Simon is a downwardly mobile, urban white guy who hustles a living selling bootleg music on the streets of New York City's Lower East Side. Ludlow Street chick Cyd, who has a real job, humps Simon weekday mornings. Simon's bootleg-wannabe sidekick Fuller has innocent romantic fantasies about Cyd. Enter Cynthia Sley of 1-900-BOXX (an all-girl militant punk band) who, having learned that Simon is selling her music, pays a violent visit with her thugs. Further complicating Simon's life, a girl from his past, Marty, shows up with her suitcase to announce that Simon's mom has died. To replace his smashed equipment, Simon borrows money from Mr. Bunch, his fat middle-aged mentor. Simon and Fuller tape a 1-900-BOXX gig. The band comes after them, beats Fuller, and hounds Simon out of the city with Marty in tow. But there's no escape for Simon; he is drawn inexorably back to the neighborhood where he's freed from his past in a final terrifying reckoning with fate.