The Vietnam War is coming to a close and Timbo starts his first day back as a retail ad salesman for the Daily Beacon after an absence of more than three years in San Francisco, where he recently broke off with his girlfriend, Jeanne. The reader accompanies Timbo on his journey through the day as he talks and interacts with his old newspaper buddies; walks the streets of his sales territory in San Pedro, a Southern California seaport town, where he has lived most of his life; remembers people and experiences as he makes his rounds; calls on retail merchant advertisers who welcome his return but are preoccupied with the events surrounding Vietnam and the business changes taking place in the downtown harbor area.
Containerization, a new system of ship loading at the harbor docks has reduced employment and resulted in a loss of Union influence in the area. This is evidenced by an ongoing printers strike at the Daily Beacon that has failed to close down the paper. Now the publisher is thinking of selling to a large newspaper chain. Part of the downtown business area is being torn down through a Federal grant to establish a new shopping mall. At the end of his first day, while walking through an old demolished building, Timbo comes upon an injured man who was struck on the head by one of his Vietnam veteran drinking buddies. He helps Blackie to a resident hotel a few blocks from the demolition area, where he bandages his wound. They drink whiskey while Blackie relates a Vietnam battle experience. All through the day Timbo thinks about Jeanne, his San Francisco girlfriend. Mostly erotic visions of her body, her hair, her lips, her lovely guitar-playing presence, her unique anti-Vietnam hippie character, He continues to have a problem with his decision to leave Jeanne in San Francisco.
After the whiskey session with Blackie, Timbo fantasizes an aerial body trip by Jeanne down the misty coastal skies from Frisco to visit him in Blackies hotel room. Jeanne tries to lure Timbo with a dance of veils but her conversation with him seems firm and unyielding and the visit lacks any resolution to Timbos problem. The last scene finds Timbo departing the hotel with a bottle of scotch, which he plans to leave for one of his fellow admen. On his walk back to the newspaper Timbo begins to realize that the extent to which the Vietnam conflict and the passage of time have changed his town, the newspaper, the merchants, the returning veterans and even his relationship with Jeanne.
