A reporter's nightmare

 Rock sat in the driver's seat of Jeff Krupsaw's pickup truck parked in a lot on the edge of a small college campus near Little Rock. It was 7:15 p.m., and he knew he had agreed to report on a Parkview High football game for the paper. The game was scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and was likely halfway through the first quarter. Rock needed to find out where he was. He needed to find out where Jeff was, too. 

A thousand feet

 Multiple outbreaks of paranormal crime broke out around Arkansas just in the early predawn hours of Christmas morning. Extreme weather accompanied those near Searcy, Gould, and Nashville; by pure coincidence, Rock witnessed them all. Each led to prosecutions before daybreak. After the arrest in Nashville, Rock drove on a backroad out of town, and it was unlike anything he had seen, straight downhill for at least a thousand feet. At the bottom, the road turned to wet dirt and dead-ended near the pond of an abandoned farm.

Condescension

 Desmy Tutu (aka Zach) drove Rock and a handful of other Little Rock Hash House Harriers into a large crowd of Hashers from several nearby states. Just before he turned his pickup into the gathering, Rock watched the Hashers part to make way. Zach turned back toward Rock. “Watch this,” he said. “These fuckers love you.” Rock listened to shouts of tribute but almost immediately recognized a clear tone of factiousness. Without doubt, this was condescension rather than love. Rock felt humiliated.

Too short

 This was new and alarming. Rock needed a light bulb for his front porch, but he was too short to reach the cabinet above his refrigerator. His only available route required a chair to reach the countertop. This was terrible, and Rock was terrified.

When he awoke

 Rock traveled to the World Cup in a stagecoach straight from the old west. He fell asleep on his way, and when he awoke, he found the pocketful of large diamonds he carried had been stolen.

McDonald's in Levy

 Rock needed help understanding the managerial strategy he worked under at McDonald's in Levy. He and his cohorts were asked to work from morning until closing. As they progressed through their shifts, each would become the restaurant's manager whenever an area of their expertise was required. All the employees were longtime members of the Little Rock Hash House Harriers, a group Rock had run with for over forty years. Hashers understood Rock's mastery of quarter-pounders with cheese.