Roll cake

Rock was at a major college football game somewhere in the Deep South. He was under the stadium near a concession stand when an elderly, obese man handed him a plate of rolls coated with white icing.
"Here," said the man, dressed in dark red pants, a matching sweatshirt, and well-worn, black Rockport dress shoes. He seemed to know Rock. "This here plate of cake is for you."
Rock eagerly dug in. The cake-rolls were hot, as though they had just come from a grandmother's oven, and melted butter ran down Rock's right arm from the first one he picked up. The outermost layer of the thick, warm icing was nearly crisp, so that Rock felt a smooth snap as he bit through it. After he had eaten two, his hands were sticky, and he felt the icing on his face. Festive football fans looked on and smiled in amusement, fueled by Rock's appearance and the joy of game day.
Another large man, built as if he were forty or fifty years removed from a high school offensive of defensive line, walked by laughing. "Where'd you git them sweet rolls, son?"
Rock simultaneously recognized his place in the immediate festivity and a concern for his blood sugar level. He was overjoyed but wished it did not make an insulin injection so inconvenient. Already he felt hypoglycemic and thirsty. He needed to go to the bathroom.

Indianapolis

Nineteen years had passed since Rock's last stay at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. He was there for the first time with a roommate; he and Chris Gibbons had arrived the previous day to cover a basketball tournament for the paper.
They were out on an upper floor deck near a swimming pool beneath overcast skies. It was near dawn, but still dark, and Rock saw through a small opening in the clouds what he thought was a meteor shower. He was about to comment on it when Gibbons wondered aloud where the young woman was who the night before said would meet them for breakfast.
It began to rain, and Rock knew in an instant that what he seconds earlier believed were meteors had been no more than a lighter version of the rainfall now upon them. It was getting heavier by the second. As Rock and Chris hurried for the door to the hallway, they saw the woman they'd expected approach from inside.
Before they even said hello, Rock said, "Shit, you now what Gibbons, when I saw the rain, when it was still falling lightly, I thought it was a meteor shower. Then it started getting harder, and my first thought was like, 'Oh god, we're going to get crushed to death!"
Gibbons reacted as if this were the funniest thing he'd heard, falling to his knees in convulsive laughter.

Baseball

Victory was essential. Rock was certain of that, but of little else.
He had fallen asleep the night before as he attempted to break down the strategy employed by his baseball team's opponent. The complexity was just short of overwhelming, and Rock was uncertain of his ability to unwind it.
He watched several teams on wireless video, including the Pittsburgh Pirates, the only he could remember after he woke up. They each advanced runners to first base, and then asked them to reach second. That was simple enough, but these bits of information began to overlap and Rock failed with each attempt to pull them into any sensible form. All he knew is that he could not fail, that lives were at stake.
It took several minutes for Rock to realize this was an insane circumstance for baseball, and was indeed unreal.
All the while his cats Jo and Pam looked on, seemingly puzzled.

Radio

Rock was a morning guest on a Little Rock radio talk show, seated with two women co-hosts and lead host Jason Acrey.
Their conversation had weaved though sports and politics and arrived at information technology, at which point Rock proceeded with the type of self-evident commentary commonly used by radio announcers who know very little of which they speak. "A lot of us, perhaps most of us, are connected to the Internet during each of our waking hours," he said. "We're almost always within a few feet of our phones, or our tablets, or our computers."
The women were visibly engaged with Rock, nodding and smiling in agreement with his obvious remarks.
Meanwhile it appeared Acrey was distracted by a crowd of young adults Rock could see in the hallway. It was almost the top of the hour and it became clear that the people were there to promote a cause or some commercial interest. Rock realized it was time for him to leave.

