Darren Vender, a 22-year-old Starbucks manager, wakes up at 6:15 on May 20, unaware that is life is about to change. He gives himself an appraising look in the mirror and goes downstairs to join Ma for breakfast, disgusted as usual by the smell of coffee, which he calls “black crack.” He pays homage to the photograph of his dead father, and his gorgeous mother tells him, as usual, that he should go to college and that he can’t just wait for “the right opportunity” to fall into his lap (5). She’s been coughing a lot in the past month, and Darren wants her to quit her job at the Clorox factory; she agrees to do so if he makes something of himself.

Darren heads out of the three-story brownstone his mom owns to catch the G train from Bed-Stuy to Park Avenue. On the way, he greets Mr. Aziz, the Yemeni bodega owner and father of his girlfriend, Soraya. He talks to his best friend, Jason, who is selling drugs on the corner, trying to get out before the encroaching forces of gentrification take over the area; and Wally Cat, an old-school local whose interest in Darren’s mom is not something Darren appreciates, but whose knowledge of horse racing and investing skills he emulates.