Jack Dunne is an amnesiac Vietnam veteran who seems to be living with a heavy shadow of PTSD. He escapes a V.A. mental ward in New York City with a simple, stubborn dream: to start a worm-farming business in Eureka, California. This impulse sets him rolling across the country, a journey that is less about the destination than about the process of remembering, coping, and trying to belong somewhere again.
At the city bus station, he meets Carol Bell, a woman who feels unsure about her engagement and the path she’s about to walk down. Their initial clash—his wild, disruptive energy and her growing irritation—gives way to a slow, tentative connection as they share a ride through middle America toward Northern California. Along the way, Carol begins to reconsider the wedding she’s about to undertake while Jack clings to a more uncertain hope: to locate his three war buddies and recruit them into his dream of starting a worm farm that could perhaps ground him in something real.
Their road trip brings them to a pivotal moment with Harrison Ford’s character, Jack Boyd, a stock-car racer whose own venture into raising rabbits—an essential part of the worm-farming plan—turns out to be incomplete. Jack Dunne’s presence in Boyd’s world becomes a catalyst: he ends up racing the stock car and finishing in third place, a small victory that nevertheless changes their course. Boyd then passes the car along to Jack and Carol, a symbolic gesture that hands them both a vehicle and a sense of possibility—an opportunity to push forward, even if the road ahead remains uncertain.
As their journey continues, they check into a motel, and trouble follows. Jack is robbed outside a bar, only to be rescued by Carol when she crashes a car into the bar during a tense confrontation. The pair flee the scene, a sharp reminder of how fragile safety can be on the edge of memory and danger. Their path leads them to the suburban home of Adcox, an Army buddy who is not there but whose wife and family are a living reminder of the sacrifices and strains of their shared past. Unable to stay, they press on to Eureka, after narrowly escaping a police stop that stems from driving a damaged car.
With their transport abandoned at a repair shop, Jack and Carol hitchhike toward California, the weight of their experiences growing heavier with every mile. A visit to the parents of the third buddy reveals a devastating truth: their friend had died in the war. This revelation fractures Jack’s careful defenses, and the battlefield memories surge into the present—Eureka’s streets become the battlefield he once survived, the scenes bleeding into one another as trauma replays with brutal clarity. It’s in this crucible of memory that Carol’s quiet, steadfast compassion begins to pierce the veil of denial surrounding Jack’s reality.
In the end, it is Carol’s care and understanding that helps Jack move from avoidance to acceptance. The story closes on a note of cautious hope: by facing the ghosts of the past with someone who believes in him, Jack can begin to build a future that isn’t defined by the war, the ward, or the long road behind him, but by a shared possibility of healing and a life that can still be meaningful beyond the trauma.
