 A young boy named Marlon finds himself in a padded cell. His keepers are impatient and unkind. Marlon struggles to understand his situation but it becomes increasingly surreal as his doctor puts him through a battery of cruel and seemingly meaningless tests. The sound of the harmonica that strangely appears through the slot of his cell door seems to comfort Marlon and remind him of something else. The music frees him and he reappears in his own home. His father, disinterested and alcoholic, tries to talk to Marlon but again he escapes through sound or in this case, the lack of sound; Marlon cannot hear. Baton Boy is a surreal drama in which it is almost always impossible to know what is real and what is imagined by Marlon as a result of his abuse.