Neglected by his parents, a portly teenager finds refuge with a gang of young thugs in Lisbon.

Charly, a young man in his thirties, is illiterate. He hides this handicap by combining humor and a sense of trickery. Charly found his mode of expression: music, for which and by which he lives while searching in the metro with his friends. It is there that he will meet Marie, seduced by this marginal sax player. Marie, despite the tricks deployed by Charly, will quickly realize that he is illiterate. But love has already given Charly the desire to learn to read...