A recruiting visit

There were three high school basketball players, boys all, who had worked throughout their senior seasons toward college scholarship offers, each aided along the way by Rock and his friend B.J. and an elderly woman who seemed to have a romantic inclination toward the least talented of the three.
Each of the players hoped to attend three different schools at the same time, including Arkansas State University. Rock, B.J., and the woman agreed to pool funds to cover whatever the scholarships failed to cover.
The boy who the woman seemed interested in had been offered full rides to all but Arkansas State, and Rock was in Jonesboro to watch his recruiting visit.
Arkansas State was in a game, playing before a large crowd when the boy walked into the gym dressed as though he were a character from an old Tarzan movie. He wore a tan loincloth of black-spotted animal fur and nothing more. He was barefooted, and when people in the grandstands saw him enter, they erupted in loud cheer.
It was clear to Rock and B.J. that the fans knew of this player, and they figured this had to help his and their cause.

Roll

A judge in Houston, Texas, decided to start ticketing every fiftieth driver who rolled through a stop sign near the museum district and Memorial Park Golf Course. He set up his court near the sign and watched with several city employees and jurors as policemen rushed into place to pull over drivers who failed to fully stop.
The fiftieth was a middle-aged woman in a late-model luxury car, and she at first seemed confused. But after the judge told her that the fine was only five dollars, Rock could see relief roll across her.

Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton was at their grandmother's house in Nashville when Rock and Jim arrived, but it didn't seem odd to either to see a former U.S. president standing in the front yard.
Rock spoke to him using his best Clinton impersonation, a sort of raspy, southern-twinged draw that had become one of Clinton's prominent trademarks.
Clinton looked displeased. "You know, I get tired of people doing that," he said. "I hear it all the time, everywhere I go.  I suppose next you're gonna say, 'I feel your pain.' "

Rock's 100

The start and finish of Rock's out-and-back 100-mile course were in his back bedroom. Most of the course was set in a confusing array of flour and toilet paper that was difficult for Rock to explain to several ultra-runners gathered in his living room.
They gave him a hard time about it as they joined him to scout the first mile. The first thirty feet or so were through his house, then it was out his front door to Orange Street. After a block, runners would meet the trail, which was indistinguishable from much of the Arkansas Traveller course.
One of the women mentioned how comfortable his house would feel after a 100-mile trail race. It was cold outside.

Two-year-old pilots

Results of something rolled across his spiral notebook, and Rock read them as he lay in bed. They were confusing, but his first notion was that they represented some sort of bizarre report concerning test flights taken by prospective two-year-old airline pilots.
He realized after a moment that there was no denying what he read, and it was clear that all of the pilots had received superior marks, but he couldn't help but wonder what airline would hire near-infants to fly its planes. He imagined the sight of two-year-old children dressed in captain's uniforms and the reaction of passengers as they watched them walk aboard. This couldn't be right.
Short notes by each test flight indicated the pilots' readiness. One read, "Can't fail." Another: "Appeared eager to race."
Of course. That must be it. Rock's confusion began to clear, or at least he hoped. Surely he was reading reports on two-year-old thoroughbreds, not pilots. That must be it.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump called Rock early on a Thursday morning, well before daybreak, to ask if he would guide him on a tour of Levy. He said he spoke to editors at the newspaper. "They recommended you," he said.
Rock agreed, but when he woke up at sunrise remembered he had already planned a trip to see his mother in Nashville. He knew his oversight could mean trouble, so was consequently relieved when the sugar from a Halloween-size PayDay bar at last kicked in.

The Moody Blues

Rock joined friends Joe and Sonny at a bar on Dickson Street in Fayetteville. When he arrived, there was a band playing from a stage in an adjacent room. Their song ended, and Joe turned to Rock. "All right, man, it's your turn," he said.
"Do what?"
"We're playing a game, Rock," Sonny explained. "The whole bar is. When it's your turn, which it is right now, you read the name of the band on the album cover right there in front of you, and if that band happens to be here, they'll play whatever song you want."
Rock just then noticed a tattered 1960s Moody Blues album cover between his arms on the table. People Rock's age commonly kept records like this packed away by the hundreds in attics and garages all around the civilized world.
"Just announce to the bar something like, 'Are the Moody Blues here?' " Sonny said. "And don't be embarrassed. Everyone in here's been doing it all night."
"OK," Rock said, and then loudly. "Are the Moody Blues here?"
He was confident they would be, but he heard no immediate response and was disappointed after a walk through the two rooms and a glance at the stage revealed they weren't.

