Lúcio comes back home drunk and tired after a party late into the night and has a fight with his wife, Terezinha. Then, a butler shows up at their door to inform them Terezinha's mother has died.

About the life and adventures of a gang of abandoned street kids known as "Capitães da Areia" (Captains of the Sands), in Salvador, Bahia, during the 1950s.