Charles Sanford “Charlie” Babbit is a self-centered Los Angeles-based automobile dealer/hustler/bookie who is at war with his own life. Charlie, as a young teenager, used his father’s 1948 Buick convertible without permission and as a result, he went to jail for two days on account that his father reported it stolen. It is then that Charlie learns that his estranged father died and left him from his last will and testament a huge bed of roses and the car while the remainder will of $3 Million goes into a trust fund to be distributed to someone. Charlie seemed pretty angry by this and decides to look into this matter. It seems as if that “someone” is Raymond, Charlie’s unknown brother, an autistic savant who lives in a world of his own, resides at the Walbrook Institute. Charlie then kidnaps Raymond and decides to take him on a lust for life trip to the west coast as a threat to get the $3 Million inheritance. Raymond’s acts and nagging, including repeated talks of “Abbott & Costello”, “Four minutes till Wapner” and refusal to fly on an airline except Quantas drives Charlie insane… and out of his selfish world into a cross-country trek of pure love and understanding that these two both have.
Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt’s father dies and leaves a fortune — to Raymond, the institutionalized savant brother that Charlie didn’t know he had. They set out on a cross-country journey of discovery.
Charlie is a hustler. He’s been on his own long enough to know how to work people and situations. He finds that the father who threw him out as a teen ager has died. He’s left him a now antique convertible and something more important, a previously unknown brother, Raymond. Raymond is autistic, but is able to calculate complicated mathematical problems in his head with great speed and accuracy. Their father has left his fortune to Raymond who doesn’t even understand what money is for. Charlie is enraged by what has happened and by his father keeping Raymond’s existence from him for his entire life. He kidnaps Raymond from his residential home but then finds that Raymond will only fly Qantas. The two begin a long road trip that will lead them to an understanding of each other. Written by John Vogel