Simple Man

- TWENTY -

"So, what have you been up to?" Oz asked.

Rowan looked around and saw that Vin and Taz had disappeared.

"Gone to lift some weights." Oz answered the question Rowan didn't ask.

"How? After eating that all I want to do is take a nap." Rowan chuckled as he sat back down.

  He was beginning to appreciate how nothing changed, even this table and its chairs were the same ones he sat in as a kid. Being the grown man he was now he usually didn't like feeling like a kid, it meant feeling that same fear he felt all those years ago. With Oz it was different, he was the life line in his childhood; Rowan was pretty sure he wouldn't have made it out of Juniper alive without him. Rowan felt like a kid again around Oz but not because Oz was literally pushing a hundred. It was simply that he still felt safe with him, now that he was three feet taller and in great physical condition it wasn't physical safety he felt. It was emotional.

  Oz never required him to be anything but a kid. He would help clean around the bar and help cook sometimes but for the most part Rowan got to play. He'd play on the pin ball machines, his favorite being the Munsters one. He love to shoot a game of pool on the billiard table with Manny who was one of the a bouncer back then. He'd ride his bike around the massive wrap around porch like he was a race car driver on the track. In the evenings he'd borrow Oz's tackle box and pole and go down to dock to catch some fish. The bar owner always reminding him not to let his feet dangle over the side because there were alligators in water.

"You don't really want to answer that? Do you?" Ozzy asked, he leaned back in his chair, "I saw Stand Off in the theatres. It was good. Not as good as your last one but I enjoyed it."

"Wait—" Rowan started.

"Wait what? Did you think no one knew? Some don't, some do, none of us cared. We're happy you went and made something of yourself, really but you're not the Rowan August here. Here, you're just Rowan. You're a grown man now but to me you're still that same scrawny, angry little boy who had to grow up way too damn fast, and whose smart mouth had to be be popped every now and then for good measure."

"I thought The Rox didn't play anything current?" Rowan wondered, still confused.

"It never did but Barney gets current magazines and tabloids in pretty regular along with the Farmers Almanac and the crossword books. I've since your face on the cover of a few of those rags every now and then. People's 'Sexiest Man Alive' a couple years ago huh?" Oz said with a smirk.

Rowan just rolled his eyes.

"Kahuna has family in New Orleans and he took me down there a couple times and we saw a few of your movies. Strange to recognize someone you see on screen but you're good. After awhile I'd forget I was looking a you kid. You know how to channel real pain."

"I'm glad you liked them but to be honest besides the premieres I never watch my own movies. Oz, to be honest I feel like a fraud." Rowan said, picking at the already chipping paint on the table.

"How so?"

Rowan shook his head and crossed his arms before shrugging, "I don't know Oz, it's like all the people I work with have dreamt to be what they are their whole lives. Some of them worked for it, for years working at restaurants while hunting down casting calls. Some even went to prestigious theatre schools for it and some of those people are in supporting roles beside someone like me who merely got handled a way out of this town and took it. I've gotten extremely lucky and that's it. Maybe it's because people find me attractive or mysterious or whatever bullshit fantasy they can make up in their head about me. Whatever it is it isn't the truth. The truth is I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm grateful to have what I do but I don't feel like I earned it. People kill to have the kind of fame I do but I never wanted that, I just wanted to be safe, stable—simplistic. Now, my life is more complicated than it's ever been."

"I knew you didn't come here to bury the asshole. You could have called Lorraine back, told her what you wanted over the phone and sent a check for the expenses. You needed perspective."

Rowan shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"Hey, I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable. I'm no head shrink, I'm a bar owner. I listen to people's troubles so it's the same difference I guess but this is the first time you've ever opened up to me about your feelings. You know that right?" Oz asked.

"I know you know. I feel like I've never had to tell you. I don't think I could the words out loud if I wanted to. I just—" Rowan's voice cracked and he swallowed before falling silent.

"I don't know anything exactly. I felt that pain in you and I took a guess. Maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong. All I knew is you were a little boy who was hurting and I needed to be there for you like others should have been but weren't." Oz said softly, looking down at the table.

"You did everything for me. You helped me get my first job at Renault's, you helped me find and fix up Claude. I would have never got her running if it hadn't been for you. If it hadn't been for you I would have ended up in prison—or dead."

"You give me too much credit and yourself not enough. You're a survivor Rowan, always have been and you always will be. You did what you did to survive this life you were handed—but you thrived as well. You should be proud of you."

"Proud..." Rowan said the word like it was in a foreign language, "I think I got to crack the code on out how to not loathe myself first but if it ever happens you'll be the first to hear it."

"Then it's settled." Oz said with a hint of mirth.

"What's settled?"

"I'm not dying until you do."

"I wouldn't hold my breath, it's not like you're getting any younger."

"Of course not, that's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. A baby isn't getting any younger either so a baby can hold it's breath? No, of course it can't and neither can you. All we can count on is the exact second we make it to until it's the last but we never know which second that is. Rowan, you're here now? Why? Not why did you run? Not why did you come back? Why are you here? Really here. Really breathing. Right now. What is your why boy? How can you ever hope to find yourself if you have yet to find your why?"

"I don't understand." Rowan said.

Oz pursed his lips, "Everyone seeks to find themselves. Finding themselves usually—not always—means becoming a better, more self aware person. Most people lack the why. You can ask it. Why? Why do I want to find myself? That doesn't mean you'll find your why simply by asking. You got to go out there and find it!" Oz said, slamming his cane on the linoleum floor, "It's been fourteen years, if you had found your why you wouldn't be sitting across from me right now. Why is the first and last piece of the puzzle that will define the man you will become in this life. You say you don't understand and of course you don't, because you won't understand until you find it."