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The No Hand King did three stints in prison, the longest for nearly six years.

Inside, he would practice his balancing on folding chairs, staying up on the back legs for an hour at a time.

He stewed in his cell. He didn't have the ordinary cravings. He'd had a drink of liquor just once, his mother said, and he staggered around sick and swore off it forever.

There were other cravings he sought, though. Recognition. Respect. Being known as something other than a jailbird and a dropout.

He had always ridden bikes. Tinkered with them. Juiced them up. Painted flames on the sprockets. They took on a new priority on the outside.

A few run-ins with police followed his release, but the beefs either got dismissed in court or landed him on probation.

He has three children, none of whom live with him. But the No Hand King visits his 16-year-old son in Walnut Terrace and talks about the trouble that is easy to find.

"I tell him if you get into trouble that reflects on me," Hines says. "If you slip up and go to jail, I ain't coming to see you. You see how hard it is for me with my troubled background. I finally got some people looking at me in a positive way."

In February, the No Hand King told his story to three seventh-graders from Exploris Middle School downtown.

The students were working on a project about demographics, and they tried to interview people from all corners of society until they had a complete portrait formed by 100 people.

They needed six high school dropouts, some of which they found among homeless people in Moore Square. The No Hand King was the only one they found younger than a senior citizen.

They met him at his house on Person Street, the house his grandmother used to rent. Blue spray-paint is scrawled across the outside wall of the house next door, and neighbors sit in the yard drinking Thunderbird wine from the bottle. But the No Hand King, muscles bulging from daily weight lifting, held court in the yard surrounded by his bicycles and flags.

"I think they really enjoyed him," said Shannon Hardy, their teacher. "It was a little confusing for them. How was his bike riding supporting the troops? I think he was looking for a purpose."

They came away from the interview thinking they'd met a man searching for purpose, Hardy said. Their report described his absent father, his time in jail and his desire to steer kids from making his mistakes.

When the No Hand King saw the report, printed off the Internet, he seemed to tear up.

"They're really rooting for him," Hardy said, adding that the students suggested he ride his bike onto the ice at Carolina Hurricanes games. "If they could make anyone a cultural icon, it would be him."

Survival of the fit

The No Hand King's bike obsession surprises no one in his family.

"He always said he was going to take it somewhere," says Charles Perry, his cousin. "Sometimes I think it's a mind thing for him. Keep your mind on something positive."

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, says younger brother Donnie King, 36, of Wendell. King grew up mostly alone, brothers always in trouble, until he found a career in the Army.

"I survived," he said. "All that pain he's been through in his life, he's put it into ."

While his brother talks, the No Hand King is fixated on his cross-country ride, talking strategy out loud. The more rides, the more he can ride. He lives life like he's up against 100 men. How can one man beat him? How can 3,000 miles of highway?

Plenty of men mess up in life, drop out of school, go to jail. But Rodney Hines hopes to never be remembered as Rodney the dropout, Rodney the thief or Rodney the ex-con.

He'll always be Rodney the No Hand King.

Get a look while you can. The road calls, and he won't be around much longer.

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