LOGLINE

After his career, marriage and carefully constructed identity implode, a tightly wound New York hospitality executive decides the logical response is to run across America. But storms, roadside disasters, accidental internet fame and strangers with no boundaries destroy every plan he makes — slowly resurrecting the reckless kid he used to be, Ricky, and forcing him to decide whether reaching the coast matters more than becoming someone his family might actually want back.

THE STORY

Richard Walker has spent thirty years being useful. Reservations. Clients. Problems. Answers. He is the man people call when something goes wrong.

Then his own life does.

Career gone. Marriage cracked. Kids disappointed.

So Richard builds a plan.

Then starts running across America.

Mileage. Motels. Calories. Weather. Shoe rotation. A total psychological collapse — color-coded.

Then America starts wrecking the itinerary.

An Iowa storm drives him into the Silver Spur, where Staci hears him explain that Richard belongs to banks and lawyers, Rich belongs to work, and Ricky was the kid who disappeared all day on a bike, climbed things he shouldn’t and somehow got home before dinner. She decides his administration has failed.

From now on, he is Ricky Walker.

The internet agrees.

One ridiculous selfie becomes RUN RICKY RUN, and the man trying to disappear becomes accidentally famous before he has even decided who Ricky is.

Then the detours multiply.

He runs through a livestock parade wearing a sash he didn’t earn. A motel wedding feeds him, dresses him and somehow puts him in charge of marriage advice. A retired RV couple adopts him across three states. A local TV interview ends with a drone in a cornfield. A nine-year-old humiliates him at horseshoes. One morning forty runners are waiting outside his motel.

Someone has made shirts.

“Who authorized shirts?”

Nobody knows.

Every disaster strips away another Richard instinct: control, efficiency, status, certainty. His backpack gets lighter. His notebook fills with names instead of mileage. He starts taking roads people tell him not to take because “there’s nothing out there.”

There is always something out there.

And underneath the comedy are Evie, Alex and Ellie.

He misses them every mile.

He realizes he is not running because he wants to leave them. He is running because showing up as the same man would only be showing up.

He wants to come back.

By the time Ricky reaches the Pacific, he understands the run did not save him.

The detours did.

The strangers did.

The humiliation did.

Richard Walker left New York trying to outrun failure.

Ricky Walker comes home willing to live inside uncertainty.

Not fixed.

Not forgiven.

Just finally there.

TAKE THE LONG WAY.

The shortest route back to yourself is usually the one you never planned.