Beginning with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the North Philadelphia neighborhood of Logan experienced a massive change and shifting population. The racial boiling point in Philadelphia was ten years later in 1978. Ben's is set in the summer of that year when turf wars, crime and political upheaval were rampant in the city. The central character, Torch, is the writer of a small-time number who works for Bah-Bah, the head of a lucrative gambling and loan shark operation in south Philadelphia. When Bah-Bah is forced to change the location of his business and go underground, he runs into some tense situations with the members of Ben's. They are a loosely organized group of young men-including Torch-who are engaged in various types of petty crime and hustles. The situation is made more complicated and dangerous by the existence of a hidden meth lab and several, local, rogue cops who want to find it and rip it off.