"Burn"
David, the narrator and protagonist of all the connected stories in this collection, relates the night he went out to score some pot, discovered he had lost the money to pay for it, and comes across the unexpected sight of his friend Fellis spread out on the ground with his hair stuck in the frozen snow sitting atop a swamp. Against his friend's objections and finding no other solution to the problem, he finally convinces Fellis that the only means of escape is cutting his long hair and setting him free. Upon making it back to Fellis's lives with their mom, David is rewarded with money to go out and complete his search for weed, beer, and chips. They also make plans to burn the scalped section of Fellis' hair.
"In a Jar"
David and his mom have just settled into their new home on the reservation when he discovers a glass jar hidden beneath the stoop. The jar is filled with teeth, hair, and corn and instantly his mother terms it bad medicine; a cursed object that must be disposed of. She calls upon her friend Frick, a medicine man, to conduct the removal and cleansing ritual. Almost immediately, Frick moves into the home and a few months later David's sister Paige shows up pregnant. One night David and Paige are lying in bed when they hear knocking suddenly screams and reveal that she has a bite mark on her thigh even though she'd been wearing pants. Frick conducts a ceremony in case the mysterious bite was the result of the cursed jar. The entire foursome heads out to the nearby wilderness to conduct a mystery ritual targeted toward helping Paige.
"Get Me Some Medicine"
Fellas have enrolled in college just to get a refund check from financial aid and six months of Amazon Prime free for being a student. He and David spend days binge-watching The Sopranos and getting high and gambling at cards until the money runs out. When Fellis loses all his money, David suggests he can make it back by hunting and selling porcupines. They stop by a bar where Fellis spots a drug dealer named Meekew and he urges David to follow him as he tries to score. The two men get into a physical fight that Meekew seems on his way to winning when Fellis cries out he is being stabbed. David hits Mewkew over the head with three big cans of beer and he drops like a sack. David learns that there was no knife and is concerned that he may have killed Meekew. The next day David goes back to make sure finds only the imprint that the dealer's body had left in the soil along with the now-dead iPhone that Fellis lost in the scuffle. Fellis and his mom get into an argument over his not going to classes. David spends four days hunting for porcupines by himself, with Fellis. He stumbles across Fellis throwing sticks into a tree where a porcupine climbs out of reach.
"Food for the Common Cold"
David's mom and Frick are arguing and not for the first time by far. This time the argument is about a headstone that needs to go, according to Frick. The narrator notes that Frick had been good at one time but has gotten meaner since he became less of a medicine man and more of a drunk. One day he takes off in anger and David is left wondering why. When Frick returns, he learns that Frick wanted a child, but David's mother cannot have any more kids because she had to have a hysterectomy due to a cancerous tumor.
"In the Field of Stray Caterpillars"
David begins dating a girl who is not Native named Tabitha. The relationship is laid back and includes a lot of lying in bed watching Netflix and eating junk food. One day he bumps into a friend of his mother who ignores Tabitha while asking him why doesn't "nice Native girl." Soon after, he stops seeing Tabitha and spends most of his time hanging out with Fellis, watching TV, and a Redbox rental.
"The Blessing Tobacco"
David pretends to be his Uncle Robbie for his grandmother who is suffering from Alzheimer's. She keeps urging him to smoke cigarettes, which he does until he gets sick. Later, after returning home, a phone call alerts the family to the grandmother being found next to a wrecked car by the river.
"Safe Harbor"
David goes to visit his mother at the crisis stabilization unit at the hospital. He is there for just one reason: to bring her cigarettes. A sign reading “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for" brings an existential dilemma to the story—with David questioning the validity of comparing human beings to ships—which is just a conversation between David and mother about daily life in the unit. A car crash on the way home from the visit winds up with him back in the hospital asking the doctor if his mother knows he is there.
"Half-Life"
In "Get Me Some Medicine" David contemplates how Fellis has hit rock bottom by crossing a line that he would never cross. This is another story of trying to score drugs and this time it is David himself who crosses a line. He sinks him to the bottom. To make the score, he steals almost five-thousand dollars from his grandmother's safe.
"The Name Means Thunder"
A much older David prepares for cataract surgery as he recalls a story that happened when he was ten. Paige has given birth to a baby with no name. A sickly baby that she won't hold and so David's mother spends most of the time holding him instead. They finally name the baby, but he does not survive long and the circumstances surrounding the baby's death remain somewhat vague in the memories of the aging narrator.
