A young unnamed man is released from prison after being jailed for inciting a riot at his university - a crime which he vehemently denies having had any part in, despite being labeled as one of its instigators. Unwilling to return to school, he moves across the country to Berkeley, and tries to start a new life. More than anything, he wants to be left alone, and to become his own person: to not responsible for anyone but himself.One day he stumbles across a mysterious bar near the waterfront, with a jukebox that plays recordings of poetry. Entranced by the types of people he encounters here, he becomes a regular, and even begins to form new friendships with his neighbors. But people who participated in those riots or were in turn inspired by them seem to be flocking to California. Old faces soon start to appear, and whispers and rumors of the most enigmatic of them all - a masked, silent apparition only known as Dead Richard - are everywhere. As he is forced to confront the past, the narrator must finally come to terms with an ugly truth about himself and what his role in the "High Street Riots" really was.