Parker leaves Brooklyn for art school in Valencia, California, with his father Roland’s guitar strapped across his back and dreams of becoming the musician he knows he can be. After a decade of estrangement, he surprises Roland in South Central, LA, to find him deeply in the throes of alcohol and crack cocaine, haunted by the ghosts of John Coltrane and Billie Holiday.

Though he scores bigtime with his love interest, the trauma of seeing his father in squalor turns Parker to self-medicate with cannabis and blowing off his classes, spreading himself thin with a new love for capoeira and playing in his new hardcore band. Parker gets put on academic suspension and enrolls in community college, gets a job at a daycare/after school program and gets a studio apartment in Valencia.

Fearing for Roland’s life, Parker pulls him out of a crack house and into his apartment in the suburbs. Working at the daycare and continuing to smoke while his father struggles to stay sober, both inspire Parker to find sobriety. When an opportunity to play guitar with a jazz group comes for Roland, he falls off the wagon, only to get back on with greater focus. With Roland’s sobriety firmly rooted, he leaves for Charleston and Parker gets back on track in art school. Both find a way to be free.