Concert Event Of The Year

A Story by chris fryer

A couple ride-shares with strangers to a concert but quickly find that the strangers have different plans.

4:00 pm

We welcome the late April sunshine through an open sun-roof and rolled-down windows on the highway, traveling eighty miles per hour across Northern California in a black Acura with two strangers-turned-friends en route to the Concert Event of the Year.

Jenny taps me on the shoulder to mouth the words “I’ve got to pee” over the blaring lyrics of our favorite Mumford and Sons song.

I ask Ken to pull over and about 10 miles out of Fairfield we find the first rest-stop, Tower Mart, off the Red Top Road exit ramp.

Rita gets out to stretch and puts her red hair up into a pony-tail. I watch Jenny slip out of the car and laugh about something with Rita and then hurry toward the convenience market across the lot. Sliding glass doors welcome her, swallow her. Rita looks at herself in the reflection of the car window. Ken finishes texting someone and slides the phone into his pocket as he climbs out of the driver’s seat, pulling a lever to pop open the gas-tank cover before shutting the door and moving toward the pumps. He kisses Rita. Rita gets back into the car and says, “Did you want any snacks? While we’re here?” and I feel my stomach rumble in response and I say, “I’ll get some. I should probably pee while we’re here, too,” and Rita leans her seat forward so that I can squeeze out from the backseat.

It’s hot out here, the sun oozing up from the oily cement.

Ken gives me a nod, pumping gas, and I ask, “Want anything?” He lowers his mirrored sunglasses and says, “What?” and I wonder if playing all that Mumford and Sons at full volume for the past half-hour hasn’t damaged his hearing. “Nothing,” I say, adding, “I’ll be right back,” and he shouts a second later, “See if they have any red vines.”

I pass Jenny as she exits the store with the bathroom key and she smiles and we share a long kiss in the entrance, which confuses the sensor and the sliding door can’t decide if it should stay open or close. I catch an annoyed look from the cashier and pull away from Jenny, who giggles as she skips toward the far end of the building while I go into the air conditioning and let the doors finally close. There are red vines and plenty of other snacks down the aisle to my right and I grab a pack for Ken, plus a bag of chips and two Cokes and a thing of wintergreen gum. The cashier’s giving me that I-Hate-Tourists glare the whole time, even as I saddle up to the counter and we exchange bills for products.

Only when I stuff the receipt into my pocket do I realize something’s wrong.

The concert tickets are missing.

11:10 am

Jenny comes back from the bathroom right as the waitress arrives with our breakfast�"eggs benedict for her, a bagel smothered in pesto cream cheese for myself�"and she lets out a happy little gasp. “Thank you so much,” she says to the waitress, who gives Jenny a quick smile as she hurries back into the crowded restaurant. Jenny sits, ogles at her food, and I’m compelled to kiss her. “Kiss me all you want, you’re not getting any of this,” she says, picking up her silverware.

We take our first few bites in appreciative silence.

After a sip of coffee that I forgot I’d ordered, I ask her, “How much do you think I should give them for gas?”

She replies, “What kind of car do they drive?”

“An Accord. Acura. Accord. Something like that.”

“I’d say twenty.”

“Isn’t gas at like four dollars, now?”

She shrugs and says, “Thirty then?”

“I’ll just ask Ken what he thinks is fair. Bad form to give too little, you know?”

The waitress returns to refill my coffee and leaves the check.

3:10 pm

She comes out of the bedroom in white shorts capping long slender legs and the black straps of a small backpack slung over a light blue t-shirt, a yellow ribbon tied around her curly black bushel of hair, a pair of dusty Toms on her sockless feet.

I look at my watch.

“Oh please.,” Jenny says. “That only took five minutes. What time is it?”

“They’ll be here in ten minutes. Ken texted, said they were in traffic.”

I’ve been spending the past five�"a.k.a. fifteen�"minutes sitting on the couch and admiring the two holographic, shiny, individualized Railroad Revival tickets that arrived in the mail last week, which I’ve admired like a pair of priceless baseball cards for fifteen minutes every day since. I feel the rough surface of the holographic material, the sticker with my name on it and read the small print and random official-use codes… I’ve never spent more than ten bucks on a show�"usually some local band, some dark bar�"and so shelling out fifty-five bucks per ticket was totally unlike me. But this is Mumford and Sons we’re talking about. Not to mention Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and the Old Crow Medicine Show.

