Simple Man

- ONE -

Monday, September 24th, 1998

If Rowan August had heard every missed call and the subsequent voicemails on his answering machine he would have likely turned around. Luckily he wasn't home to hear them. He had turned off his Nokia 5110 and his pager, stuffing them both deep inside his saddle bag. Right or wrong, Rowan had made up his mind on the matter and left. Perhaps if he had heard his messages he wouldn't of left in the first place or perhaps it would have spurned him to run that much faster.

Just in case, he felt it best that he wasn't able to be reached right now. There was too much going on in his head that all he could focus on was the next ten feet of road and the next after that. He hadn't done something this irresponsible since he left home at the age of seventeen and for the first time since then he didn't care what the consequences were.

Now at age thirty-five, he had already put quite a distance from himself and the life he had so desperately ran from. He ran for reasons he wasn't sure he could ever trust to articulate to anyone, not that anyone would understand his pain. He was an introspective person by nature but those memories were in a sealed vault leagues and leagues down in the recesses of his mind. He knew he had left them there to rust like ruins of the Titanic, purposefully undiscovered.

The distance was not all he craved, he needed time too. Surely as time passed and the minutes turned to hours they would all know he was missing. Before the sun dared to rise over the road his manager, publicist and long-time friend, Edmond would make his ritualistic six o'clock call. As soon as it goes straight to voicemail Edmond will know something was amiss. 

In their eighteen years of working so closely together it was extremely seldom that Rowan wouldn't pick up whenever Edmond called. Before Rowan even revved the engine on his Indian he knew Edmond would already be experiencing a mild panic attack as soon as he was told to leave a message after the beep. Edmond hated leaving voicemails.

Edmond would be the first call he made once he got to his destination, the man kept everything straight for Rowan-from his calender to his tie. He owed it to his friend to have called him prior to leaving but Edmond would have talked him out of going and that's not what he needed right now. He didn't know why but he knew he needed to go. Rowan needed to see this through. Perhaps this would be the closest thing to closure he could ever hope to achieve.

So the rightfully deserved earful Edmond was going to give him would have to wait. Edmond was a classic Type-A personality tightly stitched into a crisp bespoke suit. Wound tight at all times the man would no doubt assume some morbid fate befell his client and believing it to be more true with every subsequent unanswered call.

It was unlikely that Edmond would come to the most logical conclusion on his own-his long-time partner, Raul, might have to help calm that rampant imagination of Edmond's. Rowan's manager couldn't fathom that his client would ever turn off his phone intentionally but Raul was definitely the voice of reason in their relationship. Even if someone else in Rowan's team suggested as such he knew Edmond would reject the thought with a dismissive wave of his manicured hand.

Edmond wouldn't come to accept his client and friend had gone MIA without telling him until Rowan finally called him back to confirm it himself. They both would separately have to come to terms with the fact that their professional and personal relationship had boundaries that had always been there but unspoken of until now. Rowan needed to breathe and Edmond would have no choice but to relinquish his protective hold to let him do just that.

It had been several hours since Rowan made the decision to take off on his motorcycle, a decision that felt truly his for the first time in many years. It was five hours when it really hit him that he was completely free of Hollywood's glittery glare. He still felt heavy in his heart but for a split second he forgot what was ahead and let out a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a coyote-like howl.

The sun just started to rise and greet the soft indigo of the Arizona sky, turning it into rich shades of lilac and dusty rose. This part of Arizona looked too much like Southern California and because of that he was glad to nearly be over the state line. Rowan needed to see something green besides a damned cactus or a palm. He couldn't wait to see the large old oaks again with the Spanish moss hanging off their branches.

He didn't know exactly when it happened but if felt like his life was no longer his own anymore. He was confident they would find someone else to replace him for the role he had just accepted. And so be it and so much the better for them all, his heart wasn't in it anymore and they deserved better than what he could give them. Besides, he couldn't worry about anyone else right now. Rowan was having a hard enough time trying to figure out why he continued to ride his motorcycle headlong into the hellscape that was the memory lane of his childhood.

Rowan shook his head. Just as he resolved to not think of anything but the open road the face of his step-father invaded his mind and the faces of so many others he thought he forgot soon followed. The bile that built up in the back of his throat was so bitter Rowan had no choice but to turn his head and spit into the wind.

Fuck if he knew a good reason why but he was going back to Juniper but he felt compelled. Despite his reservations Rowan continued to feel a gnawing to go back to the town he had always wanted so desperately out of and back to the house that never truly felt like home.