* One is able to square one's buzz, up until two o'clock,

* after which point, it starts cubing.

* Reality takes on a gelatenous quality.

* After six o'clock, one enters new dimensions.

As he entered the door, Norber nearly attacked him, he was eager to hear the details of the rescue.

"It was great Norb" Burke began. "The fire department showed up and everything. She drew a capacity crowd."

Norber seemed--relieved.

"Common man, let's hear the story you were gone for hours."

Just then he was saved by the bell. The boys from the roadhouse roadtrip began to file in: Jak, General Marchbank, and TJ.

Jak was excited. "You will never guess what happened." He said.

"Wait till you here my..." but his sentence was interrupted by Jak.

"No man-this is big"

"Bigger than playing strip poker with Sunni?" Everyone's jaw dropped, including Norber.

"Hey, you were supposed to be rescuing a cat!" He exclaimed.

Jak took control of the dialog again. "It's gotta wait, Burke. We got into a fight!"

"No shit? With who"

"The whole bar; and TJ stole a cop car"

"No shit?"

Norber broke in. "Hey what about Pandora?"

"Screw Pandora. Are the cops after you TJ?"

"Nope. We abandoned and locked the evidence-should have rolled it down the ravine."

At that moment two men in wrinkled suits entered PI's. They stood there at the entrance surveying the terrain; talking quietly to each other. After seeming to form a plan, they walked over to the group. "Hello guys, we are investigating a felony. Can we see some identification please?" said the first. "Who owns that blue car parked by the door?" said the other.

"We are looking for a man that may have been in that car. We think the man's name is JT. Do any of you know him?"

Instantaneous terror gripped the group. This scene had a B-Movie border patrol feel to it. They paused in silence not knowing quite what to say, as each tried to find clues in each others face. TJ’s leg was shaking under the table and he was trying to steady it with his hand, while Jak was considering jumping up and bolting for the door. He began calculating the odds of outrunning the two men. Burke was not intimated though. He carefully tried to asses their extent of information. He had a gut feeling that these two knew practically nothing. They were hoping to scare any new information out of this group.

Burke spoke. "Don't know anyone by the name JT, do any of you?" All shook the heads.

"Well this guy is a felon. We picked up a woman on the side of the road that gave us some details. The young man that we are looking for started a fight in a nightclub. As a result, the club was destroyed because a fire broke out and burned the place to the ground." He looked at Burke. "Let me ask you this son. Where were you tonight?"

"I was a strip poker game with a BABE! --best time of my life."

A voice called from behind Burke. "Oh and what exactly did you see?" It was Sunni.

"Oh-oh Hi Sunni! I didn't see anything-REALLY!!" Burke's face was as red as the Ace of Hearts.

The man in the wrinkled suite evaluated the situation. "Are you the woman that this man claims was in the nude?"

"I wasn’t in the nude! I only lost my shoes" she replied.

Grasping his chin the man in the suite studied Burke with exaggerated scrutiny. "There is something you're not telling me, son he said. I don't have time for this right now. If this JT shows up, give us a call." He flung a calling card on the table and turned his back and headed for the door. Burke picked it up. The men were detectives.

When he thought that they were out of earshot he said. "Say's here that that guy's name is Detective 'Limpdick!'"

"I HEARD THAT!!!" Detective Lemdeich came rushing back over to the table, with rage on his face. "That's L-E-M-D-E-C-K smart ass. How would you like to spend the next twenty-four hours at the station smart guy? I've got a auto theft pending, the guy looks close enough to you..." Detective Lemdeich did have excellent hearing.

"Hey sorry man" Burke offered a lame apology.

"I'm on to you smart guy," he sneered. He started talking as if to himself. "Twenty four years on the force, I'm not ABOUT to take any shit from any long haired sissy boy. After I catch JT I'm going to see what I can do to fix that attitude of yours." He headed toward the door again; this time there was complete silence until they were gone for a few moments.

Once they were gone the conversation resumed.

"Trouble narked on me!" TJ exclaimed. "She caused the damn fight and then narked on me..."

"Yeah but they want you for inciting a riot and reckless endangerment-wait 'till they find out about the car!"

"They'll never figure it out-probably don't even know it's missing--DAMN! I should have rolled it down the revene."

"Sunni what are you doing here?" Burke inquired.

"I left without my shoes. Thought perhaps that you may have picked them up."

"No I didn't even know that you left 'em. - Exactly how many shoes do you own anyway?"

