Concert at Rockfest

“You wanna do something fun”. Says Molly to Cindy. “Let’s raise the roof, “ replies Cindy. “And what exactly?, “there’s nothing to do here in Minden.” replies Molly. “Let’s Call Charlie and Danny, they may have some ideas”. Charlie and Danny were their boyfriends in Minden High School and they were not jocks nor geeks. They were just regular guys trying to get through high school. No real plans for after graduation.

The girls call the guys and they meet up at a park near their high school.

Charlie appears with Danny in his old beat-up Ford 150 truck, the girls always complain about the truck but they enter the truck anyway. Cindy kisses Charlie and says “hey, babe”. Molly kisses Danny and says the same thing. Cindy tells Charlie they’re extremely bored and want to know if they had any plans to do something awesome.

Charlie suggests going to a concert in Funk a few towns over. “There is a once in a lifetime rockfest with DJ Brady and some local rock bands”.

Danny agrees with him, and says “yeah let's go”. The girls agree and say “it sounds like a plan”. Everyone is excited and ready to go when the truck starts to stall. Charlie keeps trying to start the truck but it just won’t run. So he gets out of the truck and starts to look under the hood. After half an hour, he tinkers with the truck and asks Danny to start the engine. The truck starts to run and Charlie gets in the driver's seat and Danny gets into the back seat with Molly. They start their road trip to Funk which is only 17 miles away. Cindy asks Charlie “how long is the trip” and Charlie replies “only 19 minutes by US HWY 34” we’ll get there in no time”. Meanwhile, Danny and Molly start to kiss in the back seat. Cindy looks over at Charlie who is intensely driving along the road with no distractions.

As Charlie continues to drive, a fast-moving red Camaro approaches on the side of his truck honking their horn. Charlie looks over and realizes it's Harlan Brooks, captain of the football team and overall jerk. Harlan has made Charlie’s life at Minden High School very hard by bullying him every chance he got. Harlan locked Charlie in a locker once. Charlie spent hours in that locker until a gym teacher let him out; the teacher asked what happened but Charlie never told.

Harlan signals to Cindy to lower her passenger window and she does, Harlan starts to yell “going to the concert in that heap of junk”,” you are never going to make it”. Harlan starts to increase speed on his Camaro and cuts in front of Charlie leaving a heap of smoke as he speeds away. “What a jerk,” Charlie says. “Don’t let him get to you” says Cindy smiling at Charlie. Charlie smiles back and says “okay”. After a few minutes of awkward silence, they arrive in Funk.

Rockfest is an open field and the concert stage is in the center of the field. Everyone is heading towards the ticket booth to pay for their tickets. Cindy and Charlie hold hands as they pay their tickets and pass the booth and Molly and Danny follow suit. It seems as if all of the surrounding towns have joined since Funk has only a population of 437. Minden has a slightly higher population of 2,439, but Funk is the place to be for the concert.

The concert starts with a group named Road Ragers and everyone starts to rock and dance to the hard rock music. “Hey, they’re pretty good,” says Cindy, surprisingly. Molly and Danny are dancing to the beat of the music and having a good time. Charlie and Cindy are dancing really close to each other for what seems to be a really long time but actually, it's half an hour. The music is so loud and blaring almost consuming everyone’s eardrums. The music is so good that no one cares. They seem to be drunk and high on the hard rock beats. The airwaves carry the music all along the field. After a fantastic hour of the concert, there is a short intermission. Everyone is really having a great time.

Charlie turns around and notices Harlan coming around with his crew about a group of three hapless mindless jocks that follow Harlan’s every move. Charlie turns around and tries to get the group to move from their location when he feels a hand on the back of his shoulder. Charlie turns around and sees Harlan “I see you made it after all”. Charlie moves away from Harlan and says “I don’t want any trouble”. Harlan’s crew starts laughing. Harlan being the perpetual bully continues to harass Charlie. Molly and Danny tell Harlan to stop but he ignores them and tells them to mind their own business. Harlan focuses on Cindy who looks uncomfortable and upset. Harlan starts to come on to Cindy by putting his arms around her waist and pushing her near his groin area.

Charlie gets so enraged he starts to form a fist with his right hand. Charlie is thinking about the story of David and Goliath and how David knocked out the giant monster with a rock. This time his rock was his fist and he knew he had only one chance to hit his target. Before Charlie knew it, he swung at Harlan’s face and got a clear shot. Harlan falls down knocked out cold. Harlan’s crew starts to back away after seeing Charlie’s enraged face. A crowd starts to form, some witnessing what happened but others not knowing the full story. The crowd starts to yell and call the police. Cindy nervously comes over to Charlie and asks if he’s okay. Charlie holds his bruised knuckles and says he’s fine. Danny suggests that they leave because of the crowd, Charlie agrees and grabs Cindy by the hand, and starts to walk back to the truck. The crowd starts to break up as they leave, some bystanders try to wake up Harlan who is still out cold. Cindy was relieved that Charlie came to her defense but surprised that he had hit Harlan that hard.

Charlie apologizes to everyone for ruining their concert by losing his temper and striking Harlan. But everyone had witnessed what Harlan had done and they said “ he had it coming”. Molly holding the strands of her blonde hair says “he deserved to be punched after disrespecting Cindy”. Danny nodded in agreement.

Cindy takes Charlie's bruised hand and says “thank you for standing up for me'' “no one has ever done that for me”. “You showed real courage back there”. Charlie smiles and says “I guess I did take down Goliath “.

Charlie drives back to Minden and drops off Molly and Danny at their homes and proceeds to take Cindy home. As Cindy walks up to her home she quickly turns around and gives Charlie a long hot kiss and then quickly runs into her home. Charlie drives off smiling to himself.

It was quite a summer as soon as it ended, the school year had begun and everyone in Minden knew that Charlie knocked out Harlan. From that day forward, Harlan when he passed Charlie in the hallway didn’t even look in his direction. Things had changed in Minden because of the rock festival in Funk.