Bobby Gentile, whose brother is MIA in Vietnam, comes up #3 in the 1969 draft lottery and must decide if he's going off to war or fleeing the country, while the FBI zeroes in on him for his possible link to a large drug deal.

SYNOPSIS:

In 1967, Bobby Gentile’s biggest concerns were keeping his ‘55 Plymouth looking brand new and spending time with his best friend Rusty Collins, mostly talking about girls and Rusty’s aspirations of becoming a rock drummer. After all, what else was there? He could never be what brother Matt had been at Blue Lake High School. Matt was a championship wrestler. As a matter of fact, he lettered in three sports. And now Matt is a Green Beret, almost “invulnerable... like superman”. So, when Coach Morse asks Bobby if he’s interested in going out for the wrestling team, Bobby just doesn’t know. He’s Matt’s brother... not Matt.

What a difference two years makes for Bobby. 1969. His cherished ‘55 Plymouth is now nothing more than a good place to smoke joints and listen to tunes with his cool, new friend, Jerry Zimmer. Rusty’s an army man and Matt is now missing in action “in connection with the conflict in Vietnam”. This war in Asia has brought itself right to Bobby’s doorstep and inside his home where he and his father Mac finally engage violently, each on opposite sides of this issue and others, much to mother Dee’s painful chagrin. In Mac’s eyes, Matt is his only son. Bobby, a 19 year-old junior college student, moves out on his own.

In school only to avoid the draft, #3 with a bullet in the draft lottery, employed now in a newspaper mailroom, Bobby gives up on his education and looks for other ways to get out of this war he doesn’t believe in. Girlfriend, Ginny, offers support, but feels she’s losing touch with Bobby. Bobby feels it too.

When Rusty “comes marching home” minus his right arm, the dire nature of what could ultimately face Bobby comes quickly and clearly into focus, especially when he and his long time friend are lured into an LSD/draft card burning experience by Jerry, which results in a “bad trip” and serious injury for Rusty, who jumps back into his Vietnam experience when he leaps off a highway catwalk, just out of Bobby’s grasp.

Bobby, hassled incessantly at work by redneck, “hippie”- hater Mike Cullen, finally explodes and attacks Cullen, which gets him fired. With other options falling fast by the wayside, Bobby braces Dee and sister Annie for what seems to be his only alternative, Canada.

Through some skillful and devious deception by “friend” Jerry, Bobby becomes an FBI suspect in a case involving the sale of a large number of LSD tabs. He’s under surveillance and doesn’t have the slightest inkling of how close he is to “going down” and how he’s being used.

After word comes of brother Matt’s death, and the imminent return of his remains, the gap between Bobby and Mac can finally close. Bobby sums up his “condition” at Rusty’s hospital bedside when he says, “I lost my job, I’m broke, my car died, my girlfriend prefers a thespian to me, I got a notice for my pre-induction physical and my brother came home in a hatbox.”

When Bobby finally realizes that he has been made a patsy in the drug investigation, he comes up with a plan involving his family that will help him avoid the FBI, the call to arms in Vietnam, and get him on the road to his own form of freedom in Canada.