Soon after town, they entered heavy forest. The road at first wound 'round downhill through the thick timberland and jutting rock formations. Occasionally a yellow diamond sign with a squigley arrow would pop into view and go rushing by on the right. You could smell and almost taste the stagnant dampness. The bugs looked like snowflakes gleaming in the headlights. Quite suddenly the forest surrendered to farmland. The road leveled and straightened. Approaching up ahead they could make out a shape that evoked a biological response; not the curves of a regulatory sign, but the female form. The Piscataway slowed, 70-60-40-5 then stopped. Outside stood a tall blonde haired girl in her mid-twenties. She was braless and wearing a tight-fitting tank top. The cool night air no doubt augmented her appearance. Her make-up was flawless. Fluke rolled down his window. "Where ya goin?" he anxiously asked.

"Roadhouse? I'll be your sex slave all night if you buy me drinks" she said with a wink. Marchbank and Fluke looked at each other. "Get in." they simultaneously said.

"What's your name?" Marchbank asked to the hitch-hiker. She yanked Marchbank's cigarette out of his mouth and took a long dramatic drag. "You can call me Trouble" she said in an offhand way. The night already had some promise. Trouble was built for comfort and not for speed.

They were off again. Soon Jak spotted the icon: an orange neon martini glass pouring blue and green streams of neon booze onto a flashing dancer. They had arrived. The parking lot was jammed; there were people seated in most of the cars indulging in countless deviant algorithms.

Jak opened the door and instantly the music got so loud that it seemed to slap him. Inside, the atmosphere was hot, and smoky. It smelled like HOG. The bar was packed wall to wall. There was a cowhand rock band across the room, and to the right of that was a girl in a cage dancing totally nude except for a pair of really comfortable looking house slippers. "Go on Mostly-Bob, get up and dance with her" Marchbank yelled through the clamor. "I CAN'T" he said "I -I'm not circumcised!"

"Come on Cowboy" Trouble said to General Marchbank. "I'll let you buy me a drink." She grabbed his hand and led him into the throng. Seconds later they disappeared. It wasn't long before each of them got swept away by the currents of crowd into opposing directions. Salmon in the stream. The place was way too jammed to hang together. The music seemed to get louder, and the air thicker-then suddenly there was some shouting. The crowd pushed back on Jak, and back farther again. The music abruptly halted. A pool que went flying overhead-a fight was breaking out. The lights above the pool table danced crazily about as objects struck them. There was the sound of glass smashing. Everyone could feel the panic set in, yet nobody could move. As near as Jak could make out the fight was in the center of the room, so as quickly as possible, he moved to the wall to begin inching his way toward the exit. People were shouting, some were screaming. The inner circle of violence was spreading wider by the minute; ripples on the surface of fear. Like cattle in a chute, Jak was swept out into the night. He made it. Once outside he ran toward the Piscataway. As the quiet began to comfort him, he noticed that Fluke was already inside the car.

"What the hell happened man?" Jak asked.

"Beats me-shit got heavy and I split man" Fluke answered. Someone punched me in the ear. Now I am gonna look like Hamm Herrington.

"Man did you see the ears on that guy?"

Soon General Marchbank came limping up to the car. "That Bitch that I was with started this!" he said. "She threw her drink in a guys face-no reason at all. He went ballistic. Man I nearly got the shit kicked out of me, if I had not crawled under the pool table, I'd be dead meat right now" he added.

"Well we gotta wait for TJ and Mostly-Bob, then we can get the hell out of here" Jak said. But as he was saying that, he attention became fixed to the red lights of an approaching police car. "O shit we got to get out of here now. I'm on probation" he said. He turned over the Piscataway and put it in gear. "What about the other two?" Fluke said. "Aren't you going to wait?"

"No, someone's got to be home to bail them out" Jak said, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself. The Piscataway moved out very slowly and respectably, then began flying down the road. In the distance Jak could see the flashing lights of squad cars approaching. There were two up ahead. He was sure to slow as they passed each other. In a few minutes Jak had put some miles between him and bar and he began to feel better.

Meanwhile back at the bar, TJ had finally made it to the door. He tried to find his friends, but all he could come up with was their new friend Trouble, so he grabbed her hand and dragged her with him to the exit. Now two, then three squads had arrived on the scene. TJ moved away from the building and headed to where he thought the Piscataway was but he discovered that it was gone.

"Where are your friends?" Trouble demanded of TJ.

