Soup

 We've all heard the story of stone soup. 

I am very fond of the story and a firm believer in the philosophy. When we all work together we can make beautiful things happen. When we are greedy, we lose. 

I wish the world were that simple. The story of stone soup rests on the premise that for the most part, the items everyone has are equitable. So sharing to a single pot to make something much better, just makes sense. I mean, having potatoes might be a bit more valuable in terms of versatility and edibility than say... salt? But potatoes are so much better with salt, so it ultimately creates a win/win. When we are talking about "the pot" in larger terms...a larger scale. The complexities are vast. 

Here is a story about soup that I hope helps explain. 

             -------------------------------------------SOUP----------------------------------------------------

    A young girl moved to a village, in valley, on a river. The village was quaint, as were the mountains. Nothing like she was used to. She lived with only her father. They had very little, but everything they needed. At least in the mind of a child. 

She spent her days reading, drawing, writing. Her father would join in on the fun making paper dolls, racing toy cars, and dressing up in goofy outfits. They lived together on top of a tall hill overlooking the town. Their tiny, simple world was nearly perfect. But still, the girls father was lonely. 

As time passed, he became lonelier. The people in the village were relatively nice, at least in passing. They'd say good morning, good evening, god bless. But often, they were nowhere to be seen. Soon, the little girl starting feeling what her father felt. They were outsiders. A bit different than the others. 

The towns people all seemed to know each other, any many of them were related! The little girl started making friends, as did her father. Her first friends were two small girls living next door. They were near the same age, and loved to play. The little girl shared her paper dolls and cars with the girls next door. Together the three girls would spend afternoons hopping over the fence between their yards to play tag or maybe hide and seek until it was dark. It felt like her nearly perfect world was growing. 

Then one day, the little girl knocked on her neighbors door to ask them to come out and play. Their grandmother answered the door and told her they were not allowed to play with her anymore. The old lady told her she was an awful child and needed to stay away from her grandkids, then slammed the door. The little girl went home to her father in tears. "What happened?" Her father asked. She had no idea. Had she done something wrong? Her father went next door to find out. Before long she heard him shouting, briefly, before returning to their home. He told the little girl she had done nothing wrong. "Sometimes people are scared of things they do not understand. That does not make it wrong." he said to her. 

Life wasn't easy with no friends and no family outside of having each other and a few relatives a couple hours away. The little girl spent a lot of time home alone while her father worked. He'd lock the door and tell her never to answer it, writing his number by the phone in case of emergency. She spent long hours at school, often being the first one dropped off in the morning and the last one picked up at night. 

"It won't always be this hard" her dad would say. "One day we will have a larger family." "Booo" she'd say to him. "I like our family just as it is." Most days he'd laugh. But one day, he only managed a sigh. "Think of it this way. Families are like soup. Rather, families make soup." He walked over to the pantry. "Our family right now, is like this tomato soup. Now, I LOVE tomato soup. But it's no vegetable soup or chicken noodle." He put the can down. "You can't live on just tomato soup, but I'd wager a good chicken and vegetable soup could keep someone alive for a good while." The little girl looked at him puzzled. The father smiled. "If we are tomato soup, where you are the tomato and I am the broth. What if we add a potato and a carrot? What could we make then?" He waited to the little girl to answer. "Vegetable soup" she smiled. "I get it. The larger the family, the more ingredients you have for soup!" she pondered for a minute. "I don't like carrots in my soup, can we find peas instead?" The father laughed. "I hope we find much more than that kiddo. We are going to have the best soup anyone has ever had." 

{insert happy ending full of peas, carrots, chicken, onions, raddishes, etc)

-------------------------------------------End of short story----------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------- Extended version ---------------------------------------------------

For years the father tried to find a family for him and the little girl. You'd think in a place full of families, one of them wouldn't taken them in. One year, the father met a woman with a daughter a few years older than his. She made the father happy, but wasn't very nice to the little girl. "Remember," the little girl would remind herself. "We are making soup. Onions are good even if they make you cry."
The woman and her daughter moved in before long. Dinners were ate at the kitchen table instead of the couch. Bathrooms were decorated, and candles were lit daily. The little girl could see that her dad was happy. The little girl wasn't the last one to be picked up at school anymore, and she didn't have to spend a lot of time at home alone. In fact, she was never alone. Things seemed to be looking up. For a while.

