- During a heatwave it's way nicer to be in the country than in the city, so some politicians host a party out in the boondocks. This party has baseball, beer and fireworks. Fireworks are Mother's Younger Brother's only passion. Well, that's not exactly true: he also likes that model Evelyn Nesbit.
- Evelyn's husband Harry K. Thaw has just shot and killed her former lover Stanford White. So she's living in a hotel in New York rehearsing her testimony for the trial. She's doing this even though Harry used to beat her before their marriage.
- Harry's in jail at the Tombs, but the lucky guy, still gets his meals catered in. Evelyn visits regularly, sometimes performing sexual acts on him. She tells the reporters he's innocent but is secretly receiving two hundred thousand dollars for her testimony.
- She grew up in a coal town and thinks she's doing pretty well for herself now. After all, $200K isn't exactly peanuts. That would be approximately five million bucks today.
- Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the novelist Theodore Dreiser obsesses over his bad reviews, and how he should set up his chair.