This is no mere show.

A concert like this is completely worth the three days of tips, not only for the music, but simply to be one of the lucky who could say they we were there.

“I’m already hungry again,” she says, moving toward the window that looks down at the parking lot. “This apartment’s hard to find for out-of-towners,” she stresses. “Are you sure they know how to get here?”

“Ken said not to worry ‘cause he has an iPhone,” I reply, putting the tickets back into their special white envelope, back into my pants pocket. “He’s one of those people.”

Jenny turns and says, “Still… Remember how lost my phone got us in Santa Cruz?”

I shrug.

“And what do you mean, one of those people?”

“Eight minutes,” I say. “He’ll be here.”

“What time does the show start?” She sits on the couch beside me and stretches her legs over my lap. I instinctively worry about the tickets bending and panic, but hide it, and shift her legs toward my knees, replying matter-of-factly, “The gates open at five.”

She checks the time on her iPhone. “It’s getting close.”

“Oakland’s not that far. We’ll make it just fine.”

“Did you feed the cat?” she asks.

“Yes. Yes. Yes,” I say as my phone vibrates on the coffee-table and I lean forward over Jenny’s shins to answer. It’s Ken. “He says they just pulled in. Come on. Up, up. Let’s get this show on the road.”

3:22 pm

Cramped in Ken’s small Acura, we’ve wasted no time getting friendly with each other as I help Ken find his way out of Midtown and back to the freeway. Ken manages an electronics shop in Reno and he keeps the car quite spotless; Rita styles hair in some salon and chews Nicorette gum. They’ve both lived in Reno their entire lives�"which I imagine is about thirty, thirty-five years. I don’t get the impression that they have kids. Jenny and I talk about Sacramento, about our jobs�"her, a reporter; me, a coffee-shop barista�"where we met, where we went to school, how we liked it. Ken seems a little too serious, but Rita’s fun and they seem happy and real enough, so I like them.

Jenny asks, “What band are you guys most excited about?”

“I’m here for Mumford,” Rita says proudly.

Ken answers, “Edward Sharpe.”

In a loud whisper to Jenny and me, Rita adds, “His man-crush.”

“Have either of you ever heard of Ima Robot?” Ken asks, ignoring Rita.

Jenny and I have not.

“That’s his band.”

“They’re alright,” says Rita. “I guess. But Mumford in Sons…”

She swoons.

Jenny agrees with her.

Then Rita takes Ken’s hand and squeezes it. “Ken’s taking me for my birthday.”

“Oh wow,” says Jenny. “It’s your birthday?”

“My birthday’s in December. It’s an early present.”

“The tour wasn’t coming any closer to Reno?” I ask.

“Nope,” says Ken. “I wanted tickets to the opening show, anyway.”

“I felt the same way.”

This is after all, the Concert Event of the Year.

Rita puts on the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros album and then starts painting her fingernails lime-green. Her hair is otherworldly, a strawberry-red cotton-candy afro with a mind of its own. She moves like a prairie dog in earshot of a predator, looking out the window in one moment and digging through the glovebox the next. She’s dressed in a black tank-top with jeans and her white tennis shoes are covered in words she’s written with a black marker.

Before the freeway onramp, I ask Ken if he’s good on gas and he says the car should be fine all the way to Oakland, “But thanks. Help out on the way back, how about that?”

I’m glad they’re good people. Jenny and I hold hands in the backseat and melt into the rear speakers as the music builds and the city slides away beyond the guardrails. My eyes lock on the sunlight reflecting in Ken’s slick black hair, the two hands on the wheel�"no wedding ring, I note�"the white button-up shirt and the dark khakis with flip-flops. I imagine him selling satellite radio receivers and gadgets and gizmos, flashing that big perfect smile he greeted Jenny and I with outside our apartment. He has a good hand shake, good posture. He is, I think, a cool guy, and by association I begin to feel cool, too.

I think to myself: This feels so perfect.

I start smiling like a goof, buzzed off this thought, and I lean over and kiss Jenny because I can see on her face that she’s feeling the same thing. Ken notices us in the rearview mirror and says, “Hey, hey now. Keep your pants on kids,” and Rita gasps and takes Ken’s face and forces her mouth onto his and for this odd moment we’re all busy kissing and somehow we don’t crash into the highway median.

