Ricky

Out of the blue, Rock began to wonder about Ricky Harley, a former employee of the paper's sports department. Ricky first worked for the paper as an eager, teenage intern, and later as a full-timer through most of his twenties. He eventually quit the paper under pressure from upper management and then drifted away and lost all contact with anyone there.
Fifteen years later, Rock suddenly became worried about him, and asked his bosses John Krupshaw and Wallace Hill if they could help.
Hill met with Rock in a cluttered alley downtown at dusk. "Here's the problem, Rock," he said. "This opens up all sorts of questions. It could affect the retirements of Yogi Berra and his extended family, and Randy Rainmaker."
Rainmaker was a longtime host of a Little Rock sports radio program, and Rock understood how he and the Berra family were connected to Harley.

Eyes

For the time being, there were only a handful of patrons in the bar, which was alone on a beach, miles from any other structure.
Rock sat at a long, weathered wooden table with two strangers, both of whom said a very popular local musician was on the way and would draw a large crowd, and, sure enough, a crowd soon began to build.
Among it was a young man and wife Rock had known for years. They arrived with a middle-aged man who looked as if he had spent much of his life on the ocean. His ruddy face was chiseled by years of sun and wind, and he wore old cutoff jeans faded nearly to white and a tattered yellow T-shirt.
After it became apparent to the man that the couple he arrived with were friendly acquaintances of Rock's, he apparently felt comfortable opening up. "My wife just said she thought you had evil eyes," he told Rock.
Everyone laughed. "There's nothing evil about this man," the young husband said.
"That could help me," Rock said. "Maybe it will lower people's expectations."

Out of order

Everything in Rock's house was distorted to the point it was nearly unrecognizable. The door frames didn't look right, and the television, tuned to The Beverly Hillbillies, was pointed toward the ceiling. Rock was confused, and his living room looked as if it were in shambles.
Grape juice saved the day.

Sacrifice

Several people in Rock's house were given the opportunity to stop what they considered ultimate evil, though it required a life-or-death gamble with odds weighted heavily against them.
Their choices were to surrender or else fight through severe hypoglycemia and wait for evil to decide whether it would draw them into its trap. Rock watched at least three of his associates sacrifice themselves, and when it was his turn, his also decided to let himself drift through eternity in the void.
But at the last minute, Rock rose from his bed and walked to the kitchen, where he drank several ounces of grape juice and at last chose to stay put.

A walk

Steve Gobe was a hundred yards ahead of Rock as they walked along opposite sides of a busy, four-lane street through Little Rock suburbs toward the paper, but Rock was confident he would catch up.
The street would eventually feed into downtown. Its straight, southerly course would take Gobe and Rock a few blocks east of the paper. They were at least a mile away.
It did not seem curious to Rock that he was walking past a golf course that looked exactly like one he had played in San Antonio eight years earlier, or that on the other side of the street were nothing but weed strewn debris, dominated by rusted, abandoned cars and rotted lumber. He was more concerned with catching Gobe.
Rock reengaged in his pursuit, but after a delay to dodge traffic and cross the street, Gobe was out of sight.
When at last Rock reached the paper's newsroom, he learned that Gobe had arrived several minutes earlier and then left.

Track coverage

Nothing had ever seemed quite as ambiguous to Rock as what the paper wanted from him regarding his track and field coverage.
Was he to go to the meets or just request reports over the telephone? His boss, John Krupshaw, wouldn't tell him how much to write or when to turn it in ("Rock, just give us whatever you got, whenever you get it"). Furthermore, and most confounding, John couldn't decide whether he wanted Rock to report on the sexual orientation of the meets' female triple-jumpers.
"Just find out, best you can, whether or not they're lesbian," John said. "We'll decide later what do with it."
Rock was incredulous. "So what are you telling me, John? I'm supposed to ask those girls whether they're straight or lesbian? For christ's sake, man, how do you suggest I go about that?"
"Just play it by ear. If there's an easy way around it, then great. Otherwise, just let it lie."

On the veranda

The golf course reminded Rock of one he had played in several dreams over the past few years, except that someone had added a knee-deep creek, which he soon learned could not be bypassed.
After his round, and after he had wrung out his shirt and golf shorts, Rock walked onto the rock-lined veranda that overlooked the eighteenth green. It was crowded, every bench seat taken along the rim of the balcony, and a standing throng gathered around those lucky enough to have found chairs at the dozen tables.
It was also very loud, but Rock was nevertheless able to distinguish a recognizable voice ascend from the noise, which clearly belonged to John Finger, the loudest person he had ever known. Rock looked through the horde until he found Finger seated at one of the tables. One of Finger's many nieces was with him, a shy, demur teenager Rock had met at Finger's house the summer before, but her presence did not dampen Finger's typical shouts of profanity:"OH SHIT, HAS ANYONE TRIED THESE FUCKING WINGS? THEY'RE HOTTER THAN SHIT, AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T MIX THEM WITH THIS FUCKING WHISKEY. I'M FUCKING TELLING YOU, MY GUT FEELS LIKE IT'S ABOUT TO FUCKING EXPLODE."

