Norwood is a nice young ex-Marine from Ralph, Texas. He lives with his sister Vernell alongside U.S. Highway 82 in a tin-roof house that has carburetors and things in the yard. He works at the Nipper service station, thinks about going to Shreveport to get on a hillbilly music show, and tries to get in touch with an old Marine buddy, now in New York, who owes him $70. After Vernell marries and brings home Bill Bird--who lives off a VA pension and just bumps around the house in an old corduroy bathrobe--Norwood gets a bit put out. When he runs into Grady Fring the Kredit King, he's glad to take up Grady's offer to deliver a car to New York. A lot of things happen on the way to New York. Then, on the way back--in a Trailways bus--Norwood collects a wife named Rita Lee ('I was afraid of this,' she said. 'I was afraid the minute I sat down here you would think I was looking for love on a bus'), the second shortest midget in show business ('I lied to you a minute ago. I am not actually the world's smallest perfect man. Not any more. I do have reason to believe I am the world's smallest perfect fat man'), and a chicken who does tricks.