Ominous happenings at the Bay Area State Hospital (BASH) for the criminally insane, hidden away in the coastal marshlands of South Carolina have frustrated security chief, Lyle Dawkins. He calls on ambitious small town tabloid publisher Ash Roper to go undercover to help with the investigation. What is supposed to be a half day adventure masquerading as a patient turns into a nightmare of mistaken identity. Ash is aided by the hard drinking, blues playing psychiatrist, Doc Kerrigan, who recounts events that changed the lives of people inside and outside the barbed wire fences of BASH on that hot July Fourth weekend.