Ambitious, but ill-educated, naïve, and immature, Clyde Griffiths is raised by poor and devoutly religious parents to help in their street missionary work. As a young adult, Clyde must, to help support his family, take menial jobs as a soda jerk, then a bellhop at a prestigious Kansas City hotel. There, his more sophisticated colleagues introduce him to bouts of social drinking and sex with prostitutes. Enjoying his new lifestyle, Clyde becomes infatuated with manipulative Hortense Briggs, who takes advantage of him. After being in a car accident in which a young girl loses her life, Clyde is forced to run away from the town in search for the new life.