Billy and Buford, two hopelessly dim drifters with lifelong histories of trouble, each face ten-year sentences in jail. Managing to escape from the prison van, the two split up with plans to rendezvous down the road. Billy hitches a ride and witnesses-actually is partly responsible for-an accident in which the only survivor is a months-old baby. Clueless about caring for an infant, he elicits aid at a broken-down trailer park, where the inhabitants-a casino croupier who recently gave up her own baby for adoption, a leggy chorine and her aged Native American boyfriend, and a vulnerable young waitress-take him and the baby in. When Buford finally arrives on the scene, he threatens to break up the ad hoc family of misfits when he realizes that the baby may attract a ransom.