In 1932, two strangers are wrongfully convicted and develop a strong friendship in prison that lasts them through the 20th century.

In the mid-1990s, two inmates bury the burned bodies of two lifers at Mississippi's infamous Parchman Farm as a third old-timer relates their story. They'd served 65 years for a murder they didn't commit, framed by a local sheriff while buying moonshine whiskey for a Manhattan club owner to whom they owed money. Flashbacks depict how this odd couple was thrown together (Ray is a fast-talking con man, and Claude is a serious man about to start work as a bank teller), the loss of Ray's watch (sterling silver, from his daddy), the murder and trial, the hardships of Parchman, and the love/hate relationship of Claude and Ray as they spend 65 years bickering and looking for a way to escape.—<[email protected]>