Paulo has to teach him, and if he does not help. He warns that the city will join the likes of Pompeii and Atlantis, as a stillbirth, similar to what happened to New Orleans. He tells the protagonist that he is the catalyst, but the protagonist figures it’s nonsense. Paulo allows him to live with him while he learns. The protagonist learns that New York City is the first American city to reach this point in its life cycle, and all great cities are like living beings, being born, maturing, and then later dying, with rhythms that can be felt. He is the midwife who helps the city through the birth process. While out walking one day, he sees shadows pooling around two cops, likely from the energy of the ancient Enemy. When he begins to run, a tourist yells out that he tried to take someone’s purse, which causes the cops in the area to begin to chase him. Several cops meld into a single unearthly creature, which pursues him until he crosses a street, where several cars crush it into the ground. The protagonist sees a version of himself in twenty years lying on a bench, who tells him that it is time. He feels pulled towards something, and is teleported suddenly to Central Park. He feels the Enemy awaken as the city begins its birthing process, contracting in a movement that causes people in the city to feel a slight sensation, a jolt in the ground. His fight against the enemy causes an earthquake in Brooklyn, but the enemy retreats. He is now the avatar of the city.  Fifty years later, the protagonist has become an elder. He is in California looking for a city’s singer who must now guide it through its birthing.