Even as a youth, O.J. Simpson was the one with all the charm, never out of place in any situation.
Al Cowlings was bigger, even hulking, and somehow less graceful. O.J. moved through the streets of Potrero Hill in San Francisco with the ease of a natural leader.A.C. was never far behind, looking to his friend as a model, a brother and even a father figure. They were rarely apart.
Old friends of Simpson and Cowlings, trying to sort out the bewildering developments that concluded with Simpson's arrest Friday night, said that at least one element of the saga did not surprise them: In the end, it was Cowlings at Simpson's side.
"I know how Al was thinking," said Joe Bell, a friend of both men from their youth. "He was thinking, `This is O.J. This is my friend. I can't lose the best friend I ever had.' "
Millions of people were gripped by the live drama that was played out on their television screens Friday night, starring Simpson, a sports hero, movie actor and professional pitchman. But Cowlings, at the wheel of his white Ford Bronco, was little more than a mystery figure.
The lives of Cowlings and Simpson ran together in improbable ways. They lived in the same San Francisco housing project. They played football together in high school, then at two different colleges. After Simpson joined the professional ranks with the Buffalo Bills, Cowlings followed a year later.
Cowlings' career followed a journeyman's course while Simpson was a star, but they finished up together, retiring at the same time from the San Francisco 49ers.
Over the past several years, Cowlings went into business ventures with Simpson, and he even served as his stand-in and double during the filming of movies.
Finally, on Friday night, as Simpson slumped in the back of Cowlings' car with a gun to his own head, it was Cowlings who conducted the last frantic negotiations with the police that ended with Simpson's surrender.
Cowlings, who turned 47 on Friday, was arrested that night and charged with harboring a fugitive, but when he was released Saturday on a $250,000 bond, his role in Simpson's flight from the police was still unclear.
Had he helped Simpson elude the police for several hours Friday as they sought to arrest him for the murders of Simpson's former wife and a friend of hers?
Or had Cowlings tried to talk Simpson out of running away and perhaps even taking his own life?
People who know both men said Saturday that they were convinced that Cowlings had been trying to help Simpson find a way to face the charges during those desperate moments.
"I can imagine what Al was saying to him," said Tom Day, a former player and coach on the Bills. "He was telling him, `You've got to face this thing. It'll never go away, and there will be a stigma on your kids.' "
Simpson will also turn 47 soon, on July 9. He and Cowling grew up in a poor neighborhood in San Francisco and became friends when they played football at Galileo High School, where Cowlings was a year behind in school.
With a few other friends, they formed a street gang, calling themselves the Superiors. Simpson was the leader, mainly because he was adept at talking himself and the others out of fights. But Bell, who was also in the group, said that Cowlings, who stood 6-foot-3 and weighed about 230 at the age of 16, was constantly embroiled in one fight or another.
Cowlings was not so much tough, Bell said, as he was ill at ease. While Simpson had a gift when it came to talking and "wheeling and dealing," Cowlings stuttered and could not always express himself well, Bell said.
"O.J. could grow a full beard, even when he was just 15," said Bell, who now owns a thrift shop in Richmond, Calif., about 20 miles northeast of San Francisco. "He just looked older than everyone and acted older, and we all looked up to him. None of us had fathers at home, including Al, so O.J. became like a father."
Cowlings trusted Simpson so much that when he was having difficulty talking with his high school girlfriend, Marguerite Whitley, he asked Simpson to talk to her for him. Bell said that it was like "asking the fox to guard the chicken coop."
Whitley and Simpson soon began dating and they eventually married. Cowlings reacted angrily at first to their dating, but it did not affect his relationship with Simpson in the long run.
"He ended up staying friends with Marguerite," said Charley Ferguson, a former Buffalo teammate of both men.