eventeen-year-old Frederick Weber is in a peck of trouble. Recently, he cold-cocked a young man at a party for calling his girlfriend, Lilac Johnson, a “bitch.” The young man he cold-cocked is in the mob, most likely an enforcer. His girlfriend isn’t really his girlfriend, but his intended girlfriend.

   But to his way of thinking, he’s already invested plenty in her: he could well go to jail for assault. He sets out now to make her his girlfriend. Only she has no interest in him. She’s pregnant, most likely from her recent boyfriend, and she’s in no mood for his persistent efforts at amour.

   On the other hand, he discovers a weakness in her armor: a fancy car. Now begins his spiral downward as he borrows a load of money to pay off a corrupt judge, buy a fancy red car, and get a much better apartment than the one he’s currently got, on the second floor of a snoopy old lady’s house—and rat-infested to boot.

   And that fancy red car? A bunch of hooligans have beat it to death with tire irons. And he forgot to get insurance. Will ever-demanding Lilac Johnson stay with him or not?  And what about his life? How should he feel about his fast-track descent into the abyss?