In the midst of one of late twentieth century America’s worst recessions, Ed Podolak, an unemployed worker from western Pennsylvania, winds up in Cleveland looking for a job. It’s Christmas Eve, and all he has to his name is forty-eight bucks—and that isn’t nearly enough to buy Christmas presents for his wife and his kids. On impulse, he steals a wad of cash from the kettle of a downtown street-corner Santa. He thinks he’s gotten away with it—until he realizes he’s been observed by a bright-eyed six-year-old boy.