In a house, a Black servant/housekeeper, Clara Jones, is cleaning as if someone or something is watching over her. A young, white man approaches her from the doorway. She welcomes him into the room and is surprised that he is up this early.

They talk about how each of them slept. Mr. Loer, the young man, say he slept rotten. Clara suggests that this is because he does not pray before he sleeps. Mr. Loer says he does not know who to pray to. This surprises Clara, as Mr. Loer is a well-educated man. Clara exits and leaves Mr. Loer to his readings.

He is studying psychology and is also a musician who plays cello. He thinks of a woman he often sees on the street and then of his mother. He thinks again of the women from the street and how she interacts with her husband. She sees her breasts clamped with an iron bar beneath her clothes. He appears to be disturbed. He thinks of his mother and his father and how everyone knew his mother was unfaithful and that his father was a brute. He had left his family. He came to America with his music and his yearning.

He questions his mother's unfaithfulness and his father's anger and the situation of the woman with the clamped breasts. Throughout this he talks directly to his cello. He tells it that it will earn his living.

Clara enters. She has a letter for him. He asks why Clara is always happy. The cause is her belief in Heaven and that she will be reunited with her dead children and husband.

He took her words and rushed into the street. He appears disturbed as he sees the man who is married to the woman, he believes has a bar across her breast. He wants to cry out to him. They pass each other and Mr. Loer thinks himself a fool for being in the street and thinking of these things.

He thinks again of the woman and how he wants her bar to be gone. He goes home. He thinks about his mind is in power and how he lives in emotion relating to his mother, father, and America. These emotions also relate to salvation, faith, and rage. He thinks of how the emotion of music is the only way to destroy America's emotion of hunger.

He thinks of how someday he will finally learn of psychology and sell his cello.

He goes into Clara's kitchen where she is ironing and views her in a new light.

He sees her naked and sort of embodied in the position of a tree.

He tells Clara that he is good for nothing. Clara says that this is not true.

Mr. Loer thinks a racist thought.

He asks how she is so sure of Heaven. She says she has seen it and describes it to Mr. Loer. Mr. Loer says that wise men do not believe in such things. Clara disagrees. She continues her work.

Karl went to work six days at a musician in concert halls. Afterwards, when people talked to him afterward, he found them cold and parodying his own life. He thinks of the woman with the bar on his breast and his mother. He feels pain. He denies food and goes out into the street. He sees houses that look sick and goes into one. A swarthy man in a vest with a gold chain welcomes him inside. Loer asks him to take his place at the performance. It takes some convincing and money, but the man eventually is coerced into taking Loer's place.

Loer hears words in his head that say he has never learned to use his mind and that is what is causing him pain. He prays to God a prayer that he calls absurd, asking for God to help him find something.

He walks the streets. He thinks about what he wants and feels he is walking through his life. He yearned for the release of reason. He thinks of how his father went to church and remembers how his father was physically abusive. He tries to understand who the woman with clamped breasts is and why he is so confused.

He finds himself in The East Park. He sits on a bench and watches people in the park. He sees the world in three strokes of sky, river, and park. He feels less tired. He kills a cockroach. He thinks about how things happen. He sees a man eat out of a trashcan. He sees a Black dwarf on a bench. He sees a homeless man whom he has seen before. The homeless man is sitting on the bench. Mr. Loer had often wondered what his story was. He felt that the man spoke to no one and had an aura about him. He could not look into his pale eyes. He sees more in the man and sees a younger version of him. He sees a tumor on a leg beneath his suit.

Mr. Loer sat and watched the world and was aware of himself. The man introduces himself as Peter Dawes. He asks what he should call Mr. Loer.

Mr. Loer says he has no name. Peter says he will call him Peter and he is to call him, Dawes.

Dawes describes the setting sun and tells Mr. Loer to look out at the park. In the darkness of the empty park, they see a flame leap into the sky and fall back down. The park is still and is visible due to an invisible light source. The people he saw earlier are before his eyes introducing themselves. One of them pulls the cockroach that Mr. Loer killed out of his pocket and eats it. One of them congratulates Mr. Loer on his wedding and thanks him for the gift his wife gave him. This man shows a metal bar toothed in his flesh.

The kids playing ball also appeared to know Mr. Loer. In the darkness, a voice calls out "Think!" The homeless man reiterates the phrase. A disembodied voice reiterates the phrase.

Karl echos think along calling out, "Think!" He tramples his thoughts in his mind and acknowledges that it is getting late. He asks the homeless man who he is.

The words of the man sound far away as he responds that Mr. Loer has seen him many times. He asks who Mr. Loer thinks he is.

Mr. Loer is brave as his mind is only focusing on the memory of his initial thought of who the homeless man was. He replies that he thought he was version of Jesus.

The homeless man replies that he is right and that he is John the Baptist.