In June 2012 at Keady University, Cyrus Shams reflects on growing up Iranian in the post-9/11 American Midwest, where polite complicity and racist microaggressions—a math teacher's whispered slur, a social studies teacher's casual jingoism—taught him to bite his tongue. He compares this to the Iranian etiquette of taarof, both leaving him morally compromised.

That summer Cyrus is dating Kathleen, a wealthy, oil-rich Republican business student from Arizona whose money and beauty fascinate him as much as her politics repel him. He tolerates her in part because she pays for everything and because feeling intellectually superior balances his sense of inferiority.

One stormy night they go to the Green Nile hookah bar, where their server, Zbigniew ("Zee"), a Polish-Egyptian, introduces himself. Cyrus, already on Klonopin and Focalin, drinks heavily as Kathleen makes a casually racist "Baghdad, Indiana" joke. Cyrus reflects on his ambiguous racial passing, comparing himself to Blade the day-walker.

After driving home, Cyrus tucks a drunk Kathleen into bed and walks back out alone, listening to Sonic Youth and crying ecstatically—an early, euphoric taste of the addiction he is forming. He returns to the Green Nile just before close.

Zee buys him a beer, and the two talk while Zee finishes cleaning. Zee shares an anecdote about counting on four fingers because his mother used his thumb to mean "many." When Cyrus mentions writing poems, Zee insists this makes him a poet. Zee invites Cyrus back to his apartment to drink rum and listen to Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun. They drink, talk, and eventually pass out together on the couch, shoulders barely touching—the beginning of Cyrus and Zee's friendship.