Eventually, around Track 3, “Up From Below,” Rita turns around and asks, “So have you guys done anything like this before? A ride-share, I mean?” and she’s blowing on her fingernails as the green polish dries.

Jenny and I both shake our heads.

“My car broke down two weeks ago,” I say, “and we would’ve taken the train, but…”

“I know some friends who do it all the time and they always meet the most interesting people,” Jenny finishes.

Rita glances at Ken and then says to Jenny, “We saw Mumford and Sons in Germany, actually, on accident. We didn’t even know who they were, but we were there visiting friends and Ken wanted to see a show.”

Jenny and I agree, “That sounds amazing. Was it good?”

Rita gives a no duh laugh and Ken answers, “You’ve never really experienced a concert until you’ve surrounded yourself with a thousand drunk Germans.”

I say, “I hope this show is as awesome as I’ve hyped it to be.”

Rita looks at me with sincerity over nearly-dried green fingertips and says, “Believe it.”

It’s then that Track 6 starts and we all sing along to the lyrics of “Home.”

3:38 pm

Jenny turns around and says, “Bye Davis,” as the scenery transitions from civilization to spacious farmlands. A flock of birds flies low over the highway. We’re heading toward low lumps of hills on the horizon, so green they almost seem fake, and the sky is a cloudless, blue, giant dream that compliments the summery weather, the rush of the breeze through open windows and everyone’s obnoxiously positive mood. I feel high and delusional and Rita put Mumford and Sons on and the music is nice and loud.

3:45 pm

Now that Rita’s nails are dry, I see her rolling a joint in the top of a shoebox. Soon she passes the joint to Jenny and says, “Partake if you wish,” but the music is so loud it looks like she’s just moving her lips. Jenny lights up, passes it to me, and I take a long drag before tapping Ken on the shoulder and he shakes his head and Rita intercepts and puffs away, bobbing her head to the chorus of “Winter Winds,” and the smoke we breathe escapes quickly through the sunroof. The joint is passed around a few more times. I’m stoned by the time Jenny says, “I’m good,” and I take one more hit and return it to Rita, who stuffs out the roach in a little glass jar and comments, “You couldn’t find this stuff in Germany.”

3:47 pm

Two minutes feels like a half-hour. “Winter Winds” becomes “Roll Away Your Stone” and the rapid banjos are fast and intense and inhuman and wonderful and I love the lead singer’s voice and the lyrics swell and the guitar and the melody and the whole universe seems to be harmonizing around me. I close my eyes and sink. Jenny reaches out to hold my hand and she feels a million miles away. Her fingers, her hands, her skin, the little hairs, the grooves of life-lines, the curve of her nails… I’m stoned. I open my eyes and see Ken texting someone on his phone, keeping one eye on the road. I see Rita’s hair ablaze in the breeze, a wild untamed creature atop her head, trying to escape, or maybe dancing, dancing to the music, and I close my eyes and feel the wind in my own hair, on my face, pressing me harder against the seat. I’m wondering: How did I get here? Why does everything feel so perfect and wonderful? Why can’t I just live in this moment forever?

3:51 pm

Jenny wakes me with a shake of my shoulder and the first thing I realize is that “Little Lion Man” is playing and that’s my favorite Mumford and Sons song. I turn to look at my girlfriend and she smiles sleepily and says, “You passed out,” and I ask, “Where are we?” even though I’m not all that concerned and Ken says, “Almost to Fairfield.”

I yawn and lean against the window, then lift my head again, wanting to be awake, wishing I hadn’t smoked so much. But did I? I usually don’t get so sleepy so quickly. Jenny reaches across the seats and takes my hand and this is comforting.

Ken is texting someone. Rita is looking at her nails with glossy, distant eyes.

“Little Lion Man” brings up the energy when the song reaches the three-minute mark, when we all start singing the “Ahh, ahh, ahh” part with growing intensity until the guitars quiet and the chorus kicks in. Our shared enthusiasm makes belting out the f-word all the more fun and we’re laughing as the next track starts with the first soft lyrics and Ken turns down the volume as traffic backs up a little while passing through Fairfield.

I impulsively ask Ken and Rita if they’ve heard the song “Feel the Tide,” which was a track on the UK release of Mumford and Sons’ album.

