Mill Creek, North Carolina, is faced with annihilation when its sole employer and landlord, Caesar Textiles, reverses a decision to sell company-owned houses to its employees and even threatens to raze the town. Many townspeople speculate that the company's motive lies in its refusal to deal with the request of a mill employee who wants to purchase a house on Main instead of the "colored" street where he lives. As the boundaries of the 1960s village are encroached upon by the world outside - television, rock and roll, the civil rights movement, drugs, and the draft - Clay Coleman struggles to become a man. At night, Clay plunges into the forbidden world of rhythm and blues offered up by his idol, DJ John R, over the "black" radio station, WLAC. His heart aches with every song as he obsesses over his pudgy object of desire, Irene. When best friend, Fletch - cool, popular, and everything Clay is not - turns Clay onto marijuana, it's love at first toke. Clay desperately tries to make sense of it all as his town and his life threaten to fall apart around him.