The mountain

Shortly after people in the Ouachita Baptist University football stadium press box became mesmerized by freakish lightning bolts seemingly wrapped in clear plastic bubbles, the mountain approximately two miles west of town began to rumble. It had long been a landmark for press box personnel, rising as it did from the barren, desert landscape before them. It was shaped somewhat like a volcano, and now, in the middle of a violent electrical storm, it began to act like one.
Rock thought he had heard that the mountain was in no way volcanic. He had always believed it wasn't, but as he watched, the top suddenly cracked open, and it exploded with such violence the entire stadium shook.
Fire and rock blasted up and outward. It seemed as if the stadium was in dire jeopardy, but the large boulders launched from the explosion landed in a nearby practice field. The only remaining risk was the vast amount of water that had begun to rush from the obliterated mountaintop. It poured like lava toward the stadium, but it soon became clear that it would not endanger anyone there.

Lightning

Lightning appeared across the horizon, and Rock and everyone else in the Ouachita Baptist University football press box watched with wariness as it approached, though Rock thought it was frighteningly beautiful.
Mixed in with normal strikes, common to Rock's experience, were bolts that looked as if they were wrapped in plastic tubes. These oddities increased and soon became the talk of the press box.
"What could possibly cause those?" a young writer seated next to Rock asked.
"I don't know," Rock said. "I've never seen anything like it."

Rock's only chance

The object of the game was to toss wads of notebook paper into a wastepaper basket within an allotted time. In Rock's case, he had eleven seconds left on the clock and needed to throw in somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty wads to win.
He was in Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Arkansas. There was a sparse crowd, but Rock felt pressure and knew he had little chance. Nevertheless, he hoped things could work in his favor, particularly matters in his own hands. Moments earlier, he had explained to retired University of Arkansas sports information director Rick Schaeffer that his only chance was to wear nothing but a light synthetic short-sleeve T-shirt and a pair of short pants.
"You don't want your clothing to get in the way," Rock said.

The way to Walnut Ridge

The bus driver was on an apparent back route to their destination, Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. Rock was on board, seated near two of his first cousins, twin brothers Bill and Crutch Aikman, and a few of their friends from high school. They had all decided to tag along with Crutch, who had left his car in the parking lot of the football stadium at Walnut Ridge High School. Crutch arranged for the bus to pick all of them up from the Crutchfield house in Nashville, Arkansas.
Rock had never driven from Nashville to Walnut Ridge but knew the towns were about a four-hour drive apart. He also knew the two ways to start the trip, either north on the highway to Murfreesboro or west to Prescott, but the driver headed out of Nashville on Main Street, which turns into a maze of dirt roads a couple of miles north of town. Rock was confused, but they wound through the countryside no more than a few minutes before the driver pulled into the parking lot of Walnut Ridge High's stadium, distinguished by it's rugged, mountainous backdrop.
"I never knew Walnut Ridge was so close to Nashville," Rock said.
"I didn't either," Crutch said. "Does anyone remember the way we just came?"

A roadblock

There was a roadblock ahead, manned by Arkansas State Troopers and an assortment of current and former high school coaches. All sorts of vans and trailers were parked around it, all located inside a large—indeed cavernous—modern high school basketball arena.
As Rock approached, perfectly sober, he felt uneasy, as if this was all set up with him in mind. This odd notion gained credibility when he saw that among the coaches was Henry Hawk, North Little Rock Ole Main High's football coach in the 1970s. Hawk knew Rock ran with the Hash House Harriers, a group known for heavy drinking.
Rock stepped from his pickup and was strapped into a chair attached to a crane. He was told to drink from a small beaker that contained about four ounces of beer. The crane then swung him in wide and high arcs around the gym, from one end to the other and from top to bottom.
Rock protested vigorously as he stepped from the chair. "This is bullshit," he said. "Who came up with this? I haven't had anything to drink in months."

Long and straight

If there was any particular significance to a golf tournament held in Rock's living room-den, he didn't know what it was, but it was apparently meaningful to someone. There was a five-wood on the floor and best he could figure, he had hit it long and straight, perhaps back into the kitchen. The event was the talk of the room.
The course was a mess—furniture out of place, a wastepaper basket knocked over, day-old coffee spilled on the rug. Rock ate two tubes of Gu and tried to stand as Jo watched.

Another cat video

Rock and his cat Jo were entered together in a golf tournament for former Arkansas Razorback football players and a few media representatives, but they were separated shortly after the event started. The course was just west of Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville. Rock knew the grounds well but could not find Jo anywhere.
He later watched a video presentation of her experience in which she found her way to the cart of a middle-aged erstwhile linebacker, but shortly thereafter the player became lost in woodlands off a highway not far from a former grocery store Rock had recently reminisced about as he and an old friend drove through. "The first thing I got worried about was finding some food for the cat," the player said.
Apparently, he eventually found his way to Rock's house, miles from the stadium and golf course, and Rock was relieved beyond reason to find Jo eating from her yellow food bowl behind the couch. All he could figure was the football player let her in before daybreak.

Out of room

There was nothing more important to Rock or those associated with his former baseball team than his attempt to alphabetize their all-time roster and then put together short biographies of each player. He had worked on it from time to time but was unaware until early Sunday morning that all mankind depended on the immediate completion of his work, parts of which were scattered throughout his house.
He remembered his last attempt and how difficult it had become. As before, there were too many names and he was out of room.