| No. | Internal title / situation | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| I | GONE OUT (IN THE MANNER OF ALL LIGHTS) | A compressed city prelude: dead glamour, broken sidewalks, living outside and within. |
| II | METRO BUS LINE 2 (STROKER ON “THE TWO”) | A man masturbates in a rolling office chair on a Metro bus while driver and passengers apparently choose not to intervene. The bizarre chair becomes as much a mystery as the act. |
| III | HILLHURST HOUNDSLEY | A heat-struck dog walk and near-miss with a car turns into a request from a woman to intervene against a familiar street aggressor attacking several people. The narrator refuses the conscription into vigilante duty. |
| IV | PARADOX CITY | A nude man called Gary waits near an elementary school, believes he may know the narrator and asks whether Axl Rose is his father. Minutes later another man brandishes a long piece of sharpened metal on the same nocturnal walk. |
The four scenes progressively complicate what “unkind” means: exposure, neglect, aggression, refusal, threat and self-preservation move between observer and observed. The publication is therefore a useful bridge between Los Angeles civic life, witness and violence / coercion.