In sync

Several years earlier, Rock had arranged a timeline between then and now, so that he would be able to drift back and forth at will, but something was wrong. The line was no longer in sync, and Rock couldn't tell if he were in the present or past.
Someone pointed out to him that there were overlapping factors at play, including an inexplicable connection to the PGA Championship. He was pleased to see that dates on his wrist watch and laptop computer coincided.

Insanity

This went way back. Perhaps decades earlier, Rock dreamed of a concept in which a theme repeated again and again might result in a fruition of that theme. The hope was that if someone wanted something to occur, all they had to do was repeat the theme indefinitely.
"Ultimate wisdom," was foremost among them. Others fell into the same category, and they continued for more than two hours as Tuesday afternoon dwindled to darkness.
Ultimately, as he remembered from before, Rock came to believe that it was a concept that could lead to nothing but insanity.

A pep rally

It was the middle of the summer, but Rock and his friend Tom were among a nighttime crowd outside of Hornets Gymnasium at Maumelle High School. Apparently a pep rally for the coming football season was about to start.
As they entered the dimly-lighted gym, Rock could tell it was packed. He saw quite a few coaches he recognized as veterans, men he had seen over the past thirty years in gyms and fields and stadiums across the state.
A student team manager, dressed in a Hornets letter jacket, greeted Rock and turned to point toward Tom, who had stepped away and was about to walk into the warm, dank night
"Would you please ask your friend to quit peeing outside?" the student said. "Our pay toilets only cost a dime."
Rock was embarrassed. "I'm sorry about that," he said. "Yes, I will."

Liveliness

There were at least twenty Hashers crammed into an apartment somewhere in west Little Rock. It was early evening, and they were about to leave for some sort of event.
Rock was a late arrival. He knew he had planned to go for a long run that night and was conscious of having forgotten it as he stepped from the apartment alone. He jogged up a steep road stretched between buildings in the complex and could feel the liveliness of his legs. He knew he was ready to run fast and a long way.

Ready to go

Rock's final NBA season was winding down. He stood in a hallway before a game at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, chatting with two other old veterans, and they laughed about their relative lack of fitness and their teams's lack of prowess.
One of the players asked Rock how many games he thought his team could win.
"We have an outside chance of twenty," he said. "I mean, we're bad, but we're not the Knicks. We can still run a few basic plays. We know what a pick-and-roll is."
It occurred to him that it was bizarre he had somehow lasted in the NBA this long. He almost used his age as an excuse for his diminished skills but stopped short. No one had ever played a significant professional sport past the age of fifty, other than the hockey player Gordie Howe. Surely no one knew Rock was fifty-seven. That alone would have made him famous. The thing is, he could still play a little. He was ready to go.

Everyone

Everyone in America was connected to a narrow electronic band, a quarter-inch wide strip of wire that pierced the ceilings of houses and apartments from coast to coast. Americans would plug the band into their phones once a day to confirm their financial status.
Rock could tell he knew this but had apparently forgotten the details. The band at first notice ran into his back bedroom. Awake at last, he had no idea where it was. How could he have forgotten something so clearly fundamental to contemporary human existence?

Something big

Desks that Rock remembered from the paper's newsroom were rearranged at the intersection of Capitol and Louisiana. Everything seemed in order, so he didn't consider asking anyone what they were doing in the middle of a downtown thoroughfare. Besides, he was too busy contemplating the importance of his role in the coming day's event. Something big was scheduled for later on, perhaps in the afternoon, and he would be responsible for it.
Rock was pretty sure he needed to pick up some of the crap in his living room. He noticed that his cats were at the front door, positioned as if they wanted out.

Golf lesson

Petey King had a bucket of balls ready for Rock's golf lesson. Rock saw him waiting in the parking lot of the Country Club of Arkansas as he drove into the lot. He then suddenly realized he had left his clubs at home.
"Don't worry about it, Rock," Petey said. "Just go into the clubhouse and get 'em to give you a nine-iron and a driver."
A woman at the counter handed Rock two clubs made out of something similar to styrofoam. Their shafts were roughly six inches in diameter, and they couldn't have weighed more than a few ounces.
"Take these back," Petey said. "They're children's clubs."

Which stage

Their seats seemed too far back. Several were available a few rows forward, but Rock wasn't sure which stage the comedians would use. There was another, much smaller one behind him, with heavy curtains drawn around it. "Are we looking the right way?" he asked his guest Kurt Wagner, a friend he had known since high school, forty years earlier.
"Hell, I don't know," Kurt said. "Your guess is as good as mine."
It was clear Kurt couldn't care less. He seemed much more enamored than Rock by the overweight, middle-aged African-American women who had managed to find seats on their row.

Slice the globe

It seemed to Rock like a great idea. He was at the NFL preseason meetings, seated with Pro Football Hall of Famers Terry Bradshaw and Dan Dierdorf in a nearby cafeteria. Before he sat, someone had handed him an odd, light brown globe, roughly the diameter of a cereal bowl. Its shell was made of compressed bran flakes, but it was otherwise hollow and filled with raisin bran.
The concept called for someone to slice the globe in half, thus forming two edible cereal bowls ready for milk and spoons. Rock explained that one of the cereal companies planned to introduce it at the Super Bowl. There was a shiny kitchen knife at the table, so he was able to present the former NFL stars with a demonstration.
"That is great!," Dierdorf said. "My grandkids are gonna love this."

Half price

He couldn't remember how the mini-mart operators had screwed him, but somehow the procedure they had in place made Rock feel obliged to pay twice as much as it was worth for a tank of gas. He was still steamed when he drove back through to top off his tank.
Jim Taylor, Rock's former neighbor, was the cashier. "They told me to give you your next fill-up for half price," he said.
Rock had only pumped a couple of gallons. The ticket was for $3.90, so he handed Jim a $1.95 in cash and a hand-written note. "Give this to them," he said.
The note read: "Thanks, dickheads."