A beat up, road weary step-van with a large numeral 8, painted on each side, lazily wound it's way down the road heading to Devil's Tongue Lake. The Channel 8 mobile news truck was top heavy; laden down with communications equipment that made it rock uneasily from side to side down the irregular road like a ship in stormy water. Coiled cables on hooks swayed inside, and a nine pin jack rolled crazily around on the floor. Every bump in the road sent coffee, or papers flying somewhere. Static riddled "All news, the whole news, and nothing but the news" played on the radio. The cigarette smoke inside was stifling.

This surveillance party was commanded by local news start "Cameron Kilgor." Kilgor was a local boy that had made good. His second year as the late night anchor brought him into the ranks of town royalty. His membership into this society was fronted by old money-his grandfather owned the Dairy Freeze. It's nearest competitor a distant twelve miles away made the Dairy Freeze a gold mine and a political power. Kilgor was not popular among the college kids however, because he had "sold out" to the establishment. He was easily spotted by his crappy reporter's raincoat and a cheesy toupee that had always seemed to leaning a bit too much to one side. He scanned the road up ahead looking for his story: Expose of illegal swimmers at Devil's Tongue.

"Dammit Waldo slow down, this light keeps whacking me in the head" he said to the driver. "I want my hair to look nice for the shoot." Kilgor starred intently for a moment more before finding what he was looking for. "There... there's an old beater. It's has to belong to hippies I'll just bet. Pull up behind it, but don't make any unnecessary noise." He dramatically lowered his voice to a whisper as though they could hear him. "We don't want them coming out of water."

The van pulled up, the crew jumped out and began assembling their gear. Kilgor quickly made his way toward the lake microphone in hand; the plug end trailing behind him in the mud. He pulled out a mirror from his crappy reporter's raincoat pocket made a final adjustment to his hair. The rest of the crew was now behind him, and getting ready to roll tape. They fell into place and waited for the signal. They waited.

"Thank you Chuck. Well today we're out here covering a problem that's getting more troublesome everyday: Illegal swimmers at Devil's Tongue Lake. You can see the behind me this lake is full of young people throwing caution to the wind and diving into its treacherous waters."

The camera zoomed in over Kilgor's shoulder to a man peacefully drifting on a powder blue dime-store blowup raft: TJ--TJ who was watching and waiting for just the right moment to present. He studied the camera man for a moment, then Kilgor. He didn’t move a finger. He was just a guy drifting around. Quietly drifting around. Just a guy...

Suddenly there was a look of panic in his eyes as he unexpectedly rolled off the raft, his arm frantically groping for it as he slipped into the murky water. The ripples faded into several spots of foam. The surface calmed. The Channel 8 team jumped to attention: they were about to scoop a tragedy in the making. The camera paned the calming water for a moment as the suspense became overwhelming.

Then, like a baby beluga whale, the white mounds of TJ's bare ass cheeks gently broke the surface of the water-he was mooning the camera crew. The look of concern gave way to increasing anger on Kilgore's face as he realized what was really happening. He began waving his arms and shouting "stop-stop the tape. Howard STOP THE GOD-DAMN TAPE!" Howard was having a bit of a problem keeping the camera steady while laughing, but he kept rolling tape. He knew he had captured a video treasure.

The guys howled in laughter behind him as Kilgore handed his microphone in disgust to Waldo. Sonofabitch! He had let the situation run away from his control. A moment later TJ dragged himself out of the water. He was still buck naked. He was so hairy, he looked as if he was wearing fur pants. It was indeed a Kodak moment. Waldo approached TJ and held the microphone up. TJ offered a lame excuse: "Whoa man--I almost drowned down there, my shorts got hung on a tree and had the take them off to get free!" In absolute disgust Kilgore ordered the others head back to the van. "We will get our story on the other side of the lake" he said. "With normal people. Your kind make me sick" he said with a sneer to TJ.

"Hey Kilgore, I have got more hair on my butt than you have on your head!" TJ replied with an exaggerated Kilgore's sneer. This caught Mostly-Bob completely off guard, and he burst into laughter.

"I wish you had drowned-looser" Kilgore said as he headed up toward the truck.

Mostly-Bob could not contain his delight. "TJ you are one CRAZY son of a bitch!" He was beaming with admiration. "This is the ultimate-your life is complete now right?"

TJ broke into a devilish smile as he looked askance at Mostly-Bob, "This is close, my brother. Close. But it's not quite there yet. Doesn't have the right feel. Know what I mean? There is just one thing that I need to reach my Nirvana" he said.

"What could that be?" Mostly-Bob asked.

TJ only kept smiling.

The lake had recharged Burke. He was beginning to feel better, ready to do it over. Ready at last to face the mirror. He saw the face of the sun reflecting on the placid water. It looked like a clock face. The clock said: Let's have lunch.

Let's have lunch, whadaya say?" Burke asked. Everyone agreed and began collecting their belongings. The group began filing up the trail to the car. TJ overheard Jak asking Mostly-Bob "Would you perform CPR on TJ, Mostly-Bob?"

"Hell no he answered. I'd have to let 'em croak. That would be gross, like giving CPR to an anus!" As they moved to the top of the road, TJ stopped and wandered a few feet off the path to urinate; something he was good at because he got lots of practice. When he was finished he started back to the car, but stepped on a sharp object. TJ reached down and picked up a set of keys; two keys on a ring. A large key and a smaller key. They looked very old. The large one had MH ALT 340 inscribed on it. Without thinking much about them, he put them in his shoe and headed back to the car.

It wasn't long before they were rolling down the highway in the Piscataway, TJ's cutoffs flying from the antenna like a weird sort of flag. They were headed back to civilization; to lunch.