George, an eleven-year-old boy and a nighty bed wetter, is more concerned about making it to adulthood than waking up in a dry bed. George doesn't want much out of life, only to be like his cousin, who's a US Navy enlisted man who smokes and blows fat smoke rings. George wants to grow up to do both things.

He has an older brother who says aloud that George will most likely end up in an insane asylum due to his bed-wetting.

Eventually, George's mother stops beating him for wetting his bed, and his father, a drunk and a doctor, dies from a fall from a ladder, for which George is responsible.