Then school started. The father handed the woman some money to take his daughter with her school shopping. "Would you mind? You are going with your daughter anyway. It could be fun." The woman agreed. Excited, the little girl ran to the woman's car and hoped in the back. It had been a long time since she had been shopping. Her dad would take her to Walmart, which was fine. But she knew the woman and her daughter shopped at all kinds of cool places. She started daydreaming. The woman got into the car and spoke only to her daughter. "Where to first?" They spent the afternoon driving around to different stores. The little girl would pick up items and look at them. Holding them up to her chest in the mirror. "Put it back" the woman would say. "This store isn't for you." After 3 or 4 stores the little girl asked. "What stores are for me?" the woman and her daughter laughed and rolled their eyes. The little girl kept looking at clothes and shoes. And the woman kept telling her to put it all back. Finally, at the end of the day they pulled into a Goodwill store. "This store is for you." The woman sneered. The little girl was familiar with goodwill, and didn't really mind it. But was confused as to why she wasn't allowed to buy anything from the other stores when the other girl did. She fought back tears and went in to search for clothes that fit her. The woman had her try everything on. Some of the things the girl really liked. She'd come out of the dressing room gleaming. The woman rolled her eyes. "I guess we can get that one." If the little girl liked something too much, the woman would tell her to put it back. "But why?!" The little girl exclaimed. "Because I said so." the woman would yell, embarrassing the little girl. 

On the way home the little girl sat in the back of the car with one bag on her lap, with one pair of shoes, a few shirts, a dress, and 2 pairs of pants. The woman's daughters bags were overflowing on the seat next to her. She fought back more tears. "Onions are good, even if they make you cry." she reminded herself. At least she got to go shopping. 

When she got home she showed her dad what she got. Still a bit teary eyed. He looked over at the woman's daughters bags, then back at his own daughter. He stood up and pulled the woman to the side. "What happened? Did I not give you enough money for her to get stuff at the other stores?" the woman's face lost some color. "Oh! I mean. It was enough I guess. But she's 9. She doesn't need to spend a ton of money on clothes she will grow out of in a few months? 9 year old's always shop at Goodwill. It just makes sense." She looked at the little girl. "Besides, she loves Goodwill. They had perfectly good clothes and I saved us some money!" The father shrugged. "I guess that makes sense. She is growing like a weed." 

I wish I could tell you the soup got better. It did not. Before long, the father started tasting how bitter the soup was with bad onion, what was left of this soup that is. He sat at the table holding his head one night. The woman's daughter had become pregnant and needed a car. So the father gave her his classic car. The woman needed new tires on her car, so the father paid for it. "That's what you do when you are family." He'd tell him daughter. "You take care of each other." He tried so hard to take care of them, but they didn't take care of him. They just kept taking from him. The little girl spent most of her time in her room. Usually grounded. Alone. 

This soup sucked. What was left of it. 

One day, the woman left. She took a lot of stuff with her. The house felt bare. The father didn't fight her. After she was gone he laid down on the couch, and closed his eyes. The little girl, now growing up a bit, sat with him. And he cried. "You did nothing wrong dad. Sometimes people run from those they wrong." 

-----------------------------------------The sequel----------------------------------------------------

The not-so-little girl and her dad rebuilt their soup. Their basic, yet perfectly warm and flavorful tomato soup. 

When it was time for her to leave the house and go out on her own, her dad split the soup with her. "You know how to make this and keep it warm." He said handing her a thermos. "Go make soup in the world! I can't wait to see what you make" 

K is for Kid Chapter 19

Kris called me to come get my art.

"What??" I asked. "Why?"

"The landlord called. He wants us out." he said.

"Don't we get 30 days?!" I asked.

"No. He heard about the charges. It's all over the paper." he sighed and hung up.

I went down to Kronos and listened to Kris talk about how messed up everything was. The papers had not only shit all over Kronos, they also named Kris personally. And many of the writers did not have unbiased views of the situation. Which did nothing but paint Kris is a negative light.

"It's so bad that a lot of places won't even let me come look at a place. They already know that they don't want to rent to me." he said.

