Dark surreal view of a New York that is mostly empty of humans and populated only by rats and a few eccentrics. Lafayette is a young French electrician living on his own in a basement who works for the odd owner of a waxwork museum and also for a feminist theatre group. When the women decide to improvise a piece about rape, the attractive Angelica volunteers to rape Lafayette. Beside the sea, Lafayette finds an abandoned baby chimpanzee which he adopts. Angelica, who enjoyed the rape, moves into his sordid flat and shares in the care of the infant chimp. However, when Lafayette does not respond to the news that she is pregnant, she moves out. Alone again, he returns one day to find his baby ape eaten by rats. In total despair and needing human contact, he breaks into the waxwork museum but is met with hostility by the owner. The two fight and a fire, presumably caused by faulty wiring, consumes them both. Later, we see Angelica on the shore playing happily with her child.