An old, beat-up car

 A man Rock remembered from more than thirty years earlier, a friend of Rock's acquaintance Bob Walsh, found an old car that Rock owned but had disappeared from his driveway several months earlier. It was turned upside down on the US Interstate 30 Arkansas River bridge between the downtowns of Little Rock and North Little Rock. Traffic was backed up for miles as Rock and Bob walked up a stairway to the bridge and the car. They easily flipped it over, but when Rocked reached for his keys, he realized before they were in hand that he had failed to pull from a kitchen drawer the ignition key to this old, beat-up car.

The weather station

 The crew that manned the weather station run from Rock's front bedroom and bathroom had employed Joe, Rock's cat, to become a meaningful device in their measurements of barometric pressure and the like. The forecast had called for high winds throughout Friday, and it was clear to the other weathermen from the way Joe stuck his head through the screen from the bed's bookshelf headboard that it was indeed windy out. All Rock knew was his cat was hungry.

Rock's host

 Rock awoke to the sound of police sirens. He could hear them from all over Little Rock. As he walked up a spiral staircase from a basement guest room, he passed his host, a pretty brunette he knew from runs with the Little Rock Hash House Harriers. Rock handed her a lampshade he had apparently dislodged the night before. She laughed with a measured hint of condescension, understandable when he reached her vestibule to find a dog in its attempt to grind marijuana from Rock's tiny backpack into tightly-woven carpet. Rock began to sweep it with his hand into the pack. As he did, he looked up to see two police cars pull into the driveway. He turned back to apologize to his host, but she was out of sight.

The fire

 A drum of hooves drew Rock's attention to the racetrack, and he looked up to see countless horses stream from a huge split-level barn behind Oaklawn's backstretch. Flames and smoke rose from the barn, and Rock knew horsemen would do all they could to save horses from the fire. Within minutes, each of the barn's fifteen-hundred thoroughbreds circled the track in a wall-to-wall oval ring. Rock knew he had a story to write.