Too much to ask

An old acquaintance of his named Hugh asked Rock if he would help pace him through a 1000-meter indoor track race. Although perfectly untrained, Rock said he would, and then spent the rest of the day wondering whether he was at all capable.
Hugh, a seventy-year-old former age-group running star, needed to complete the race in 3 minutes, 48 seconds or less in order to qualify for an unspecified championship event. Rock later ran the numbers and became nearly certain he couldn't help beyond perhaps half the distance, particularly after he calculated that a 3:48 would require him to run at exactly a 38-minute 10K pace.
Rock stepped onto a 160-yard indoor track in an old abandoned warehouse to test his legs, and he wasn't at all surprised by their deadness. He was, however, a bit disappointed to find that not only was he incapable of completing 1000 meters at the pace Hugh needed but that he furthermore could not run the required speed at all, not even for a few steps.

God's Record Book

A group of runners and volunteers from the Arkansas Traveller 100-Miler were gathered in a dark, dingy motel room. Rock and fellow Little Rock Hasher Tiny Tim Biggs were among them.
Rock and Tim stood near the door, away from the others. "I wonder what the farthest is anyone has ever run non-stop," Rock said.
"Do what?" Tim said.
"You know. How far has anyone ever run without fucking stopping?"
"I don't have any idea."
"This is why we need God's Record Book."
Several bystanders were suddenly nearby and looked at Rock as if he were insane.
"What are you talking about?" Tim said.
Rock explained that if there was some omnipotent entity, surely he could put together and publish a list of every single record, including the furthest anyone had ever run without stopping.
Tim mentioned that at least three Traveller winners said they ran every step of the course.
"Sure," Rock responded. "But you know they stopped at least for a moment at a few aid stations. For one thing, they have to get weighed a few times."

A few questions

There wasn't much to ask. Rock already had most of what he would need to put together a notes package on the University of Central Arkansas football program, but he was in a cloakroom when the head coach walked in.
Rock decided to ask a few questions about the previous Saturday's game that he knew nothing about.
"Coach, what are your thoughts about the game?" he said.
"Well, you know, obviously we were disappointed, but we gave it our best," the coach said. He spoke softly and looked somewhat angered.
It occurred to Rock moments later that the team was on a bye week and hadn't played. He didn't know what to think.

A paleo diet

Due to some undefined disaster, Rock and everyone he knew were limited to a paleo diet, which for him and other Type I diabetics was an extremely tricky proposition.
Rock was limited by hypoglycemia as he examined fecal matter, but he was nevertheless surprised to see that much of it was shaped like things his associates had consumed. Some of it, for instance, looked very similar to rainbow trout or sardines, except it was translucent and light gray.

Samantha's return

It was the first time Rock had ever put his cats Pam and Jo on leashes, but they seemed to like it as he walked them through the parking lot of a grocery store on the eastern edge of North Little Rock. And they seemed particularly happy when an elderly woman introduced them to two large, fuzzy black dogs.
As the dogs and cats meshed in a big ball of fur, another cat made a sudden appearance from under a car. It was Samantha. Rock recognized her immediately.
Samantha lived with Rock and the other cats for ten years, but he thought she had been killed by the city's animal control more than six months earlier. Nevertheless, here she was, and he was elated.

NASCAR, one-on-one

He was no more than a moderate NASCAR fan, but Rock won tickets to a race in Little Rock and was excited to go.
It was scheduled for a strip mall's former anchor store, roughly the size of a typical Walmart Super Center, and was apparently set up for a series of one-on-one races in which racers faced several complicated maneuvers. This became evident to Rock as he watched a car get wedged between a banister and a wall. The driver stepped out, cursed his mistake, and lifted the car by its trunk so he could reposition it to clear the opening.

The new course

Most seemed delighted by the new Little Rock Marathon course Rock had designed and set, but after no more than a few days, he could no longer remember its details. There were things about it that made no sense to him.
There apparently was a divide shortly after the start that separated elite racers from the bulk of the field. No one could explain where it was to Rock, and he had forgotten. He and a man he had known for years but whose name he'd never learned jogged across a bridge near downtown. They looked for the spot where the field would split, but it was late at night, and Rock knew they would never find it.