I started taking my art down, and he started cleaning the walls. Some Kronos kids showed up to help. As we were all working on packing the place up, everything hit me at once. I felt a pain in my stomach that echoed up my spine. I started crying. I couldn't do this. I couldn't let Kronos get pushed out like this. I couldn't let them treat Kris like this! I had to do something. But what the fuck could I do? I started tearing my artwork off the walls. I stomped on a painting until it busted apart. I threw a clay figure again the wall and watched it shatter. I took a relief sculpture and swung it like a baseball bat into the column. It broke apart like a piñata. I picked up a stained glass piece and held it up to the light from the window. I slowly walked over trying to decide if I really wanted to do this. I opened the window, and stuck my head out, holding the glass in my hand. I took in a deep breath of warm air as I extended my arms out infront of me. As I exhaled I let the glass slide out of my hands. I watched it fall and then hit the ground and shatter. Zane was walking out of the door as it shattered. He gasped and looked up. I just stared down at him and the broken glass. He put the painting he was carrying into Kris's jeep and ran back upstairs.

He looked around at the destruction. Kris came in behind him.

"You know what?" Kris said. "Fuck it. Fuck this, and Fuck them!" he said pointing in the direction of city hall."

He walked into the storage room. There was one gallon of red paint left.

Mandy and Mae walked into the room. We all stared at Kris with the bucket of paint in his hand.

He opened it up, and stuck in arm down into the red paint. Then pulled it out and smacked a big red hand print onto the wall. "They will try to paint over that, but they will never succeed."

Mandy pulled out a pile of sidewalk chalk she had found and started righting "FUCK YOU" on the brick wall. We all signed it.

Then we picked up the last of the stuff in the gallery and left.

- - - - - - - - - two days later.

Kris had arranged for a city hall meeting to address the issues surrounding Kronos. We made a Facebook page to encourage people to come out to support Kronos.

"Just showing up is support!" I posted on the event page. "We will have strength in numbers!"

Other people posted how much they'd hate to lose Kronos for good, how Kronos was their home, and how important it was to them. People told stories about how Kronos impacted their lives and what could have happened if Kronos wasn't around.

"There is literally nothing to do in Staunton if you are young." one poster said. "Except Kronos!"

Kris had made up a proposal to the city asking for financial assistance in getting a larger space. So the plan was to have as many people (mostly kids) from Kronos tell city council their stories and then have Kris pitch his idea.

We all gathered in the Wharf parking lot, wearing Kronos shirts, and "Question Authority" shirts, and other Kronos related attire, and marched our way to city hall. There was around 100 of us. When we first entered city hall the guards looked shocked and confused. They had to be reminded that this was public forum and that we were allowed to come in. The meeting was supposed to take place in it's usual spot for "unimportant matters" , a small conference room off the main council room. But as we started filing in they realized there were far too many of us to fit in such a small room. So they moved us to the actual meeting room. We filled up most of the rows and faced the members of city council while they sat on their podium. Kris went up first to introduce us, and briefly explain how he felt about recent happenings surrounding Kronos. He pointed out that no other business had to police their sidewalks. And that because we had to, it placed unnessesary chaos on an already tricky situation, which just made more problems, and those problems ended up in the paper and NOW no one will rent to him.

K is for Kid Chapter 18

What is sad is... Kris was right. They did find a way. One of the kids who was arrested that night had weed on him. They found it when they got back to the station.

The next day we got served charges for it. Kris protested.

"Why the hell am I responsible?" he asked.

"The kid was on your property. As a minor, you are responsible for him while he is here." the officer said.

"No way." I said. "There is a chance that this kid didn't even ever come in Kronos, which means he is not affiliated with us."

"That's right!" said Mae. "If he didn't have a wrist band, that means he never came in."

After a few days of refuting the charge, they ended up only fining Kris for "inadequate security" or something like that.

It was a $700 fine.

"We are going to have a find a different place." Kris said holding his head at his desk. "They will keep finding ways to get us until we do. And there is no way we can pay these fines AND keep the place running."

We all knew we had to throw a benefit show to raise money to pay the fine. It wasn't anything we hadn't done before, but this time we were scared. We were scared that something else would happen. We were worried that the cops would shut us down for good. We wondered what would happen if the cops came and found a kid IN the building that was breaking the law in ANY way. We were worried that now that we were under fire that there was nothing we could do but lay very very low.