"I don't know, it looks like they are gone" he replied. TJ scanned the parking lot very thoroughly as if to be very certain they were gone, then began walking.

"Where are you going?" Trouble demanded again. "It's too far to walk anywhere."

"I ain't walking" TJ said. "I'm going in style." He walked over to one of the squad cars and peered in the driver's window. A devilish look spread over his face. THE KEYS WERE STILL IN.

As he opened the door, he looked at Trouble and proposed: "Are you going to get in or do I have to arrest you?" Trouble laughed. "I like handcuffs" she said. "Can I talk on the radio?"

They got in. TJ broke into a sinful grin as he said "Look at me-I'm my own worst enemy! I'm a FREAKIN' PIG!" The squad squealed off into the night; the engine roaring, the lights flashing.

"Should we turn the lights on top off?" Trouble asked.

"Gee-I don't know. I have never been in the front seat before- I don't know how..." TJ replied. Garbled dialog was coming over the radio, but neither of them knew what to do about that either. TJ tried to look over the instruments around him and became rather annoyed that he had to keep looking at the road. "See if you can find a hat. It won't really feel like playing police man unless I can wear the hat" he said. Trouble looked but her attention was grabbed first by a mounted rifle, then by all the gadgets on the dashboard.

"Look" she said, "that car up ahead is doing 77 miles per hour. "Let's pull it over!" TJ studied the car ahead for a moment. It was better than he could have ever imagined:

It was the Piscataway.

A crazed look crept over his face, "It's Jak -lets bust 'em!!!"

"Put the siren on TJ" Trouble chipped in. But they could not figure out how to do that, so they had to settle for honking the horn. TJ was high on the adrenaline rush of racing down the road in a stolen cop car after his friends. He knew so well that they would be panicked beyond description. "Whoooeeee!! Yeah Girl! We're gonna bust em and throw away the key!" Power, danger, and fear were fueling the moment for TJ. The wild look in his eyes began to scare his passenger. The faint blue light emitting from the dash instrumentation made him look like a crazed animal cornering his kill. TJ's teeth were clenched in determination, and his body was leaning forward to the point where his face almost touched the wheel, veins were bulging out of his neck. Behind him the night swirled past in a horizontal blur. The car rocked from side to side as TJ struggled with his alcohol deteriorated ability to keep the car centered. She studied him and then cowered toward her door. Trouble was considering that he had gone completely out of his mind and that their ride might soon become a one way trip to hell. "See if that rifle is loaded" he commanded. But Trouble stayed pressed against the door, and did not take her eyes off him.

Things were getting tense in the Piscataway. "Oh shit man, there's a cop on our tail said Jak under his breath. "Oh shit-oh shit-OH SHIT. Does anyone have anything in the car?" he said. Fluke said that he had a beer.

"Throw it out the window NOW! man-I'm not screwing around! Do it!"

Fluke started chugging. "I'm getting rid if the evidence."

"What about the can?"

"Oh yeah" he grinned sheepishly, "I never thought about that."

Jak kept his eyes glued to the rear view mirror. "Oh man-he's honking-Honking?"

Both cars pulled over to the side of the road. Fluke was chugging as fast as he could. Jak kept his eyes glued to the rear view mirror. He saw the squad door open. He started thrashing in his rear pocket for his wallet. The officer approached slowly-deliberately in the darkness. Jak rolled down the window but kept looking straight ahead. "Where the HELL'S the fire boy?" the officer asked in a heavy southern drawl. Jak began a lame excuse, but the officer gave him no chance: "I SAID ANSWER ME BOY, IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE THAT LONG HAAAIR IN YOU EARS MAYBE YOU COULD HEAR ME ..."Jak looked over at the officer. Man he was hairy.... Wait--it was TJ!!! "What the hell are you doing here and where are the cops?" he asked.

TJ started laughing. "Took a joy ride man, I always wanted to know what it was like being supreme ruler!" he said.

Jak's jaw dropped in sheer amazement. "No shit you took a-a ----LET'S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

TJ instructed Trouble to leave the squad running but to lock the doors. "We don't want any lowlifes stealing county property." He said. Trouble obeyed. She was operating out of fear now, hoping that things would slow down again.

Once again the Piscataway lurched off into the night, the lights of the squad still flashing, but getting swallowed in the distance behind them. After a while Trouble instructed Jak to pull over so that she could get out. "This is where I met you she said."

Fluke got a hurt feeling on his face. "What about being our sex slave?" he asked.