Chapman Dorset (a.k.a. Chappie, Bone) is the protagonist of the book. He is a 14-year-old drug dealer living in upstate New York with his mother and his abusive stepfather. He runs away from home to live with his best friend and a biker gang. Bone, although a hardened drug dealer on the outside, is revealed to be quite compassionate, wanting to free an abused girl named Froggy from her captor and to return his mentor I-Man back to his home. In the end he gives up on family.