When aging, balding, copy editor Ernest "Sparky" Hemingway (no relation)
gets a call from the daughter of his Vietnam buddy George Washington
(also no relation), he is faced with a choice. He can head out to
Minneapolis to help her out of a jam or hang up the phone--and this
phone call has the potential to turn Sparky's life upside down. He's
managed to erect a pretty effective cocoon around himself over the last
few years, and no amount of aggravation (or thoughts about his long-gone
ex-wife) can get through his very carefully nurtured shell. He's very
comfortable living (well, maybe just existing) in the little North
Dakota town of Hardwoods, filled with its decidedly odd folks who just
do what they have to in order to get along, where everybody knows
everybody else's secret but pretends they don't. He's left alone, and
that's the way Sparky likes it.
But you don't walk away from a promise. Especially when that promise was
made to somebody who pulled your butt out of more unfriendly and
friendly fire than a hailstorm of June bugs. You don't ask, you just do.
His fellow vet buddy Doc Holiday (you guessed it, no relation) meets him
in Minneapolis and tosses him a .45, which comes in handy when they run
into a hard time with some gang-bangers who are after the girl in
question. They rescue Washington's teenage daughter, Tenisha, and Doc
and Sparky split up, Sparky taking Tenisha and her cat back to his
place.
Between dealing with the aforementioned gang-bangers, the Minneapolis
police, who are hassling Sparky, Doc's brain tumor, and the mostly white
town Sparky lives in taking umbrage at the color of Tenisha's skin--not
to mention having to haul a four-month-pregnant neighbor and her baby to
his house for safety during a blizzard--Sparky thinks he's handling
himself pretty well.
And then things start to get weird.
