Third Man is a story about boxing and five black brothers surviving the deep south in the 1950's. After being abandoned by their parents, the Paul boys; Sam, Peter, Jimmy, Robert and John - who goes by Flap Jack, do what they must to provide for one another. The boys live in a two-room shack on Mill Street just south of the rusty bridge along the railroad tracks. They have a lot of fight and a little faith, when they meet an old man with a book at the edge of the riverbank.