Running from the Law, #1; the camaro.

Not mine, but quite similar.

Things had gone badly that day, or rather, they were continuing to go badly from the night before but I don't want to get sidetracked.  Synopsizing, whiskey, falling down, 2 hours of sleep, contact lenses, forgotten biology exam, unrelated personal humiliation. There, that was easy,..  so I'm leaving Penn State Berks Campus (ahh, more humiliation!) to go home.  At the time, I owned a 68 Camaro RS which I was "restoring".  I had just bought an RS front end for it (it had the wrong front when I got it) which was black.  The rest of the car was primer gray, except that recently, Jimmy (for reasons he may someday reveal) had  sprayed the number 13 in black primer on the driver's side of the car behind the rear wheel.
As I'm rumbling out of the parking lot, there is a car coming down the road who first seems like they are going to turn into the parking lot, but don't at the last second, nearly running in to me as I'm about to pull out.  I follow this lady down the road and she keeps acting like she's going to turn, but then doesn't,..  over and over, slower and slower.  The road from Penn State Berks Campus to the BIGGEST INTERSECTION WITHIN 50 MILES OF READING is a long, winding, narrow road; This lady drives me nuts all the way to the light, it feels like 1/2 an hour of slowing, hesitating, continuing.  Finally at the light she puts on her right turn signal (great! it's over, I'm going left).  As the light finally turns green she feigns right then turns left making me slam on my brakes to avoid hitting her.  The intersection is huge, new, concrete, eight lanes wide.  There's plenty of room, and I've had it; I cut to the right as I floor it and pop the clutch and make a giant, smoking, question mark around the outside of her car, wheels in full counter-steer, beautiful, graceful, powerful, and it feels great; I leave the big four barrels open and just slam it into second, then third...
The Camaro was geared funny, so I was going over 100 when I hit fourth gear, which was exactly the moment that I saw the police car.  And he saw me.  But, he was on the shoulder of the up-hill on-ramp that I was passing in the far left lane.  I'm traveling 100+ and he's going Zero.  It's a complex calculation, (highly noticeable paint job) + (number of exits / police cars in proximity) X ( low number of known successes in this scenario / likelihood I'll do something stupid...) X (adolescent belief that I'm actually in a movie)....   complex.
I come up with a complex plan, I'll run but pretend I'm not running; who is to say I even saw that cop?  I'll just try not to ever let him see me.  I see the lights come on as he goes out of view in my mirrors.  I  maintain speed, I can see the tiny, tiny red and blue lights come over the hill -still on the entrance ramp -he couldn't possibly see me.  There's lots of traffic on the ramp and in the right lane,..  as soon as the cop merges onto the highway, I move to the right lane - we're probably separated by a fifty cars and half a mile.  There's a tractor-trailer parked along the highway just before Stoudt's Auto sales. As the cop goes into the passing lane, I yank the camaro to the right and go to the right of the semi (there's a parking lot that's a lot like a gravel continuation of the shoulder) -full brakes, I'm nearly stopped by the time I reach the front of the truck.  There's an alley between the building I'm passing and Stoudt's; I make a right, pass between the buildings, make a left behind the building and park.  Key off, out of the car, I've come up with the next step of my plan,..  I'll pretend I'm shopping.   !    I need a new thermostat for the camaro anyway.  I come around the front of Stoudt's and walk in the door, except, I suddenly realize that I am unable to act normal, the adrenalin is keeping me from touching the ground, I'm shaking from head to toe and the guys behind the counter look like they're moving in slow motion.  "I need a thermostat for my camaro" I warble like a turkey.  I turn and look out through the glass door and the cop car screams by, lights flashing, sirens on,..  The guys behind the counter start laughing, they sell corvettes after all.  "I was going a little fast when I passed him," I confess, "I figured it was a good time to do some shopping."  The guys are sympathetic and amused, "You might want a low temperature, high-flo thermostat,"  one of them jokes (ahh, esoteric car jokes lighten any situation). But I get one, anyway.  I can barely get the $20 bill out of my pocket and un-folded, but I finally pay and leave.  I realize that while I've escaped momentarily, there is probably a net closing in, and there aren't that many ways away from the Warren Street Bypass.  I get in the camaro and start it up, trying to plot a map through unlikely roads away from any potential bottlenecks.  Obviously, I can't get on the highway, so I continue down the alley, hoping there is some kind of connection to route 183 (which I think is Center Street).  At the end of the alley, there is an earthmover parked just before the cross street.  On the far side of the cross street, the alley becomes a regular paved street, three times as wide as the alley I'm in, trying to squeeze between an earthmover and a building.  As I'm squeezing, a black fender comes into view in front of me, and then a white door, and lights on the roof, and the cop inside is looking down the street across from me. The camaro and I freeze. I can see the back of his crew cut head, he's rolling forward at only 5 mph.  Miraculously, he never turns his head back.  The black fender slips out of sight. I back the camaro up and suddenly realize that I forgot the thermostat.  I pull the camaro back into it's space and go to retrieve it.  As I walk back to the door of Stoudt's, a police cruiser swerves into the lot, looking down the alley I've just moved the car out of.  He continues his sweep down the business fronts toward the 183 overpass.  I walk back into Stoudt's twice as nervous as the first time, the guys are laughing so hard they don't even say anything as I pick up my thermostat from the counter and turn to leave.
I get back in the camaro, take a few deep breaths, and head back down the alley briskly.  I make a left, head right up to center street, another left and head across the bridge over the highway - probably the most dangerous 100 yards of the trip home- and out into the "boonies".  I don't see a police car anywhere ahead, and believe it or not, I make it home (by way of Vermont,  just kidding).  I park the camaro in the field and pull a cover over it. I go inside and make myself some tea to assess my situation.  My success that day had been outrunning the law - I hadn't cracked and done something totally stupid, perhaps by luck.  On the other hand, I had also dismally failed a biology exam, which would be amalgamated with my not-so-stellar 2.0 GPA at a state university branch campus.  "What would become of me?",.. one could only sigh.
For the camaro, at least, "changing its stripes" was fairly easy. It was still in primer, incriminating marks were removed before sundown. A former painting professor used to declare "re-paint and thin no more!" I suppose people are more of an ongoing process, more complex.  Even after all these years, 13 is still my lucky number.