So Ozzie read one article.
That's it. That's the whole origin story. One article, on his phone, while we were sitting on the porch watching the clouds come in from the west — that beautiful, deceptive Eureka Springs afternoon light that makes you think you have more time than you do — and by the time I'd finished my iced tea he had a plan.
"There's a guy," Ozzie said, "buying a Holidome."
I asked what a Holidome was.
"You know. A Holiday Inn. But with the dome. The indoor pool situation."
I did know, actually. I grew up going to one for my cousin's swim meets in 1997. I told him this.
"Okay so you get it," he said, which was not the conclusion I'd drawn, but Ozzie has always had a very loose definition of logical connection. "Eighty-one rooms. He's reopening it for Christmas 2026. This is exactly the kind of thing I should be doing."
I want to be clear: Ozzie works in accounts receivable. He lives in a one-bedroom apartment where the bathroom door doesn't fully close. He has, to my knowledge, never renovated anything except a fantasy football lineup, and even that he describes as "ongoing."
"You want to renovate a hotel," I said.
"Not that hotel specifically. A hotel. The concept."
I asked him what the concept was.
He got quiet in the way he gets quiet when he's working something out, which looks from the outside exactly like a man staring at a moth. Then he said, "What if it was themed. But not cheesy themed. Like, sophisticated themed."
I asked what the theme would be.
"Ozarks," he said. "But elevated."
I asked him what elevated Ozarks meant.
"Like, you'd have the folk festival energy, but also a bar. A good bar. Maybe a mezzanine."
I said that was just a hotel with a bar and a mezzanine.
"With intention behind it," he said, very seriously.
By now the light had gone that particular flat gray that means the thunderstorm is clocking in for its afternoon shift, and I could hear the first BikeFest warm-up rumble from somewhere down toward the basin, and I thought: this is such a specific kind of madness. It requires Eureka Springs. It requires a porch. It requires a man who has just enough WiFi and just enough optimism to become briefly convinced that he is one article away from becoming a 33-year-old entrepreneur.
"Ozzie," I said. "You don't have the money to buy a Holidome."
"Not yet."
"Or the construction experience."
"I'd hire people."
"With what money."
"The investors."
I put my glass down. "What investors."
He waved his hand in a way that meant the investors were, at this stage, more of a vibe than a roster.
I asked him if he'd looked up what it actually costs to renovate an 81-room hotel.
He said he was about to.
He pulled up his phone. I watched his face do the thing it does when a number is larger than expected, which involves a very small, very controlled intake of breath through the nose, like he's trying not to tip off a poker table.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"So it's more of a long-term vision."
Thunder rolled in from somewhere past the ridge, and the first fat drops hit the porch rail, and Ozzie looked out at the darkening hills with the expression of a man who has just mentally rebranded a setback as a timeline.
"You know what I should do first," he said, "is probably a business plan."
I said that was probably true.
"I'm gonna need a spreadsheet."
I said he could use mine.
"I might need a few spreadsheets."
We went inside. He made coffee. He opened his laptop with genuine purpose and the very specific energy of a person who is going to spend the next two hours learning what a pro forma is and then tell me about it over dinner like he invented the concept.
The storm rolled through. The town smelled like wet cedar and someone's barbecue.
Ozzie is still, as far as I know, in the research phase.
The Holidome guy is going to be fine. He has a plan and a building and a Christmas 2026 deadline.
Ozzie has a spreadsheet and me.
I think that's enough. I think that might actually be enough.