The Downtown Y

 The Downtown Little Rock YMCA closed in 1994, and Rock was surprised to see how much its interior had dilapidated. One of the basketball courts was dank, dingy, and strewn with cobwebs. Water dripped from the dark ceiling, just above the old wooden one-hundred and sixty-yard track that circled the court's perimeter, twenty feet above. Rock was last in this building a year before it was shuttered, there to interview a high school basketball player with a transplanted heart, and now he couldn't remember how to exit. He took the closest door he saw from the court and walked into a sparkling new room with a skylight above its fantastically complex weight machine. As he entered, he noticed a twin bed, dresser, and desk several steps above the weights. Just as it registered he might be in someone's private room, a college-aged man walked in. "Is this your room?" Rock said. The youngster looked frightened, and he stepped back out to the street and pulled the door shut behind him. Rock hoped the police wouldn't come.