Plot
Peacetime sailor John J. Baggs is unable to get paid or receive new orders because somehow the U.S. Navy has lost his file. He is able to come and go from the base until curfew.
One night in a bar, he spots an attractive woman hustling guys at a pool table. He challenges her himself and develops an interest in the woman, Maggie, who turns out to be a prostitute living in a tenement with a young black son, Doug.
Baggs begins spending time with Maggie at the apartment, where Doug is often left to fend for himself. His attempts at creating a normal life for her succeed for a while, but Maggie cannot change the way she is. Doug, suspicious and cynical at first, bonds with Baggs, who devotes his free time to the kid and even gets his teeth fixed. But both know that soon Baggs will be reassigned and gone for good.
The Navy's mix-up continues to baffle Baggs until one day a veteran sailor named Forshay not only finds the file, but volunteers to change places with Baggs and ship out under a false name. Baggs and Doug may not have Maggie around any more, but they've got each other.
Read more about this topic: Cinderella Liberty
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)