We started planning a benefit show, and decided to break it up into parts. We'd have a band at 3pm, allow 35 entries for that, then another band at 5, allow 35 entries for that, and then the last one at 7, and again only allow 35 people in. If someone wanted to see all three bands, they'd have to pay 3 separate times. The bands were far enough apart that we could keep things relatively calm. And we decided that we'd sell 35 slots for each band, and that is it. No wait list, no chaos. We decided that this would be the last show for Kronos in the spot on Byers Street. We had already started looking for a different space. Kris was stressing out because there were not many places that fit our budget that also fit our need. But we kept hope.

The day of the show I showed up at Kronos at 1pm and started getting ready. The other Kronos kids trickled in, and helped. Kris was in an out all day, because he was looking at potential properties. The first band showed up at 2 for set up and sound check. During sound check an officer came up the stairs.

"What's going on here?" he asked.

"We are getting ready to have a benefit show." I said looking around for Kris.

"A show?" he said looking around.

"Yea?" I spotted Kris coming up the stairs with a defeated look on his face.

"Hello?" he said to the officer. "Is something wrong?"

The officer took a breath. "Yea Mr. Post. We told you that you can not have shows here anymore."

My mouth fell open. WHAT?

Kris raised his eye brows. "Uh, no you didn't."

The officer went on to explain that because of the level of complains, paired with the charge and the fines, has caused the city to place a ban on Kronos.

"It might be temporary, but it is meant to help you, Kronos, keep out of trouble."

"Yea THIS is meant to HELP us." Kris yelled. "I'm sure THIS will HELP us!"

The officer tried to say something else but Kris slammed the office door.

He left with out saying another word to us.

Kris cancelled the rest of the bands for that day.

K is for Kids Chapter 17

4 of the 5 people showed up.

"Where is the fifth person?" I asked Mandy. "Who is the fifth person?"

"I don't know, everyone I called said they were on their way." She looked at her list. "Oh! It's John!"

"Uh guys... " Mae said running into the room staring at her phone. "John just posted on the event page that he can't make it and that someone could have his spot."

"WHAT!?" I shouted. "No 'someone' can't have it. WTF JOHN?!"

"I'm going to call him." said Mandy.

I looked around for Zane. Where was he? I spotted his friend that he went to get, but where is he?

I called him.

"Zane! Where are you?" I asked

"Uh, well. I thought maybe I should grab a few Monsters to restock our supply." He said sort of out of breath. "But then someone shouted that there was an open spot at Kronos. And uh well... " He paused to take a breath. "There are a lot of people coming your way."

Oh fuck.

"Kris!" I shouted as I hung up the phone. "We have a problem."
I started to explain what happened when we heard Liz yelling, "There is only one spot. I'm sorry!"

I ran out to the stair well. There were people crammed in the stair well. Liz shot me a WTF look. I saw Zane at the bottom of the stair attempting to make his way through.

Mandy came in. "John said he didn't give his spot to anyone specific so..." she trailed off when she saw the sea of people on the stairs. "Oh my god."

Liz stood up and left her seat, handing me the one bracelet.

"What do we do?" I asked. Do we give the bracelet to the next person on the list like we had planned. Is that person even in the sea of faces here?

I looked back into the band room, the band was ready. We had to make a decision.

Kris came in. "Just pick someone." He said.

Oh good. I thought. This will be fun.

I handed the bracelet to the first person in line that had their money out.

Zane and Mandy started attempting to get everyone else back down the stairs and out the door.

Some people started getting rough, and started pushing each other. Zane put himself between a few of them and ended up getting pushed down the stairs himself. He took a few other people with him. Mandy followed in the gap his fall created and helped him up. He seemed a little shaken but continued to try and usher people out. Kris stepped in and made himself a human wall as he made his way down the stairs. I stood my ground at the top of the stairs watching the slow moving chaos get pushed through the door. I heard the band start in the background. Liz came back to her seat. A little less shaken.

I took a deep breath.

As the last of the people were pushed out the door, I heard yelling coming from directly outside. I ran to the window, threw it open, and leaned out over the edge. Two kids were screaming at the top of their lungs at each other. Talking shit. Then one kid pushed the other, and the other kid pushed back. The door was still packed with people. "Shit." I thought. "Kris, Mandy, and Zane can't get through." Shit shit shit. The pushing and shit talking continued, I saw Zane break through he crowded door way.
"Zane!" I yelled pointing to the two kids.
He looked around confused. I kept pointed, and then started yelling. "Stop!" and "Don't do that shit here!" and other things, but they couldn't hear me over the roar of the crowd and the band.

