Four friends escape a minimum security prison during a flood, raft down the Mississippi to Arkansas and work their way west meeting an array of characters and sharing hardship with good humor.
Dex, the narrator, has grown up living under a bridge with his Gramaw, who refuses to be placed in a "warehouse" for elders, foraging for and shoplifting food. The public prosecutor who argues for his incarceration describes him as "intelligent, clever, resourceful, homeless all his life, father unknown, mother deceased ..." He hears diseased and believes she is still alive.
He's well-adjusted to life in the detention facility tasked with the maintenance of the Missouri side of a bridge across the Mississippi. He has found friends, takes pride in his work painting the higher reaches of the structure and meets adversity with courage and wit. He has had little exposure to media and is barely acquainted with politics.
Jam (Jameel), his best friend, who has the bunk beneath him, grew up in public housing in St. Louis and is better educated, more widely experienced and knowledgeable. His mother has succumbed to methamphetamine abuse, and he had been supporting himself and two younger sisters by lifting wallets and snatching purses. An alpha male who has fought for dominance, he's protective of his three roommates. After Dex's encyclopedia is confiscated, Jam encourages him to write about their experience in his free time.
Jimmy (Jumbo to other inmates), the third inmate in their crowded four-man "cubby," a converted utility closet, is the abused son of a prostitute who died of an overdose of heroin. The largest of the inmates, he's strong but timid until Jam teaches him to be more assertive.
Donjo (Donald Joseph), the newest arrival, is a "klepto" raised in a strict fundamentalist Christian home with a tyrannical father. He's handsome, amiable, generous and remarkably ignorant. When dominant toughs try to rape him, the four prevail in a brawl and their bond grows stronger.
A major flood gives them an opportunity to escape down the Mississippi to Arkansas.
