A young marine returns from Iraq, blinded and scarred by a roadside bomb and harbouring a terrible secret. Called Black Jesus by his fellow soldiers on account of his name being Lionel White and his birthday being Christmas Day, he has returned to his decaying home town to sit in the back of his mother's junkshop, pop Oxycontin and try to forget what he knows. Into his life one day rides Gloria, a young dancer with a mysterious past and shocking injuries of her own, who is fleeing darkness and violence of a different kind.