Neither Ken nor Rita knows of any other tracks, other than a few cover songs.

That seems strange for some reason. Wasn’t Rita a big fan?

But I’m high and I quickly move to a new thought.

4:09 pm

The concert tickets are missing.

My stomach curdles and my forehead goes clammy with sweat. There I am still standing at the cash register with one hand in my pocket and the other holding a plastic bag of road-trip snacks, and the cashier gives me a funny look and asks, “Everything alright?” and I take a few steps back, digging deeper into the pocket. Nothing but lint. So as I’m standing by a rack of beef jerky, I finally admit it�"they’re gone�"and I say, “Oh f**k.”

Jenny comes back with the bathroom key and she’s all smiles and sunshine and I watch her drop off the key with the cashier. I want to disappear. I want to know where the tickets are. I had them in my pocket when we left, right? Could they have fallen out in the backseat of Ken’s car? Wasn’t I sitting the whole time? Jenny sees me and steals a big hug and then says quietly, “That has to be one of the worst gas station bathrooms I’ve ever been in. So fair warning if you have to use it, too.”

Then she sees the look on my face and asks, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing yet,” I reply, swallowing rocks. I kiss her forehead and hope she can’t hear that slight panicky tremble in my voice. We head back outside and start toward Ken’s car.

Suddenly everything has gone terribly wrong.

Jenny says it first. “Where’d they go?”

4:15 pm

The gates open in forty-five minutes and Jenny checks on her iPhone to find out that we’re still forty minutes from Oakland. I’m too upset to stand near her, so she stands near the ice box outside of the market trying to ask people if they’re heading toward Oakland. Apparently she’s not having any luck. I don’t like the defeated look on her face and it compels me to be angrier than I’ve ever been when I leave a voicemail message on Ken’s phone. Half the stuff I yell, I don’t even know where it comes from, but I think it went something like this:

“Hey you sonofabitch, you f*****g a*****e, I want my goddamn tickets back! I know you took ‘em and I swear to God I will find you and punch you in the face when I see you because you’re a slimy shithead, you f**k!”

A moment later Ken sends me a text message that says: Snooze you lose.

I rejoin Jenny and ask her if she passed out after smoking that joint, too, and she says, “I remember closing my eyes for a minute. Do you think they drugged us?”

I nod. “That’s when they took the tickets. Took ‘em right out of my pocket.”

“So they didn’t actually have their own tickets…”

“They used us.”

After she soaks in that truth, as I have, she calmly says, “Let’s find a ride to Oakland. That’s the first step,” and takes my hand and squeezes.

It’s around this time that I realize how high I still am and my eyes are bloodshot red in the window reflection, and Jenny, too, looks like she’s floating in the upper stratosphere of her mind. I go inside and buy eye-drops and we take turns with the fluid, but I’ve always been clumsy about eye-drops and now it just looks like I’ve been crying all day. Maybe this works to our benefit, however, because the next woman that Jenny asks about a ride to Oakland takes a look at me, at Jenny, at me rubbing my eyes dry, and then says, “Sure.”

4:19 pm

Her name is Ellen and she lives in Sacramento and is on her way to visit her pregnant sister in San Francisco for the weekend, for the baby shower. The backseat of her compact car is crammed with yet-to-be-wrapped presents, a stroller, piles of diapers and clothes, and somehow I’ve squeezed in there and managed to secure my seatbelt. Even though I’m not complaining, Ellen keeps looking back at me and saying, “Sorry about all that. I didn’t expect company.”

Jenny’s in the passenger seat in front of me telling Ellen our story and Ellen’s jaw drops further and further and she gasps at the part when Jenny and I were drugged and finally all the details are share.

Ellen says, “This is why I never trust anything I come across on craigslist.”

Jenny says, “We’re just hoping to find them before they use our tickets,” and I notice that she’s biting her nails and she hasn’t done that in months.

The CD plays Norah Jones and Ellen says she’s never heard of Mumford and Sons. I imagine she’s a teacher or a state worker, wearing her shoulder-length hair in a bun with business-casual suit pants and an off-white blouse. She drives with her hands on ten-and-two and smells like my grandma’s house. Ellen speeds in the fast lane for our benefit, and in doing this favor for us, she’ll be breaking off her normal path to San Francisco.

