About On the Run

New York City, early 1990s: a young, rich, and well-educated Central American man on the run from the police and Colombian drug dealers. He is accused of crimes he didn’t commit. Ready to do what it takes to survive, Pablo ironically embraces the very drug trade that threatened his life in the first place. Who is he? What is he really capable of? The question of identity is at the heart of On the Run. More than a contemporary story of survival, it’s a journey of self-discovery.

Pablo’s voice is funny, sometimes mean and merciless. He moves with nightmarish ease from recounting his adventures to recollecting his early life. Not always politically correct, On the Run gives you an insightful, twisted, humorous, and often disturbing view of conflicting worlds and beliefs: North and Latin America; black, brown, and white; rich and poor; rational and esoteric – and shows how they mix, match, and clash.

Plot Summary

In October 1991, an MBA student in California witnesses the killing of a DEA agent and two Colombian drug dealers, and becomes the only suspect. Pablo can’t prove his innocence and runs away, with both the Feds and the Colombians on his trail. And so the young Central American man, rich and well educated, is forced to go on the run instead. Suddenly his life, which up to then had been effortless, becomes a raw fight for survival.

With everyone expecting him to cross the border into Mexico, he heads east to New York City instead. Two days of hitchhiking brings him to Texas, where he survives by miracle a shooting inside a fast-food restaurant. Reborn, he is no longer a victim. He has become a survivor, the caveman who will do anything necessary to stay alive.

In New York Pablo searches for Douglas, aka Mad Dog, a Jamaican drug dealer he knows from his college years at Columbia. Douglas teaches him how to go underground and gives him a job: disguised as a personal coach, Pablo delivers cocaine to rich executives inside their Manhattan offices. Together, Pablo and Douglas build a very successful drug-dealing operation.

The two young men couldn't be more different. Douglas is street smart and hardened by a decade in the drug trade. He has a childhood fascination with spies and undercover agents, and has built his business using spy techniques. Pablo, the youngest child of wealthy and influential parents, has always enjoyed the good life while being groomed to join the family business. He has had the best education money can buy, but he never learned anything about surviving on the streets.

Pablo’s plan is to make a million in the drug business and start a new life in a country very far away, where no Feds or Colombians will ever find him. It could be done in less than three years...

As Pablo meticulously executes his plan, he has to deal with problems completely new to him: constantly watching his back; handling boring clients and mean secretaries; avoiding getting involved with very attractive female clients; getting new identity papers; laundering money; overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder; etc. Along the way, he has to figure out who he really is.

When decision time comes, will Pablo follow his plan and leave? Or will he choose to continue living as a drug dealer? Will he finally find out who he really is and what he wants to do with his life?