Being a cop can be a tough and thankless job, especially if you are the only white constable, responsible for the law and order of the entire riverfront village of Bourkassa in French West Africa of 1938. The sole constable of Clean Slate (1981) is confronted by a revolting and degraded array of human garbage. The river is full of bloated bodies floating seaward from random insurgencies upstream. Smugglers, moonshiners, gunrunners, pimps, and whores--all of them treat the beleaguered sheriff as if he is their personal manservant. That is until he begins systematically killing them off one by one.