Coach Rock

Though he wasn't qualified to coach anything but running, Rock was the head boys basketball coach at North Little Rock High.
Rock's team had performed well in his first season, making a deep run into the state playoffs. Nevertheless, he was suspended shortly after the season for having played an ineligible player. Someone had discovered a transfer irregularity from the year before he arrived, and North Little Rock High principal Jerry Smith allowed Rock to take the fall. Students throughout the school were upset by what they perceived as unfairness dealt their beloved coach. They staged a parade of protest from the parking lot of the Waffle House on Main Street.
The protesters marched south, half a block on Main before they turned right on 22nd to pass in front of the eighty-year-old school building, a gothic revival colossus similar to nearby Little Rock Central's building (though with nothing close to the historical significance). Rock sat on the broad staircase with several players in a crowd of at least a thousand students and faculty as the protesters paraded past.
Rock noticed that Smith watched him from the weed-strewn lawn of a dilapidated house across the street. Smith lifted a megaphone to his mouth and said, "Coach Rock, I suggest you avoid getting your picture in the paper."
It was overcast. Rain had been predicted, so several in the gathering brought umbrellas. A student in front of Rock opened one right after Smith's pronouncement. "Here Coach," he said. "You can hide behind this if you think you need to."

Beautiful people

This reminded Rock of the few fraternity parties he attended while in graduate school. He felt completely out of place.
Bill Victory, a republican campaign consultant, had invited him, and now seemed embarrassed by Rock, who watched Victory walk around the office lounge glad handing everyone, working the room crowded with people who looked as if they had stepped out of a Dillard's catalogue. Victory seemed to know everyone well, all of these people different in every regard from Rock.
Rock, too, was embarrassed, unable or unwilling—he hoped the latter—to converse with any of these conventionally beautiful people.

Black oak

Black oaks had been at the center of environmental concerns and protests for weeks, and on this sunny and warm afternoon Rock and Walt stood among hundreds of them near the entrance to a popular California state park.
Rock and Walt and dozens of other visitors were in an outdoor lobby, milling through exhibits when Rock noticed the trees. "Hey, look, black oaks," he said. "Have you read that stuff in the paper?"
"You mean where when they burn one of them it leads to at least fifty deaths?" Walt said.
"Exactly. Sounds crazy doesn't it?"
A cute young woman stood near them and caught Rock's eye "Do you mind if I ask what this is you're saying about black oaks?" she said.
Rock of course didn't, and mentioned a recently published report. "It said the long-term effects of burning them will lead to at least fifty people dying per tree burned."
"People are dying?" she said. "What do you mean by long-term effects?
"Well, I don't think they've been able to connect the burning of them to any specific death," Rock said. "Somehow they seem to have convinced themselves that people are dying long after the trees have burned. Obviously if they could get fifty names in the paper they'd shut down burning them immediately."

Newall

The basketball game would start in a few minutes. Rock was there, excited to see if the UALR Trojans could hang in against the Iowa Hawkeyes. They were about to play in a large auditorium, with seating limited to one side.
Rock walked through the mezzanine toward his seat when he saw UALR's head coach Mike Newall. He reached to shake Newall's hand. Newall scowled.
"Good luck, Mike," Rock said.
"Thanks," said Newall, clearly disinterested in meeting Rock for the first time in six years.
Assistant Coach Steve Sheelds said, "Hey, Rock, good to see you."
"Same here, Steve," Rock said. "Good luck."
Rock hurried to his seat, which was between Marge Newall and hers and Mike's thirty-year-old son Nate, who looked exactly like Tall Bob's son Kevin.
"Wow, Nate, I haven't seen you since you were a little boy," Rock said.
"No, we saw each other just last year at the Maumelle Country Club," Nate said. "Don't you remember? I work there."
Rock remembered. "Of course," he said. "We were out there for the USGA Amateur Championship."
Iowa won the game, 95-43.

Running

Rock was with a group of Little Rock and Hot Springs Hashers on a training run along the North Little Rock side of the Arkansas River and felt fitter and faster than he had in years. He ran just behind the fastest of Hashers.
At the turnaround of the eight-mile out-and-back course, which was Kathy's apartment, Rock asked where the bathroom was. Kathy responded with an almost contemptuous look, as though the answer were obvious and the question silly and unnecessary. He looked past her through the kitchen and saw the bathroom through a wide door, and also heard from it the sound of water running.
Once inside, Rock was confused by the commode. It was perfectly round with a diameter of about four feet, and made of concrete painted black. The bottom of the bowl was flat and only an inch below the rim. Water continuously washed across the surface, but Rock's urine stream, as he expected, splashed against a wall and onto the floor.

