Highway Sailor

When the woman Jake Massry lives with leaves him for another man because he can't succeed as a writer, and his Old World father, on his deathbed, orders him to get a "real" job, Jake, to get his head straight, hits the highways of America in his worn-out VW bus Old Bones in search of himself and his country. It's Spring 1974--prices are spiraling upward and President Nixon is embroiled in the Watergate fiasco. As he travels from place to place in Old Bones (or rather pushes him), Jake meets a colorful cast of characters of sexy women, gays, born-again Christians, philosophers, racists, bullies and Gary Morse, a 19-year-old hitchhiker who possesses a large "red ruby" given to him by a young heiress.