Back in New York City, this wasn’t much of a problem, but now, on a cross-country road trip with his chaotic and charismatic friend Jason it’s turning into a real drag. All Jason seems to want to do is stop at strip club after strip club but that's not Darren’s scene. Plus, he’s beyond broke, and being asked if he wants to dance when he can’t even afford a gas-station burrito is downright embarrassing. Relegated to the passenger seat night after night, Darren sits alone at the bars sipping on a well-vodka tonic and sulking—until a glimmer of hope enters his world and changes everything. 

Her name is Strawberry.

 

Strawberry’s not like the other girls at the clubs. She doesn’t want Darren’s money. She’s authentic. She likes him for him. Sparks fly over a couple drinks and he musters the courage to ask her out for pancakes. To his utter disbelief, she actually says yes. Now he has a real reason to get into the driver's seat. At 4 am Darren manages, barely, to wrestle Jason’s car into gear, lurching the entire way back to the club, only to find the parking lot is empty. No Strawberry. No date. Nobody at all, except a lone security guard who can offer nothing but pity. He’s been stood up. 

 

Defeated and deflated, Darren grinds the car back into gear.  Alone in the dark, he faces the greatest challenge a novice stick shifter can face; a stop light at the top of a hill. No matter how hard he tries, he just can’t get this car up and over the hill. Again and again, he tries—stalling, slipping ever backward, inch by inch, down the hill. By the time he’s back at the bottom, right where he started, whatever ego, money for gas he had left, and his manhood, are all but eviscerated. 

 

With nothing left to lose, he’s forced to reckon with what it means to really be a man—what he’s chasing and why—and maybe, just maybe, that there’s more to what’s holding him back than his driving skills.