This so-called Dixie option

This was the first time Rock had been in the basement library of the Arkansas Gazette building in nearly twenty years, but it was perfectly unchanged. It remained dark, dank, and cool, with the same musty smell of old damp paper he remembered. He was there to find a story he had written about an Arkansas-Pine Bluff football game in the fall of 1990.
Within minutes, with story in hand, Rock was back in his blue bedroom, which had much the same feel as the basement library. Cool wind blew in from his rain-drenched backyard, and his cat Jo watched on quizzically as Rock spoke with a seventy-year-old African American copy editor named Wade, a cohort of his at the Gazette all those many years ago.
Wade explained how the Gazette had maintained what he called a "Dixie Option" on all of its copy from the Civil Rights era forward. He demonstrated: "We never used it, but it went like this," he said. Wade then punched up two copies of Rock's story. The first was as Rock had written it, but the second was changed so that its subjects appeared Caucasian, so that Arkansas-Pine Bluff no longer appeared as the historically black college it was.
Rock was fearful for several minutes, even after he had proceeded to his kitchen to turn down a fan, that this so-called Dixie option would be exposed, and with his name on the copy. He thought surely men at the presses must have seen the result of Wade's expose. He knew that in today's age of hypersensitivity, even to misdeeds from long ago, this could turn disastrous.

Without a word of warning

It seemed as though no one else noticed the policeman walk in, but Rock, from his desk in the newsroom, watched as he entered through the front door. He was short and stocky, with dark hair and a bushy mustache, and dressed in a standard navy-blue cop outfit.
The cop walked to Rock's desk, drew his pistol and looked over the side of an adjacent cubical. He took aim at someone or something Rock couldn't see, hesitated for a second, and without a word or warning fired two shots. He then held the gun at his side as he whispered something into a radio. Rock was frightened, but he noticed that the woman seated beside him had continued a phone interview throughout the incident without so much as a glance away from her desk, and it seemed as if her take was typical of everyone else's in the office.

A funny question

Rock met her at the Hash. She was tall, blonde, breathtakingly cute, perhaps thirty years old, and asked if he would let her take him to the restaurant several Hashers had selected for their post-run gathering, which seemed like a funny question to him. He laughed as he told her that he would indeed let her, though he understood grief from his Hashing friends was on the way.
She was curious about the tabloid Rock held.
"It's a racing form," he explained. "I'm going to the horse races this afternoon."
"Are you kidding me? Is there a racetrack around here?" she said. Rock thought she sounded genuinely astonished, and delighted. "I absolutely love horses."

A long advertisement

Rock's new world was nothing more than a long advertisement for his MacBook Pro. He awoke late at night and was influenced enough by it that he walked into his living room and opened his computer. All it showed him were video after video of enormous indoor spaces in various shopping malls, airports, and hotel lobbies, as if they would demonstrate his laptop's power and clarity.
The rooms were empty of people, but he found that he could call up individuals to see how they fit in. The first man walked around aimlessly for a minute or two before he stopped to complain. "You know what, this is really boring," he said. "Could you take me out of this?"
Finally Rock was able to call up his own house, and was very grateful to find he could eat out of the refrigerator. He wondered if he could simply drop into the video and eat free food for life.

A long pedestrian bridge

Rock's legs felt as lively as ever, but he was a little bit lost. He thought a left turn would get him back to I-30 and that from there he could return downtown along familiar access roads, but within minutes he was in sight of the interstate and could see there was too much traffic for anyone on foot, so he made a u-turn and found himself at the base of a long pedestrian bridge.
As he made his way above the traffic, he noticed a large young woman dressed in a knee-length mustard yellow skirt and matching sleeveless blouse. When he tried to run past her, she grabbed his left arm with such force that he had no choice but to stop. He noticed her face was coated with heavy rouge and mascara.
"Are you ready for some fun?" she said.
He felt a surge of panic. The woman was overwhelmingly large and powerful, and there was no apparent escape route from this narrow, dimly-lighted underground tunnel.

The Packers-Bears game

It was a little past 8 a.m. and Rock was still in bed. He could hear a crowd in his living room and knew they had come to watch the Packers-Bears game.
He got up and walked down to his basement where dozens of people, mostly Little Rock Hashers, stood in front of television mounted to a wall above them. Early in the first quarter, the Bears led, 7-3.

Insurance

There was no way Rock could leave his house before he paid for a relatively expensive insurance policy on his cats. It would cover the cost of any damage cats Pam or Jo might cause as they wandered around North Little Rock or through the neighboring woods of Pulaski County, and if he remembered correctly, it was going to set him back several hundred dollars. Rock needed to go to Hot Springs but couldn't until he sent in a check, and his problem, far beyond the cost, was that he couldn't find the bill.

Derby party

It was the first Kentucky Derby party Rock had ever attended, and he was impressed. There were hundreds of beautiful people there and a seemingly endless supply of food and booze, served by local college boys dressed in white formal wear. One had just offered him a submarine sandwich with a light, almost fluffy bun packed with all sorts of thinly-sliced beef and pork. Another followed with a bowl of oil and vinegar that had a slim glass straw leaned against its edge. Rock learned the idea was to use a thumb-assisted vacuum with the straw to distribute the dressing across his sandwich, which he thought was ingenuous.

By rule

The winner of the overall high school discus competition was one of two entrants—a boy from Russellville or Rock's friend Patre, a 43-year-old nurse from Little Rock.
Both had throws of exactly 170 feet and at first were declared co-champions, but that was before the Russellville coach protested. He claimed that his thrower should have won since his longest throw landed marginally further away than Patre's, or, to be exact, one-eighth of an inch.
By rule, according to event and meet directors, the championship was consequently declared vacant since the the final result was posted under protest.
"That's the rule," the event director said. "We can't change it now."