It's the 1990s. Toby just out of college in Wisconsin comes to Manhattan to spend the summer with his older cousin Packard a gay man whose lover John R. has just died of AIDS. Toby is shy the openly-gay society around him makes him nervous. Packard gives Toby a pair of John R.'s shoes; when Toby puts them on he has powerful visions of the pre-AIDS scene in the 1970s as if he's there. He also takes on a different personality when he wears the shoes more sure of himself able to express his interest in men. Wearing the shoes Toby goes to a bar hooks up with Dick and wakes up in Dick's bed. How will he handle it? And what will happen to the shoes?