It’s nice to come across such a good-hearted person after encountering pure evil. To thank her, I strain to reach my wallet and fish out twenty bucks and pass it to Jenny, who gives it to Ellen. “Oh, no�"please. Please. I’m fine. Really,” she says. “You think I want to see my baby sister knocked up by that sleaze-ball? This is my excuse to be late.”

Jenny leaves the money near the e-brake and the topic is dropped.

We don’t say much and part of the reason is because I’m stoned and sad, wishing I wasn’t, and focusing most of my energy on thoughts of punching Ken in the throat when I find him, and worrying that I won’t find him, that the trip is ruined, that we’re going to miss the Concert Event of the Year. I reach forward and touch Jenny’s shoulder and she reaches up to hold my hand there for a moment. Ellen notices and smiles.

4:30 pm

We cross the Carquinez Bridge and leave Vallejo toward Richmond and no one has said anything for a few minutes. Ellen gets a phone call and says, “My sister,” and ignores it. I see Jenny lean her head against the window, hopefully not in defeat, then realize that she’s watching a plane fly low across the sky, its white belly reflecting blue off the bay. I check my watch and look away quickly. Gates open in a half hour.

Ellen says, “I have a joke,” and Jenny and I both turn toward her with eager ears. “A husband sees his wife watching the cooking channel and he says: What do you watch that stuff for? You can’t cook. And the wife says to him: Well you watch porn.”

It feels good to laugh as Richmond passes by.

Jenny reads a sign and says, with painfully low enthusiasm, “Twelve miles.”

4:41 pm

When we get to Oakland, Jenny gives Ellen directions to the venue, and both she and I are perked up like dogs on the hunt. I look out the window like I might happen to see Ken and Rita (if those are their real names) walking along the sidewalk, but there are too many people and I doubt they’d be anywhere but Middle Harbor Shoreline Park. Traffic moves in clusters from one red light to the next, agonizingly slow. I crane my neck to look up at the tall bright buildings. I haven’t been to Oakland since I was a kid and despite everything, I still want to look around and soak it in. Jenny’s doing the same, biting her nails with additional fervor as every second passes like a kidney stone. Ellen curses someone who cuts her off. We’re almost there. We’re almost there.

4:50 pm

Of course there’s no parking and the traffic outside of the park is completely jammed, so Ellen turns to us and says, “Go on. Get out. Find your tickets. Here�"take my phone number and call me if you can’t get in,” and she passes Jenny a business card from her wallet. Jenny leans over and kisses Ellen on the cheek and I reach out to shake Ellen’s hand, freeing myself from the baby gifts and following Jenny out onto the sidewalk. Without hesitation we start running toward the crowds.

4:53 pm

My right shoe has come untied and the strings are flapping around like downed electrical wires, but I can’t worry about them now, running ahead of Jenny through the masses. We’re both looking for a chick with a red afro�"Rita�"or that punk with his slicked-back hair�"Ken�"heading toward the front of the clustered line. There are all sorts of people attending the show, huddled about, smiling and laughing, from the over-dressed with high-heels and gold cuff-links to the ripped jeans and well-worn sandals. Lots of women with red hair. Lots of guys with heads slick and shiny with gel. None of them Ken or Rita.

We stop near the entrance where bulky security guards are keeping the crowds standing behind a yellow strip of tape on the cement. They haven’t opened the gates yet.

“They’re still out here,” Jenny says, out of breath, grabbing my hand.

“I know, I know,” I say, scanning all the faces, scanning all the hairstyles. Where are they? They should be somewhere around here, I figure, doing futile mental math in my mind, trying to guess when those ticket-stealers arrived. Surely fans started this line hours ago, so maybe… I take Jenny’s hand and we start retracing our steps, heading toward the middle section�"which, without the security’s barking orders to form a single line, is a muddled mess.

“Do you see them, Chris? Where do you think they are?” Jenny is asking, but I don’t answer because the crowd erupts in cheer. The gates have been opened.

“S**t,” I say. “S**t, s**t, s**t.”

