16-year-old Petr has just started his first job--patrolling for shoplifters in a grocery store. An unsure young man, he is now an agent of the established order, yet he looks on complacently when a stout woman steals some candy. His father, a part time bandmaster, is a petty dictator--Petr resists playing audience to his habitual old-school monologues. His father lacks any direction for the future and Petr is confused and adrift. The disappointments and bewilderments of youth, traditional generational conflict, and a sense of cultural paralysis animate this slender story of human moments that bind, rather than divide, young and old.