No hope

Years earlier, Rock remembered being in exactly this circumstance: He was in a van with several of Jenny Devine's school friends from Harrison (Arkansas) High School. Jenny was behind the wheel. As before, the van was careening along a very narrow, winding road like the one that leads to Hindman Park Golf Course, except that it was high in the Ozarks, above a deep river.
Unlike before, Jenny suddenly turned the van directly down a wooded slope into the river. No one, including Rock, seemed at all fearful. This reaction changed for Rock when the van reached the river bottom. It was clear to him that they were pinned in with no hope to escape. Death appeared imminent, and Rock was indeed panicked.

No way

It seemed like nonsense at first, but Rock was eventually persuaded to at least consider asking thoroughbred trainers at Oaklawn Park about the inner workings of their horses' minds. It was late in the afternoon, and somewhere among the track's barns, in a particularly dusty spot crowded with pigs and cows and several small farm animals, he saw trainers Wayne Lukas and Steve Asmussen. They each nodded through scowls in silent greetings.
Rock knew there was no way he would ask them anything about the psychological bearings of their horses.

Restaurant on the corner

It seemed as if everyone who had worked with Rock thirty years earlier at a restaurant on Fayetteville's Dickson Street were still on staff. Rock sat at the restaurant's bar late at night, well after closing, with two waitresses he remembered and a cook named Kevin he had known well.
One of the waitresses reminded Rock of how badly his brief stint as kitchen help had gone.
"I remember that," Rock said. "I couldn't get anything right."
"No kidding," Kevin said. "Almost everything you sent out got sent back

The whole idea

United States congressmen were expected to carry some sort of American flag with them for the day. Senator Rock's aides had given him several handkerchief-size flags, one of which he hung from a front pocket of his dark plaid golf shorts before he even got out of bed that morning.
It was very early, just past dawn, and Rock wasn't sure of anything, but he thought this matter somehow pertained to the previous night's long health-care debate.

By the time he reached his den, Rock couldn't find any of the small flags. There were two handkerchiefs on his desk he had used to wipe sweat from his face and hands as he walked or golfed during the week, but they were plain white. He explained to someone that he was patriotic enough to not care who or who did not see him with a flag. The whole idea seemed silly to him.

Medical attention

Medical equipment filled Rock's back bedroom and den. He had undergone some sort of treatment overnight, overseen by several nurses and emergency medical technicians. Surely a doctor was there at some point, but mostly Rock had been aware of the constant attention of the nurses.
It was very early in the morning, just past daybreak. Rock wondered if all of the medical personnel had left and whether or not he could go back to bed. He felt fine, but obviously something was wrong with him.

A weird ride

Rock's mind was consumed by the urgency of his task set for early the following morning. It was late at night, and he had just ridden a borrowed and very odd-looking bicycle from a drive-through window of a Sonic near his hotel room in downtown Memphis.
He stopped in the parking lot with the salad he ordered. It was all he could eat since he had left his insulin at his home in Levy. Rock knew he had to return for it, but he had no available vehicle with him, and he was committed to a week-long stay for a basketball tournament the paper had assigned him to cover. The only option Rock could imagine was to rent a car, but not until this very moment had a clear idea formed of how he could get to the nearest rental agency.
Now he knew. He could tell that none of the Sonic staffers—overwhelmed as they were by the long line of cars—would notice if he rode away on the bike they lent him. Though it was made of hard plastic shaped into the form of a child's mini bike, it seemed sturdy and functional enough to serve his need.

An unscheduled run

This would take some work. Somewhere in the middle of a night of revelry with sportswriters and photographers in a huge suite of rooms at a Memphis Hotel, Rock knew his insulin was back in Levy. He didn't even have to check his bags. He knew.
A basketball tournament they were there to cover would start the next day, and he had traveled to it in a rental vehicle with the other journalists. Several were in the van at that moment, down on Beale Street he assumed. They would all need it in the morning for trips back and forth from the tournament site. After brief consideration, Rock decided he would need to rent a car for the four-hour round trip to retrieve his insulin.
The suite was furnished and dimly lighted as if it were a modern night spot. The walls and ceiling were black, and all the significant surfaces were glass framed in chrome, including an L-shaped bar around a large kitchen area that surrounded transparent tubs of beer and several large platters stacked high with hors d'oeuvres. Rock thought it was beautiful and certainly nothing he wanted to leave.

Rock's new house

Rock's new house was right across the street from the medical school. It was perfect for him and his cats. Jo and Pam seemed to love it there. He particularly liked the curtains. It was small but immaculate, a rectangular masterpiece of bachelor comfort.

Nothing to remember

Despite the bitterly cold night, no one was surprised by the huge crowd gathered at Eagles Stadium for the Vilonia Eagles-Greenbrier Panthers rivalry underway late in the playoffs for the first time since 1989. Rock told everyone around him how he had been the radio voice of the Eagles when these teams last met in this circumstance, all those years ago on Greenbrier's home field.

President Trump seemed unimpressed. He, as Rock, had attended both games.

"There were many more fans at the first one," the President said. "Who could ever forget the way they were lined up five and six deep all the way around the field?"

Times had changed. Those kinds of crowds rarely showed up anymore for high school games, Rock explained. There was also the matter of the high temperature and humidity. The sun was out, and the few people gathered with Trump and Rock were miserable in the thick, damp, nearly soupy air.

Few would reminisce about this meaningless game.

Birth defect

This was unlike any birth defect Rock had seen. Someone emailed him a photograph of the three referees scheduled to officiate a high school basketball game he would watch the following evening, and he was immediately nauseated by it.
One of the referees had what looked like a human hand attached palm down where his right ear should have been. Rock's first thought was that it had grown there, but his friend Tim Cooper, who assigned many of the events Rock covered, explained that the man was born that way.
"At first, doctors said they thought the merger developed in his mother's womb with his head pressed against one of his hands, but then they noticed he had two perfectly normal hands at the end of his arms," Tim said. "Later on, they worried that perhaps they had overlooked a twin child. I mean, they couldn't imagine any other ways to explain the extra hand."