Goin' Down the Road

Pete McGraw convinces his best friend, Joey Mayle, to leave their small Cape Breton hometown, where they've both held a series of low paying dead end jobs, to move to Toronto, where he feels there are more opportunities for a better life. The move, which they will do in Joey's brightly painted early model Chevy Impala convertible, is despite some of their friends having done exactly the same thing, only to return back to Cape Breton only after a few months, disillusioned. But their start should be better as Pete has arranged for them to live in his aunt and uncle's place - they who he's never met - and for his friend Anson to help them find jobs. Joey has no expectations about life in Toronto, but Pete believes the world is their oyster - that they can get any job they want just because they're interested in it, and that life will be one exciting adventure after another. Their Toronto start, which doesn't end up as planned, is only marginally more lucrative than it was in Cape Breton. As their stay in Toronto progresses to the end of the year, the reality of their life settles in for both, which leads to some drastic decisions about how to deal with that reality or how to get out from under it.