In the writer’s mind, there is an old bar where the writer’s characters hang out while they wait to be called into a story. Outside of the old bar is a thirties-looking factory town. It is always nighttime and mostly empty. Whenever the writer occasionally happens upon a story to write, he asks the bartender of the old bar for a patron who may fit what he’s looking for. Recently, the writer has asked for a man in his sixties with green eyes, in good shape, with baggy clothes, who has to be secretly interesting. The bartender then laments that the old bar doesn’t have the same clientele as before, as many characters have left after years of neglect.

The bartender soon invites the writer to the old bar for free drinks. She introduces a guy to him, who he finds is inadequate to his vision. Everyone else in the old bar seems put off by the guy as he enters and takes a seat. After a few days, the writer tails him through the neighborhood of his own mind. Soon enough, he discovers a lot of characters outside the bar. He asks the bartender what the deal is, and she tells him that a lot of those characters are no longer interested in being called for a story, hence them leaving the old bar.

The writer follows the guy to his apartment, though he is eventually caught by another woman who asks him what he’s up to. She aims a gun at him and tells him to go inside. When they meet the guy, she tells him that the writer has been snooping around and peeping inside of the apartment. The guy informs the writer that he has seen him lurking outside of the old bar too, and he mistakes the writer as being just another character. Together, they talk about neighborhood life in the writer’s mind.

Eventually, the guy reveals that he’s writing a book. After he describes the book, the writer reveals that he originally wrote that book in the eighties, that he is not in fact another character but actually the writer himself. In surprise, the guy asks the writer what he’s doing here, to which the writer says that he’s looking for characters to put in his latest story. Specifically, he wants the guy to be in it, but the guy refuses, telling him that he and the other characters are going to leave town.

The guy says that there’s a river nearby that will allow characters to pass out of the writer’s consciousness and into another writer’s. He also says that he will leave with the writer’s manuscript, effectively stealing his work and giving it to another writer. The writer’s head starts to spin, and he questions out loud whether he has had a poisoned drink, which the guy confirms. The bartender then comes in and reveals that she has been siding with the other characters all along. Everyone leaves, but the bartender remains. The writer laments about the loss of characters, and the bartender puts a gun in her mouth.