Grieving over the death of his son and the disintegration of his marriage, a man is driven to mental instability when he learns that both his home and his workplace will be demolished to make way for an extension to an interstate highway.

[2] During a man-on-the-street news interview in August 1972, an unnamed man (later identified as Barton George Dawes) gives his angry opinion of a new highway extension project.

Dawes resigns his middle management job at the laundry after sabotaging the purchase of its new facility, and his wife Mary leaves him once she learns of both these actions and his failure to find a new house for the couple.

Dawes then approaches Salvatore "Sal" Magliore, the owner of a local used-car dealership with ties to organized crime, in an attempt to obtain explosives.

Once the reporter has left, Dawes puts on "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by The Rolling Stones, tosses his guns out the window, and sets off his explosives, destroying the house and killing himself.

A short epilogue reveals that the reporter and his team ultimately won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the incident and uncovered the truth about the extension project: there was no real reason for it.

The city quietly began preparing to sue Mary for her share of the eminent domain payout, but dropped the suit in the wake of public outcry.

[4]In Apt Pupil (1982), Todd Bowden sees an injured blue jay on the ground while cycling; the bird's beak opens and closes slowly.