A smart parrot who actually talks, paulie, joins the story of his own struggle to a Russian immigrant who works as a janitor at the research institute where he neglected and could be housed. Paulie's story begins several years earlier when he could be given as a present to a young girl who stutters. Eventuallyhe instructs the girl to speak properly but is taken away by her daddy because he considers the girl can't distinguish dream from reality because she considers the bird could talkabout. Paulie goes with a Mexican American troubadour, an aging widow, also a pawn store owner and a in which he lives