An uncomplicated melody sounds - about the grass, the heavenly expanse, foliage ...

Sixty-year-old salesman Willy Lomen walks with two large suitcases to his New York house, sandwiched between skyscrapers. He is very exhausted and a little scared: having left in the morning with samples of goods, he did not get to the place - he kept driving all the time, he could not cope with the control, and then returned home without selling anything.

Linda's wife begs Willy to agree with the owner to let her husband work in New York: at his age, it’s hard to be a traveling agent.

Willy really came a turning point: he lives, as it were, in two worlds - the real one, where his song is already sung, and in the fictional one - where he is young and where opportunities for him and his sons, Beef and Happy, are still not closed.

Willy in visions is often the eldest brother of Ben - at seventeen he left home, and by the time he was twenty fabulously wealthy in Africa's diamond mines. For Willy, his brother is the living embodiment of the American dream. He wants his sons, especially the eldest, Beef, to succeed in life too. But Beef, who was an excellent student at school, a former star of a football team, at some stage of his life, for some reason not clear to his father, suddenly wilted, lost his job and now, in his fourth decade, is constantly changing his job, without stopping for long, and success from him now further than at the beginning of the independent path.

The origins of such a sad state of affairs lie in the past. Constantly oriented by his father that he will surely succeed in life - he is so charming, but - remember, son! “In America, charm is valued above all,” Beef starts his studies, gets a low math score, and he is not given a certificate. To top it all off, when he desperately rushes to his father in a neighboring city, where he sells the goods, he finds him in a room with an outside woman. We can say that then for Beef the world collapses, all values ​​collapse. After all, his father is an ideal, he believed every word he said, and he, it turns out, always lied.

So Beef remained half-educated and, having wandered around the country, returned home, comforting himself with the illusions that his former owner, a certain Oliver, who sells sports goods, would consider it fortunate to take him back to work.

However, he does not even recognize Beef and, leaving the office, passes by. The beef, who has already booked a table in a restaurant in advance, where he and his father and brother Happy are going to “wash” the device for work, is embarrassed, discouraged and almost crushed. At the restaurant, waiting for his father, he tells Happy that he is going to tell him everything as it is. Let father look at the truth at least once in his life and realize that his son is not created for commerce. The whole trouble is, Beef concludes, that we were not accustomed to grab us in the family. The owners always laughed at their father: this business romantic, who focuses on human relations rather than self-interest, is precisely for this reason that he often lost. “We are not needed in this bedlam,” Beef adds woefully. He does not want to live among deceptive illusions, like a father, but hopes to truly find his place in the world. For him, the salesman’s wide smile and brilliantly polished shoes are not at all a symbol of happiness.

Happy scares brother's mood. He himself also achieved little, and although he proudly calls himself the deputy boss, in reality he is only “an assistant to one of the assistants”. Happy, it seems, repeats the fate of his father - builds castles in the air, hoping that optimism and a white-toothed smile will necessarily lead to wealth. Happy begs Beef to lie to his father, to say that Oliver recognized him, received him well and was delighted that he was returning to his work. And then gradually everything will be forgotten by itself.

For a while, Beef manages to pretend to be the father of a successful applicant for work in a commercial enterprise, but, as usual, his father’s cheap optimism and a set of standard phrases like: “In the business world, appearance and charm are the key to success” do their job : he breaks down and tells the truth: Oliver did not accept him, moreover, passing by, did not recognize him.

It’s hard to bear such a hit. With a cry of "You are doing everything to me in spite," he gives his son a slap in the face. Beef runs away, Happy follows him. Vivid visions, paintings flicker in front of an abandoned father: Brother Ben, calling him into the jungle, from where he can go out as a rich man; A teenage beef before a decisive football match, adoringly looking at his father and catching every word of him; a laughing woman who the same Beef found in Willy’s room. The waiter, feeling that something was wrong with the visitor, helps Willy to get dressed and go outside. He excitedly repeats that he urgently needs to buy seeds.

Linda meets her late sons home in great excitement. How could they leave father alone? He is in very bad shape, can't they see? She can say more - their father himself seeks death. Do they really think that all these troubles with the car, constant accidents - are accidental? And here is what she found in the kitchen: a rubber pipe attached to the burner. Their father is clearly thinking of suicide. Tonight he returned home very excited, said that he urgently needed to plant carrots, beets, lettuce in the garden. He took with him a hoe, a flashlight and sows seeds at night, measures the beds. “It would be better if you left home, son,” Linda says sadly to Beef, “do not torment your father.”

Beef asks her mother for permission for the last time. He himself understood that he needed to live separately: he could not try, like a father, to jump above his head all the time. One must learn to accept oneself as you are.

Meanwhile, Willy works in the garden - a little man, sandwiched in the grip of life, like his house between the skyscrapers. Today is probably the most unfortunate day in Willy’s life - in addition to being abandoned by his sons in a restaurant, the owner asked him to leave work. No, of course, he was not rude at all, he simply said that, in his opinion, it was difficult for Lomen to cope with his duties because of his poor health - but there was only one point! Thrown out!

Today, the deceased brother again appeared to him. Willy consults with him: if the insurance company does not suspect suicide, the family will receive a tidy sum of twenty thousand dollars after his death on insurance. What does Ben think: is the game worth the candle? The beef is so talented - with this money, the son will be able to turn around. The brother agrees: twenty thousand is great, although the act itself is cowardly.

The wife and sons come in during this conversation: they are already used to the fact that Willy is always talking to someone invisible, and are not surprised. Saying goodbye to his father, Beef can not stand it and cries, and Willie in surprise runs his hands over his tear-stained face. “Beef loves me, Linda,” he says enthusiastically.

Now Willy, more than ever, is convinced that he is doing the right thing, and when everyone goes to bed, he slowly slips out of the house and gets into the car, so this time he will surely meet with death ...

A small boat looking for a quiet marina, Linda recalls.