Hank lives with his aging racist father, Buck, and his own twentysomething son, Sonny. Hank and Sonny work for the local prison, where they are preparing the electric chair for a black inmate. Hank winds up falling in love with the inmate's widow, who is not aware that Hank knew her husband. Meanwhile, the prison job has affected Sonny's psyche on such a deep level that he ends up meeting his own tragic end, while the racist Buck gets what he deserves.