Well centered

According to Rock's seemingly ethereal sources, the entire habitable earth was contained within the four walls of his house. At any rate, this is how he interpreted their signals when he first awoke.
It eventually became clearer to him that there were other homes in Levy.

Lost

After his car broke down, Rock realized he would have to walk to class, which was at a community college at the end of a complex route he had only travelled once before. Rock was soon lost and frustrated. It was crucial he not miss class, but he knew he had no way to find it, and that furthermore he didn't have enough information to ask anyone for directions. He couldn't remember the school's address or even its name.
As he wandered miles from his apartment, Rock stumbled upon a large group of Little Rock Hash House Harriers gathered in a mini-mart parking lot and was immediately relieved. He had found them at last, clearly from the start his single objective.

Bees

Rock sat in the passengers seat of an old, white, heavy-duty work van driven by his high school friend Mark Rogers. They were about to exit a U.S. Army post in Europe, distinguished like most by its ancient rock buildings, when Rogers came to a stop just short of a guard shack at the post's perimeter. Rock turned to see a bee fly out through the driver's side window and Rogers reach for his throat.
"Did that bee sting you?" Rock said. "Are you having a reaction?"
Rogers, in clear agony, nodded enough to affirm Rock's guess.

The Super Bowl

It was a comfortable, breezy winter afternoon. Rock was downtown, seated on a light wooden bar stool in the median of usually busy four-lane street, reading a tabloid story about the coming Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals.
There was no traffic and few people around, so Rock did not feel at all self conscious. His problem was with balance. Whereas the warm wind felt wonderful, it made it nearly impossible for him to remain on the stool for more than a few seconds.

Choices

The sandwich shop was at a downtown corner next to the newspaper, and the specials of the day were foot-long sliced beef and Italian sausage hoagies.
Rock walked to the shop and stared longingly at the meat. "I'm thinking about a combo deal here," he said to two teenage girls behind the counter, both of whom were instantly engaged. "Would you mind putting the sausage into the beef? Will the bun even close?"
A pretty brunette picked up a sausage from its bun and dropped it into a bun coated by juicy sliced beef. Rock took one look and said he would take it.
The other girl said it would cost twenty-four dollars. The brunette smiled and said, "I just checked. This is twelve-thousand calories."
Rock laughed at this expensive, fattening folly: "You know what, just give me the sausage."

Tennis

These people were all tennis experts. Rock understood he was not qualified to challenge their expertise, but he did anyway.
They sat around a card table in a dimly-lighted, paneled den and complained about how much tennis had changed. "It involves nothing but power now," one of the said. "The wonderful subtleties of finesse are gone."
"I hate to say it, but I haven't noticed," Rock said. "On the other hand, you have to bear in mind that I have never watched much more than the Sunday morning mens finals of Wimbledon."
"There's no way you could truly understand it then," another said.
"How about if they went back to wooden rackets?"
"That would do it, but there's no way that will ever happen. There's not a chance."

Sunday school

Rock walked into the enormous sanctuary a few minutes after his girlfriend Jennifer's adult Sunday School class had begun. About fifteen people were gathered on the front row of ornate, dark oak pews, or on several long rows of steps that led to the pulpit and choir area, or the ten-foot gap inbetween, carpeted in plush maroon.
The church's pastor Gregg Larson led the class, and Rock could see Larson's attention turn to him as he approached down the center aisle. Brother Gregg smiled and said, "Hey, look who's here. Rock himself."
There were smiling faces all around him, and Rock blushed from self-conscious embarrassment as he sat next to Jennifer on the soft carpet.
Larson held a tattered red umbrella, half opened over his head, but Rock's thoughts had been diverted by a distinct smell he recognized as his own unbathed crotch. It stunk as if he had not showered in days, and he assumed Jennifer also could smell it. He wished he could leave before anyone else noticed, but Rock knew any opportunity would be awkward at best.

The C word

Rumors out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, suggested Arkansas Razorbacks quarterback Buck Alexander was overheard by several reporters as he used a word that frequently offends and sometimes enrages women. Talk of this spread through the paper's sports section.
"I'll bet he said 'cunt,' " said Rock, who felt certain he'd nailed it.
Other staffers in the room agreed. They also laughed at Rock's idiosyncratic lack of reserve.
A senior editor asked Rock to turn the matter over to Linda Sadler, the paper's top investigative reporter. He walked into the newsroom toward Linda's desk and saw several reporters and editors rise from their desks and approach him, just as he would have predicted. He knew they were motivated by curiosity and that apparently the Alexander story was widespread.
"We think he used the 'C' word," Rock said.
As Linda responded, Rock heard murmurs erupt around him and spread through the room. Linda said she would look into it.
"Shit, we all knew it," one of the reporters said.
"And you were right," Linda said. She had confirmed it with her first telephone call, which took no more than a few seconds. "He indeed used the 'C' word."