In 1964, in the Cabrini-Green project of Chicago, African-American high school senior LeRoy “Preach” Jackson and his best friend Richard “Cochise” Morris attend Cooley High, a vocational school, along with their good friends Pooter, Willie and Tyrone. Although Preach has strong writing abilities and loves poetry, he continually skips classes. One afternoon after avoiding school all week, Preach returns to class on Friday, but minutes into a boring lecture on the virtues of Cooley students, he fakes a nosebleed and, joined by the others, sneaks away to spend the afternoon at the zoo. Later, the friends return too late for classes, so go to the neighborhood diner, Martha’s, where their classmates dance to jukebox music, snack and, in the back near the bathroom, gamble over a dice game. As soon as they arrive at Martha’s, the pair learn from classmate Dorothy that their history exam has been moved to Monday, forcing them to study over the weekend. A little later when Cochise urges Preach to leave a dice game dominated by petty crooks Stone and Robert, the young men are startled by attractive and unflappable schoolmate Brenda, who demands to get through their game to reach the bathroom. When the others refuse to move, Martha clears the way waving a meat cleaver threateningly. Before going home for dinner, Preach and Cochise meet their some-time girlfriends, Johnny Mae and Sandra to make out. Although Johnny Mae is comfortable with “going all the way” with Cochise, Sandra refuses to “give anything away” to Preach. At home that evening, Cochise’s mother Melba, avoids telling him whether she has received the welfare check, but admits that she has had to bail her boyfriend Jimmie Lee out of jail. Later Cochise finds a sealed envelope floating in the toilet and, opening it carefully, reads that he has earned a sports scholarship to college the following year. After dinner, Cochise slips away to meet Preach and the others. To celebrate his news, the friends each take a sip from a wine bottle after first dripping a little on the ground “for absent friends.” The gang then moves on to a private party thrown by Dorothy in her family’s apartment as her parents are away for the evening. After Dorothy turns away Stone and Robert, Preach and Cochise scheme to get into the party without paying the twenty-five cent cover charge. While Tyrone flirts and charms Dorothy, Preach offers to watch the door and lets his friend sneak in for free. Once inside, Cochise spots alluring Loretta Brown and asks her to dance, Tyrone continues flirting with Dorothy, while Pooter cannot get any girls interested in him. Meanwhile, Preach tracks Brenda down to a back room where she is reading the poetry of Robert Browning. Although initially dubious when Preach declares he likes Browning, Brenda is moved when Preach lovingly quotes a contemporary poet. Their subsequent talk is interrupted moments later, however, by the arrival of the volatile Damon, who, spotting his usual date, Loretta, clinging to Cochise, ignores Dorothy’s pleas and starts a fight. Pleased with the mayhem, the friends goes in search of Jimmy Lee at Roscoe’s Lounge, but he has conned a man into paying to visit a prostitute, then stolen the man’s money. When the others decide to go home, the restless, Preach and Cochise agree to cruise with Stone and Robert, unaware that they have stolen the Cadillac they are in. When Preach insists that he once drove a Maserrati sports car, Stone insists that he drive them around, only to discover that Preach does not know how to drive. Preach panics when a police car pulls up beside him at a light, and speeds off, prompting a wild chase that ends up inside a huge warehouse where the boys just manage to escape. In his excitement at escaping, Preach inadvertently plows the Cadillac into the back of another car and all the boys run away before the police arrive. The next morning, the friends meet at Willie’s to study for the history exam, but, growing bored, they steal Willie’s little brother’s Lone Ranger badge. Preach and Cochise then approach two prostitutes and threaten to arrest them unless they pay bribe money. Realizing too late that the boys are using a toy badge, the women chase after them and their money in vain. The boys spend the money by taking their girlfriends to see a movie, where a fight breaks out after Pooter inadvertently spills popcorn on someone. Later, Preach returns home, where his mother orders him to look after his younger sisters, Tooty and Dee, as she heads off to work. Expecting Brenda, Preach orders the reluctant Tooty to take their sister to a neighbor. When Brenda arrives, Preach is surprised when she confesses to being a virgin, but is also moved. After the couple has sex, in his delight Preach blurts out that he has won the dollar bet he made with Cochise that he could get Brenda to bed. Furious, Brenda storms out just as Tooty returns and catches the two together partially undressed. Monday at school, Preach attempts to placate Brenda, but she refuses to speak to him, only to abruptly kiss him when she sees Sandra glowering nearby. History teacher Mr. Mason then stops Preach sneaking into class to tell him that if he does not pass the exam he will also flunk the course. Before the exam can begin, however, two plain clothes detectives arrive and charge Preach and Cochise with grand theft auto. At police headquarters, the boys see that Stone and Robert have also been picked up. Each are interrogated separately, and Preach and Cochise lies contradict each other. Unknown to them Mr. Mason arrives and privately vouches for both young men as youthfully reckless but not lawless. On the teacher’s word, the boys are let go, but Stone and Robert believe that the pair have implicated them. That evening, Preach climbs into an upper window to get into the house to avoid his mother, but finds a note from Tooty that Mrs. Jackson is working a to know why he was arrested and why he brought home Brenda instead of watching his sisters. Although Preach is relieved, his mother arrives soon after and demands explanations for his arrest and bringing Brenda home instead of babysitting his sisters. Ignoring his explanations, Mrs. Jackson orders Preach to get his belt so she can punish him, but by the time he has sheepishly returned, his mother has fallen into an exhausted sleep. The next day, Preach and Cochise are shocked to learn from Tyrone, Damon and others, that Stone and Robert hold them responsible for their arrest. Later, when Preach skips Mr. Mason’s class, the teacher discovers him gambling in the boys’ bathroom and asks why he is squandering his intellectual abilities. When Preach tells Mr. Mason that his ambition is to “live forever,” the exasperated teacher confesses that he is through saving him. Realizing that it was on Mr. Mason’s word that he and Cochise were released from jail, Preach hurries to explain to his friend. At Jimmy Lee’s he is stunned to learn that Cochise spent the afternoon in with Sandra. Angered that his best friend would betray him, Preach takes a swing at him and storms away. Going to Martha’s, Preach finds Brenda and, without his usual bragging air, apologizes and asks for another chance. Before he can continue, however, Preach overhears Damon greeting Stone and Robert who have just been released from jail on bail. Alarmed, Preach pleads with Brenda to meet him a few blocks away under the elevated train stop and attempts to hide in the bathroom, before Martha, wielding her cleaver, drives Storm and Robert out. As Storm and Robert’s gang chase Preach away from Martha’s, Cochise runs into the waiting Brenda who relates the confrontation at the diner. After Preach evades the gang by hiding in a dumpster, he picks up Brenda, but on the train when she mentions seeing Cochise, he realizes the gang will be looking for him too. While Preach disembarks at the next stop to return to Martha’s neighborhood, Storm, Robert and their gang come upon Cochise and beat him savagely, finally slamming him into a metal beam. Preach finds his friend unconscious and Cochise dies while Preach calls for help in vain. A few days later at Cochise’s funeral, Preach stands apart from the small service and afterward goes to the casket for a personal farewell. Toasting “absent friends,” Preach drinks from a wine bottle and recites a poem he has written for his friend. After promising Cochise that he and their friends will all be fine, Preach jogs away from the cemetery, confident in his future.