Ford Fairlane

 The bill would arrive soon for some rudimentary front-end work auto mechanics had performed for Rock, who imagined it would come to no more than two or three hundred dollars. One of the mechanics wiped his hands with a rag and told Rock his effort had been a snap. As the man spoke, Rock became aware for the first time the front of his car—a navy-blue 1968 Ford Fairlane—was crushed and buckled to within perhaps three feet of its windshield. He could not remember an accident, and it occurred instantly that he had been taken advantage of for these men to have done any work. This damage would cost far more than the car was worth.

On top of that

 This panicked Rock most. It was well past the paper's deadline, and his story was unsent. He wasn't even sure he had written it. On top of that, his blood glucose level was so low it caused him to stumble as he looked for his laptop and the notebook with his game notes. He fought against his walk's wobble as he staggered to his car at dawn, self-conscious and aware enough to fear embarrassment if a neighbor or neighbors were to witness his hypoglycemic struggle.

Rancidness

 Rock had successfully induced each Little Rock Hash House Harrier to drink rancid motor oil drilled by the former U.S. president Donald Trump. He was concerned but not quite sure what rancidness meant.

A wooden twig

 As Rock stood in line at an apparently immensely popular buffet, a pleasant but not particularly pretty nurse struck up a conversation. Shortly after it began, she said, "Hold still for a minute. You have something in your left ear." Rock paused as the nurse extracted the thing she had noticed. When she showed it to him, he was stunned. It was a wooden twig, perhaps three inches long with multiple tiny branches. Before he said anything to the nurse, the twig quickly blossomed into an ornate white flower. Moments later, with no further thought, Rock swam back to his car in an uphill swimming pool, twenty feet wide and a quarter-mile long. Gravity did not affect the water, which did not seem odd to Rock.

Longshot

 There was an intense fear among the hundreds of people that there was no escape from the unrelenting roar of television infomercials in Rock's house. Furthermore, it had become difficult for anyone to breathe. Rock also experienced balance issues. None of this seemed survivable to anyone, until Rock found a lubricated funnel he thought might provide a route out. It was an extreme longshot, certainly, but he slid through it until it deposited him into his silent living room/den.

Francis Ouimet

 Rock was surprised to learn sports teams in the U.S. and worldwide had begun to adopt the pattern from the golf shirt he slept in Monday night and Tuesday morning as the standard for their game jerseys. He, by the way, ordered the shirt from the USGA after he watched a U.S. Open contender dressed in one for the third round. It is white, speckled with tiny blue silhouettes of Francis Ouimet and his twelve-year-old caddy from the 1913 national championship. 

Adrift

 Life on earth was done. Rock had begun to accept it as he wandered around his house on a hot afternoon in July. There was an abyss gathered around. He knew his presence was an anomaly for mankind, the remainder of which was gone, adrift in the ether of oblivion.

Press parking

 Press parking for this sports event was on a multi-lane interstate highway bridge that ran across a major river near the downtown of a major American metropolitan area. Consequently, writers, reporters, and photographers were required to walk to the event in high-speed vehicular traffic. Neither Rock nor anyone else questioned this.

Trip to Hays City

 The convicted killer in the Dodge City federal courthouse was never identified as Rock. Still, Rock himself knew the matter of his guilt would be established by daybreak. He would hang for sure. A one-way trip to Hays City (long the Kansas equivalent of Huntsville, Texas) was inevitable, and he knew that, too.

Another Aikman reunion

 The Aikman children and two of their three surviving parents were celebrating one of many reunions. Though it did not seem at all odd to Rock at the time, they had chosen his maternal grandparent's house in Nashville, Arkansas, as the site. Three Aikman children, all at least fifty-six years old or older, were maternal first cousins of Rock's, which he later supposed justified their selection. It wasn't until he awoke the following day that he remembered the same place, known as the Crutchfield house to many of the city's residents, had been gutted by fire the proceeding November.

Clarity swept through

 Rock's survival depended on a chance to salt a russet potato and bake it before daybreak. This matter at first seemed certain, but then clarity swept through his kitchen. There were no potatoes in the refrigerator. There had not been any in years. All Rock knew now was a cat named Joe wanted out.

This is new

 The limousine offered a straightforward view of Oaklawn Park's infield, and Rock sat in the backseat with the Oaklawn owner. A dozen or so others, primarily college-aged, were crowded in with them, and they all watched as a wedding party of four walked toward a stage set up near the infield's largest concession stand. "This is new, isn't it?" Rock said. "It is," the owner said. "We thought it might appeal to our sentimental sort of fans." The party reached and stepped onto the stage. In the very instant of their arrival, it swung up with a violent mechanical jerk and tossed all four at high speed out of the facility and into the racetrack's enormous parking lot, a quarter of a mile away. It appeared as an unsurvivable event, and Rock wondered if it might ruin Oaklawn.

What can you do?

 Rock sat in a New Orleans airport diner, joined by a sportscaster from Chicago he met at a tournament completed earlier in the day. He noticed a look of alarm in his acquaintance's eyes and turned to see three middle-aged men approach. Each appeared angered. The sportscaster stood, said, "Shit, I'm not dealing with these idiots again," and hurried away. Rock discovered the oldest of the men knew he wrote for a newspaper when he was asked to investigate their problem. "There ain't a single flight going to O'Hare before nine a.m., and we gotta get there by ten at the latest. What can you do about it?"

The old cabin

 The old cabin at the state fairgrounds where Rock set up camp had fallen into significant disrepair. Most significantly, a good part of the floor was rotted through. Rock returned to it after a rock concert in the adjacent coliseum and would be challenged overnight to not fall to the gravel and dirt below the cabin.