Plot

When a housewife finds out she is pregnant, she runs out of town looking for freedom to reevaluate her life decisions.

Having discovered that she is pregnant, Natalie Ravenna, a Long Island housewife panics and leaves home to see if she might just possibly have made something different out of herself; if she can manage to unshackle her grocery list worth of responsibilities that add up to a life with a husband she loves. In a motel room where Natalie stops to rest during the day, she sits motionless on the bed, and experiences the exuberance of complete freedom and the queasy feelings of new beginnings. Natalie continues on with her journey and picks up a young hitch-hiker named Killer, an attractive brain-damaged football player. It is through Killer that a more disturbing question is posed to Natalie than that of domestic responsibility. How deeply are we wedded to chance meetings and are we responsible for the crimes that we witness?—alfiehitchie

Long Island housewife Natalie Ravenna has just learned that she is pregnant. Natalie doesn't know if she is well equipped to be a mother let alone a wife. Feeling trapped in her circumstances, she decides to run away to California to get as far away from her life as possible, although she, in a series of telephone calls back to her husband Vinny, is up front about what she believes she is feeling. This escape could be temporary, maybe permanent, she doesn't really know. On her drive, she picks a young, handsome hitchhiker who she learns is Jimmy "Killer" Kilgannon, the nickname gained as a former star college football player. Her sole purpose in picking him up is to have a one-night stand, so that she can emotionally escape further from her life with Vinny. When she tries to drop him off at the home of one of his former girlfriends named Ellen Brook, Natalie further learns that Killer's simple ways are because he is mentally disabled from a head injury sustained in a football game. The college paid him off to leave, Ellen has no interest in him in his mental state, and he has no family. Natalie herself becomes conflicted about helping him when she feels she can barely help herself. Among the many encounters Natalie has that affects her feelings about her life and about Killer, one with a Nebraska highway patrolman named Gordon provides her with the clearest picture, although it may come at a price.—Huggo