The omnipotent presence of a mothballed aircraft carrier, long forgotten since it's heyday of recovering Apollo moon missions, begins to make itself know to three generations of residents in the sleepy island town of Alameda, adrift in the San Francisco bay.

Freddie, a volatile, heavy-drinking veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, finds some semblance of a family when he stumbles onto the ship of Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of a new "religion" he forms after World War II.