It is fitting that Eddie is surrounded by students of mortuary science as he sits at a "wobbly metal table" at Fresno's City College. The nineteen-year-old student’s life is defined by death and desolation—his father, cousin, and two uncles are dead. So is Juan, his best friend from high school, who was killed in an industrial accident. Juan’s sister, Belinda, is heavy with child but her husband, Junior, is in Vacaville Prison. Eddie is dropping out of City College, where he has been studying air conditioning. He quit going to class when his cousin Jesus was stabbed to death in the restroom at a club by a stranger who took exception to an innocent comment about his shoes. As the sun rises over the trees and the hot asphalt of the college begins to shimmer with vapors, Eddie theorizes that these vapors originate not from the sun’s heat but from a huge onion buried under the city. The onion, a “remarkable bulb of sadness,” victimizes everyone—young and old—and makes them cry.

Eddie lives in a decrepit apartment in “a part of Fresno where fences [sag] and the paint blister[s] on houses.” Like his neighbors, who are all Mexican like himself, he struggles to procure the bare necessities of living. Beyond that, there is not much to do “except eat and sleep, watch out for drive-bys, and pace [him]self through life.” To get by, Eddie stencils address numbers on curbs in the north part of Fresno, where most of the people are White. Eddie turns on the balky swamp cooler in his apartment for a short time after returning from the college, then he goes to the garage to get his bike, which has the tools of his trade in a basket up front. As he heads off to work, he hears someone call his name; it is Lupe, a “homie” from high school, who relays the message, “Angel wants to see you.”

Eddie knows that Angel wants him to “get the creep” who killed Jesus. He desperately wants to stay clear of the endless cycle of violence that surrounds him, but Lupe is insistent. Eddie’s aunt, Jesus’s mother, also has been pressuring him to “settle matters” for his dead cousin. Eddie reluctantly consents to meet with Angel, who is waiting for him at Holmes Playground.

Angel is sitting alone on one of the picnic tables at the park. Eddie knows he is a hardcore gangster, a guy who sits around at home with a gun in his sock drawer and who “like[s] to get messed up, [with] beer mostly and weed.” Angel is “vicious and sneaky,” a dropout who is going nowhere in life. When he sees him, Angel appeals to Eddie’s sense of honor and respect, saying, “let’s get the dude [who killed Jesus] so Jesus and him can be equal.” Eddie says that Jesus is gone and that taking revenge on his killer is not going to bring him back. The two sit in silence together for a while, watching poor children splash in the ridiculously shallow pool at the park, like they themselves once did. When Eddie finally gets up to go to work, Angel tries to persuade him once again. But Eddie remains firm in his refusal, observing, “He’ll die soon enough.”

On the north side of Fresno, Eddie offers to help an old man move a battered air conditioner for a dollar, but when he finishes the job, the man’s wife comes out and refuses to give him the money. Fortunately, he finds other jobs that afternoon, “six houses nearly all in a row,” and ends the day happily with money in his pocket. When Eddie returns home, he finds “a gift of towel-wrapped tortillas” on his front porch. They are a blood offering from his aunt, who wants him “to put someone away for good in a grave” for killing her son.