We watch everyone shuffle forward, funneled through a handful of ticket-checkers, everyone scanned with metal-detector wands, efficient, too quick, and Jenny and I stand helplessly on the sideline and hope that Ken and Rita will wander by. But they don’t. So I decide to take Jenny’s hand once more and�"f**k it�"we force our way into the line, which is like swimming against the current of an angry river full of shoving elbows and hostile accusations. Within moments I’ve lost Jenny’s hand, but I keep pushing forward, half furious and half afraid, and I start yelling, “Ken! Ken!” and someone shouts back, “Go home, Barbie. Ken doesn’t love you anymore!”

Jenny has vanished. I turn around to find her and all I see are the backs of heads.

I’m shoved hard from behind�"my fault for standing still within the current�"and I’m too tired, too defeated to hold myself up. I bounce off another guy and swim toward the shore, breaking away from the flow and finally getting a breath of fresh air.

I don’t see Jenny again until the whole wild crowd has been led into the venue, until all that remains are stragglers, ticket-scalpers, cigarette butts and overflowing trash cans. I look at my watch and it’s

5:24 pm

and then I look at my phone and see three missed calls and a text, from Jenny, that all say the same thing: You left me behind, you a*****e.

We find each other by a tree near the street corner. Jenny is leaning against the trunk with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at the venue, at the front gate where late-comers are getting their tickets checked. We don’t say anything. I lean against the tree and notice San Francisco across the bay, pretty in the low sunlight, and I see boats passing by leaving V’s on the choppy water. Music starts up from inside the venue. It’s the Old Crow Medicine Show. The crowd cheers. Jenny pushes off from the tree and starts walking away without a word and I watch her go, guilty, upset, and then come up with an idea.

“Don’t go too far,” I say, leaving the tree at a quick jog toward the venue gates.

There, I go up to the first ticket-checker and say, “I’m sure you get this a lot, but I just got here from Fairfield with my girlfriend and we were ride-sharing with these two people who we thought had tickets to the show, but they didn’t, and they stole ours and left us in Fairfield and my girlfriend and I got a ride here to try and catch them, but… Obviously we were a little late and they used our tickets to get in.” Here I pause and notice how unconvinced the ticket-man is, this big white beer-bellied fellow, and so I add, “My name is Chris Fryer. The names were on the tickets. I have my ID, if you want.”

And he says, after popping a bubblegum bubble, “Sorry friend.”

“Is there someone else I can talk to?”

He shrugs. Just a shrug. “Afraid you’re S.O.L.”

“What if I went in there and found them, and brought them out here?”

He laughs. “Now that we do get a lot. No one gets in without a ticket, friend.”

“I bought tickets. Two of them. I woke up early just to make sure.”

“I’m sure you did.” He shrugs again. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, bud, but I’m not losing my job just to give you a happy ending. Next time keep better track of your tickets and you won’t have this problem, champ,” he says, each nickname more belittling than the one before, and I want to punch him or kick him or push him out of the way and barge my way into the venue, but I don’t, and I sulk and turn around and return to Jenny, who has wandered to the shore and is staring at the city across the bay and biting her fingernails with their chipped pink polish.

I reach out to take Jenny’s hand but she pulls it away. “I can’t believe you just left me behind,” she says softly, not looking at me. “Someone elbowed me so hard it knocked the wind out of me. I thought I was going to fall down and get crushed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We should have just waited by the gate. I don’t know why you wanted to run around like that. We could have just spotted them before they got inside.”

“I know. I wasn’t thinking.”

“This sucks.”

“We can still hear the show,” I offer weakly.

“I don’t want to hear it. I want to see it.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“Barely. Oh�"and how exactly do you expect to get home?” Now she looks at me. “I don’t suppose we’re going to meet up with Ken and Rita after the show for the return trip like nothing ever happened.”

“It was your idea to try a ride-share,” I reply. “Don’t get mad at me for what they did.”

“I just think we had a good chance to catch them, and you blew it.”

“Blew it?” I echo. “Like I’m supposed to know what to do? I’m sorry I’ve never been in this position before, Jenny. I’m sorry I don’t know what to do about stolen concert tickets.”

“You should’ve asked to see their tickets before we left.”

I laugh.

“Let’s just go. I’m hungry and I don’t want to hear the music.”

5:39 pm

I bring Jenny her americano and sit at the bench seats in the back of the coffeeshop beside her with my mocha and a caramel apple scone. She takes a bite of the scone and says, “Thanks,” without lifting her eyes from the newspaper unfolded before her, some story about leaking gas pipes on the front spread. Even though we’re three blocks from the concert, I can still hear�"and feel�"the music. I think Old Crow is still playing. If we could find a way to break into the venue, we’d still get to see our two favorites.