"I guess one less pair than I had."

"Sorry-if I had known..." Burke was saved by the bell once more when the phone rang. He jumped up. "I'll get it Norber. I've been screwing off all night. Go ahead-you sit." He scuffled off to answer.

The guys discussed the nights' events for a few minutes more the decided that it was best to keep moving on. They needed to dig in and form a plan. One by one they began shuffling toward the door.

"Common Sunni" Jak offered, "I'll drive ya home."

"Hey wait everyone" Burke yelled from across the room. "Mostly-Bob's in the hospital. He got the shit beat out of him at the bar-he's talkin'-whoa! man he's messed up on something!"

"Tell 'em to save some for me!" chuckled TJ.

Time rolled slowly for Burke. It was almost Five o'clock, Norber excused him; he was really glad to get out of there. Norber was rolling the dough into baseball size chunks, smiling like a loon. The puke in the bathroom was beginning to stink badly. Burke had to hit the road. He gladly walked out into a beautiful morning.

There was something about the morning. Something so pure, so focused. Everything came out in the wash and everything was visible in the day light. The parking lot of Pi's was accented with empty beer bottles, sitting quietly on the white parking lines like miniature traffic control cones. Probably during the peak of the night the were abandoned between parked cars, and now that the cars were gone they were all that remained...

The sky was a wonderful color. Sort of turquoise, sort of orange. The air was calm. This was his time of day. Five o'clock. A time when Burke reorganized, regrouped, and reconsidered.

Burke loved this hour.

Burke made it back to 203 Elm street in less than three minutes. Campus Drive was calm and quiet. The only evidence that several hours before, this was an alcohol jungle was the wrappers of almost anything imaginable...anything that was wrapped, had left a tell-tale wrapper behind.

In place of screaming drunks, the birds happily sang. The town was the same, yet at the same time different.

The house was quiet. Burke walked in and heard the dull churning of the fan. Every "public" room of the house was trashed. Ashtrays piled high with whatever, beer bottles, cups, cans, the pyramid was occupied with an empty plastic bag....

Lying down on the couch on the porch was an unknown person, probably exhausted after his excursion on campus drive. The pilot lights of the stereo equipment were lit, but the house was silent. In the kitchen were twelve empty beer glasses. On the stove was a pot. Crusted onto the sides of that pot were the remnants of General Marchbank's chipped beef. William the goat was peacefully chewing on a plastic cup. There were no conversations taking place on the stairway. The bath tub was empty, and the house was quiet. It had an orangish quality about it from the sunrise.

Burke placed his shoes carefully on the floor next to his bed. Burke lit a cigarette and tried to decide what was next....

Nothing came to him.....

He sat in the silence for a while and decided that it was time to crash. He unlocked his closet and removed his guitar case. Inside was his Guild. Blonde, beautiful, an excellent singer of song. He really wanted to play, but wanted more to be entertained, so Burke set his guitar on its stand, and just watched it. He knew what it could do. It could break your heart; express emotions that there never would be words for, or be an insane screamer. Most of all it could be a friend, that people could share a story with.

His day was winding to an end. The guild was silent.

Down the hallway Burke heard a voice. It was TJ He was talking to someone, trying to be very persuasive.

"Come on, just try it" he said.

"I don't know" was the reply. Burke figured that he was trying to get some freshman to smoke some pot.

"Come on, just try it" he said.

"No, I don't think it's for me" was the answer.

"Lets go outside" TJ said, "I don't want to wake my roommates."

There was silence for several minutes. Burke figured that TJ had left in search of the elusive butterfly of buzz, but then Burke heard his voice again. They had moved outside, but directly below his window.

"Come on, just try it" TJ pushed.

"I don't know"

"Well then at least KISS ME GOODNIGHT..." TJ said.

After all the times we had been through, TJ had been a homosexual. Go figure. Burke was shocked, although he didn't know why. He had certainly been exposed to much weirder situations than this. But TJ; fat, hairy, gross, bad breath, B.O., scummy teeth, beard every three days, wasn't his understanding of a gay person. He realized then that life was more complex than he could ever perceive. The concept was alarming.

Burke had to look....

Sure enough the preppie, freshman was kissing TJ. As Burke cringed. He wondered how much it would cost that kid in therapy, maybe ten years down the line, to erase the fact that he had kissed that TJ. Let that be a warning, he thought: don't ever get that careless, or wasted.