Sometimes home in Alabama is not so sweet...

A passing train pulling two yellow cabooses guarantees a promising future. So says the local legend. Though Mickey's mom witnessed the rare occurrence when she was a senior in high school, life for the two of them is anything BUT. No man in the home. Welfare. No car. Clothes from the local Methodist mission. A dumpy trailer in a trailer park. And all the labels and stereotypes that come with life at the poverty line for white folks. At school, twelve-year-old Mickey is nameless, powerless, and invisible.

Things take a turn for the better when Mickey meets Abe, a resourceful black man and former Navy SEAL. A fast friendship develops, and Abe begins filling the fatherless void in Mickey's life. In his determination to help Mickey rise above his disadvantages, Abe not only disrupts the small Alabama town's social structure, but also incites its wealthiest and most malevolent citizen.

Now forced to run the gauntlet, it will take all of Abe's skills and then some if he and Mickey are to survive.