I put a hand on her back and squeeze her shoulders.

“I know it’s not your fault,” she says.

“I’m sorry I let them get away with it.”

“Someone will put the show up on YouTube tonight, anyway.”

“Probably.”

“We still have to figure out how to get home,” she says, turning the page.

“I wouldn’t mind just getting a hotel for the night.”

She shrugs.

I take a sip of the mocha. It’s too sweet.

I excuse myself from the bench and find the bathroom and do my business and wash my hands and stare at my reflection for a while, wondering how I could’ve handled this whole fiasco better, if this was just how it was meant to be. Had we really been drugged? I wondered what they’d put in that joint that knocked Jenny and I out so effortlessly. Another drug? Roofies? Whatever it was, Rita had smoked some of it too, so it couldn’t have been anything too crazy. Just enough to put us under. Just enough for Ken to pull the tickets out of my pocket and leave me none the wiser.

That b*****d.

What a crazy scam that was�"to answer a ride-share request solely to get free tickets to a show. Either they did it just for the thrill, or Ken and Rita were the most ruthless fans on the face of the planet, pissed because they went online to get tickets to the show and saw they’d sold out within hours.

I hated them for this.

Leaving the bathroom, I glanced out the windows and happened to see a large black van drive by with MIDDLE HARBOR SHORELINE PARK stenciled on the side and EVENT STAFF printed underneath, heading toward the venue, and at first the sight only made me sad, reminding me of the fun time we were missing out on, and then I stopped in my tracks, struck by an idea, struck with something that felt a lot like hope.

5:45 pm

“Where are we going?” Jenny asks, slowing her pace as we near the venue. “We’re not going back to the show, are we?”

“I don’t know yet. Kind of.”

“Don’t tell me you found the tickets.”

“I didn’t. But I have an idea.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Just trust me.”

We make it back to the park and see that the front gates have been closed completely and the security guards and ticket-checkers are gone. No late entries allowed. The Old Crow Medicine Show are still playing their folk music over the loudspeakers. I’m glad I hadn’t bought the tickets with them in mind. They’re not the reason I’ve come and it’s okay if I miss their act. I’ll just watch it on YouTube later, anyway.

We circle the park, following the high fence, and I can tell that Jenny is losing interest in this improvised plan, but I don’t know how much time I have to stop and explain my idea, so I keep moving and keep looking for that van.

Where did it go? Surely it must have�"

“There you are,” I say.

“What?”

“This way.”

The fence ends at the wall of a small structure that seems to serve as an access-point for automobiles and the van I saw earlier is currently parked outside of a lowered metal gate. I don’t see any security guards around. No one in the van. Jenny and I approach slowly, hand-in-hand, and I hope that we look like two unassuming lovers out for an evening stroll, though I feel obvious, blatantly concealing some ulterior motive.

“Stay here a second,” I tell her, leaving her at the sidewalk and jogging toward the van. I get there and try the passenger door�"locked�"and then hurry around to try the driver’s door, which isn’t. I let myself inside and unlock the passenger door and then Jenny, who has never looked so surprised in her life, comes over when I give her a big goofy smile and a summoning wave. She gets inside and says, “What the hell are you doing?” while I’m looking for keys and yes�"like a movie�"there is a spare set in the glovebox. Even better, there’s a badge dangling from the rearview mirror that says MSHP STAFF, which I take down and loop around my neck. “You’re crazy,” Jenny says. “This can’t work.” I look in the back of the van and it’s empty and I tell Jenny, “Hide back there. Just duck down behind my seat or something,” and Jenny waits for me to tell her I’m joking, but I’m not, and she eventually does what I say. I can’t stop smiling. This is totally crazy.

Next, I start honking the horn.

In the side mirror I see the metal gate lift up.

I can see into the park! I can see the stage!

A big security guy comes bumbling outside and I freak out for a second because it looks like the same bubblegum-chewing ticket-checker who I met at the front gate�"but it’s not�"and this fellow lights a cigarette, takes a puff as he comes up to the side of the van and I roll down the window.

“You need something?” he asks, glancing at my STAFF badge.

“I have to move the van.”

