Daydreams of fame for Rock always included an enjoyment he imagined faraway people from his past might feel or express once they were exposed to it. They would say things like, Hey, did you see what Rock did? Did you read about Rock in the paper? Have you seen his book? For god's sake, I saw Rock on TV last night!
Now his daydream had arrived; Rock was a star in two professional sports. He played a great game at quarterback the night before and was on a bus to play baseball when he saw two such people, in this case longtime dear friends—Erin, a tiny and pretty thirty-four year-old Alaskan native, nearly Asian in appearance, with whom he ran two marathons in Little Rock a decade earlier, and Kurt Wagner, a fifty-five year-old pot-bellied shaggy blonde who ran track with Rock at a high school in Arkansas, but had lived in Phoenix for nearly twenty years. It was clear to Rock that they were elated to see him and to at last meet one another, and he shared their pleasure.
"You're the Run and Puke Kid, aren't you?" Erin knew and beamed at the wonder of this meeting, just as Rock would have predicted. He knew stories of the Run and Puke Kid were a small but significant part of her past with him.
Kurt was noted in college for his propensity to vomit after long, hard runs, and he feigned embarrassment to hear it recalled. "Shit, dude, when are you gonna let that drop?" And then, "Erin, it's great to meet you. Rock used to talk about you a lot."
Rock was overjoyed, and it didn't occur to him until several hours after he checked into his room that neither Erin nor Kurt had spoken of his new stardom.
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