Chocolate

In retrospect, Rock thought he made a mistake.
While filling in as a copy editor at the newspaper in Atkins, Arkansas, Rock told the managing editor that a report had just come out that said chocolate ice cream had twenty-five percent more protein than vanilla. Though the story was merely a product of Rock's imagination, the managing editor immediately made space for it on the front page. Perfect, Rock thought. That was his hope from the start.
Rock at first believed he had really put one over, but it later occurred to him that his hoax would most likely be exposed, possibly leading to broad ridicule from fellow journalists.

Yard work

Someone delivered Rock several wrapped Christmas gifts, all of which he suspected were bottles of wine or liquor. He opened one and found it contained a bottle of eighty-four proof watermelon wine. As he examined the bottle, wondering how wine could contain so much alcohol and why anyone would make wine out of watermelon, he saw through his living room windows a pickup truck with a trailer lose control and slide through his wet front lawn, digging muddy groves as it skidded to a stop.
Rock recognized the driver, a crackhead who lived up the street.
"Fuck, man, look what you've done to my yard," Rock said.
The crackhead seemed completely indifferent. "Big deal," he said. "You stole my electric skillet."
"Do what?"
"Well, OK, you didn't actually steal it yourself. Jeff stole it, and then you bought it from him."
To prevent further damage, Rock directed the crackhead to back his truck out through the groves just dug.

35th Steet

Though it was early September in Levy, the sky was cold and gray and a light sprinkle of grainy snow blew across the gravel alley behind Rock's house.
Two old running friends, a husband and wife in their mid-sixties, were staying with Rock in his tiny house on 35th Street. Rock stretched with them outside, about to go for a run when the husband asked him what type of running shoes he was wearing. "Oh, you know man, these are called, I can't remember, something like 928s or some number," Rock said. "Maybe 930s."
"I've never heard of them. They're Asics, right?"
"Wait, yes. That's it. They're DS Trainers."
Rock's friend laughed and said, "They've made those for years. Where did you come up with those numbers?"

Plane crashes

Rock watched as planes crashed all around him. He was driving to play in a softball game for the newspaper's team in Shreveport when the first Boeing 747 spun out of control miles ahead. It exploded immediately after it nosedived into an open field. Several other 747s crashed within minutes. Rock also saw a glider broken in two in a parking lot.
It took two or three plane crashes before Rock considered whether the softball game would be cancelled.

A new pet fish

Throughout his life Rock had kept pet fish. He was at his grandmother's house in Nashville with a large gathering of people one afternoon when Chris and Erin appeared by surprise. Chris had a small fish, about the size, color, and shape of a minnow, in a translucent plastic cup. It was a gift for Rock.
Rock was pleased and spent a minute looking for a spare canning jar in the pantry by the kitchen. He covered the jar's bottom with marbles, then walked out through the screened back porch to a faucet on the west side of the house. He filled the jar and walked back through the porch and kitchen to his grandmother's large bedroom, which also served as the den.
While in the kitchen, Rock took a bite from a large smoked fish someone had bought.
Later, in the den, as Chris put the pet fish in the jar, Rock knew he would have to spit out the smoked fish. It tasted awful. He turned his head from the gathering and spit the black mush into his right palm and immediately heard sounds of disgust from his cousin Crutch's Aunt Nadene. Consequently, he walked out through the front door and tossed the chewed wad of fish from the porch into the yard.

The parakeet

Erin and Rock were seated on the floor of one of Rock's bedrooms when a parakeet flew in. The bird was spectacularly colored, in bright shades of red, blue, yellow, and orange arranged randomly in small patches from head to tail. It landed on the hardwood floor near Rock and walked in circles, its colors distinct against the room's white walls and furniture, and the bedding Rock sat back against.
"Wow, look at this bird," Rock said.
"It's incredible," Erin said.
 Two brown puppies ran in almost immediately thereafter.