“Okay…”

“Can I park it inside? There’s no parking around here.”

“Can’t you leave it here?”

I shake my head. “Almost got a ticket already. Parking lady said I can’t block the driveway�"says it’s a fire hazard or something,” I say. “In case of emergency. I guess.”

The security guard takes a big drag off the cigarette and says, “Whatever.”

“Thanks man.”

“Need any help unloading anything?” he asks, glancing into the van.

“Already got it. My buddy did. Thanks though.”

He nods.

I start up the van and back into the venue and the guard closes the gate.

We’re in.

5:58 pm

Jenny surprises me with a big kiss when I turn around to look for her. Around us, other staff members are lounging about in this courtyard area full of tents and parked cars. I smell hamburgers from a nearby barbecue. We’re parked along the side of a building with PARK OFFICIALS marked on the door. Anyone who works here apparently wears the same black t-shirt, which I don’t have, and this�"as well as Jenny’s kiss�"is what keeps me from getting out of the van. Once we’ve pulled away, I say to Jenny, “We’re not done yet.”

I make sure my STAFF badge is prominently displayed on my chest as I get out.

No one seems to notice me.

I move around the back of the van and try to plot a path toward the stage, toward the crowds beyond the waist-high dividers that separate the staff from the public. I open the back door of the van and make sure it’s safe before helping Jenny down. She’s all smiles, fearless and excited, and I try to keep her out of sight while planning our next move. If we just ran for it, we could make it into the crowd and disappear. If we went now.

Now.

I’m hesitating. Scared.

“Now what?” Jenny asks.

Every second hurts. I need to decide quickly.

Then I see the bubblegum-chewing ticket-checker standing over by the barbecue tent, and he sees me, and even from fifty feet away he recognizes me. I see the smile on his face drop as quickly as the plate of potato chips in his hand, and he points with a mouth full of food and shouts, “That guy snuck in!” and at least twenty different staff members stop what they’re doing and turn and all their eyes fall on me. With that kind of focused energy, I’m surprised I don’t burst into flames. Instead I burst into a cold sweat and clench Jenny’s hand and turn to her, say, “Run,” and we take off.

Jenny squeals with laughter and I love her for that.

We make it to the waist-high divider and I help Jenny hop over and by the time I’m climbing into the crowd, two security guards have caught up to us. I feel them grab my shirt, my wrist, and I lock eyes with Jenny and think: Run, Jenny! Enjoy the show! But then she’s grabbing my shoulders and pulling back, yelling, “Let him go!” and they’re yelling at me, “Don’t even think about it!” and then the crowd realizes what’s going on and a few of them move next to Jenny and grab my other arm, my shirt, my waist, and they drag me onto their side of the fence, cheering and chanting, “Let him go!” with Jenny at lead vocals. More guards arrive, reaching for Jenny now, who takes my hand and yanks me into the cluster.

“Stop! Stop!” the staff yells and the crowd responds, “Go! Go!”

We’re swallowed by dancing, head-bobbing, good-time-having strangers.

I don’t know how long we’re pursued. I don’t know if they alert other guards around the venue to look for us. Soon we’ve shoved and slipped our way through the crowd until we’re about forty feet from the middle of the stage, completely surrounded, both of us ducking down a few inches to keep from being spotted. We’re hot with sweat and beating hearts. I wrap my arms around Jenny and say, shouting over the loud folk music pouring down from the stage, “Thank you for saving me!” and she kisses my neck. Once we’ve grown accustomed to the idea that we are, in fact, at the show, we turn and face the stage and watch the end of Old Crow’s set.

The crowd cheers. The stage is emptied.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros come on next.

6:40 pm

I see him before he sees me: Ken, his slicked-back hair, with Rita standing in front of him, both of them ten yards closer than us to the stage, Rita’s red crown swaying to the music. He’s texting someone. I want to just ignore them. I want to. But I can’t.

I leave Jenny for a moment without telling her why.

I force my way toward Ken.

I tap him on the back.

He turns around.

The look of panic on his face is perfect.

I put one hand on his shoulder.

I connect a clenched fist with his face and he collapses.

Rita turns around.

“Oh my God!” she shrieks.

I look down at Ken, who rubs his jaw, blood on his lip.

Ken says, “Come on, man. What the hell?”

I reply, “Give me the tickets. I just want the tickets.”