Zane finally saw what I was point to. The two kids had gone from pushing to grabbing and sort of sparing. Then one kid flat out punched the other kid in the teeth.

SHIT!

The other kid hit back, and soon they were both on the ground.

Zane got to them and tried to jump in to break it up, but was grabbed by some other kid and thrown down. Zane pushed the kid off of him, and soon they were fighting too! Then two or three other kids started throwing punches. Kris finally made his way out, Mandy was right behind him. They started trying to get people to leave and break up the fighting. Then we all heard it.
A siren.
We all looked up and saw blue lights.
My heart sank.
Everything stopped.
Two cop cars pulled up to the curb. Some kids started to run, other's stood frozen in fear.

I watched as some kids were cuffed, others were questioned. I turned away from the window. The band had stopped playing in the other room. I heard Liz calling my name.

"What's going on?" she asked.

I told her what I saw.

Some people started making their way out of Kronos.

"Hey, uh, do we need to pack up?" the drummer of the band asked.

I nodded. "Yea go ahead."

"What if the cops come up?" Liz asked panicked.

"Let them in." I said. "We have nothing to hide. The show is over anyway."

Kris came up the stairs cussing.

Shit! Zane!

I ran down the stairs.

Zane was sitting on the bench. Most of the other kids were gone.

"Omg!" I said sitting next to him.

"I don't know what happened." He said. "I just don't know."

I put my arms around him. " I saw most of it from the window it's ok."

"No it's not." Mandy said. " They arrested like 5 kids!"

"For what?!" I asked.

"Fighting!" Zane said. "Duh!"

He stomped off into Kronos.

"Dude they are going to find a way to pin this on us." Mandy said also walking off.

I stood up to follow.

"Hey, no way. No way they can pin this on us. We did everything in our power to keep things under control. No freaking way." I said.

We got to the top of the stairs.

Kris turned around and looked me straight in the face.
"They will find a way." Is all he said.

K is for Kids Ch. 16

The next day we all met at Kronos to hash out some ideas.

"Ok, we have to keep the head count under 35 for this show." I said feeling hopeless.
"So what does that mean for us? Does that mean we only sell 35 entries? Should we presell them? Should we make them cost more to cover our costs? Should we not worry about the money? What do you think?" I asked looking around at Mandy, Mae, Zane, and a handful of other Kronos kids.

"We should do wrist bands instead of X's on their hands." Mae said. "Only have 35, that way when we reach the end of them, we will know we only have 35 people."

"That's a good idea, but what if people leave after one band. Do we let them come back? Is their spot reserved? Is that fair? Should we let some one come in their spot?" Mandy asked.

"If we let people come in all night, to fill in the spots of people leaving they will be standing outside waiting to come in." Zane said concerned. "There can not be anyone outside."

"See what I mean!" Kris chimed in. "It is impossible. There are going to be people outside. No matter what we do!"

We all thought for a minute. If we allow people to leave, and allow other people to come in, there will be people waiting to come in outside. AND what if those people, who already paid want to come back? Then what? If we allow people to leave, but don't let other people come in we would solve those problems, but would not only lose money but risk not having an audience at some point. Which is lame.

"What if we just don't allow re-entry?" Kris said. "If you leave, you can not come back. Do you think people wouldn't leave then?"

"It might deter them." I said. "We'd have to provide some sort of food/beverages. That is why people usually leave."

"Maybe we can get the Dungeon on board with us." Zane said. "You know, like what if we direct people to go there to wait until there is a spot. Tell people if they leave there is not re-entry, and then we can text or call the dungeon to tell someone there is a spot open?"

"That could get really messy." I said. "How do you chose who gets in then?"

"The first one to the door gets in." Kris said.

"What if it breaks out in a fight?" Mae said concerned.

"What if the fight happens on our doorstep?" I asked.

"Maybe we should have a reserved list and go according to that." Mandy said. "Make the list ahead of time, based on who is in line when the doors open, and then when a spot opens try to contact people on the list in order they were in line."

"That is a great idea!" Kris said. "Will you take care of that?"

"I'll do my best." Mandy said.

So now the game plan was this: We'd run the show like normal, but instead of putting X's on people's hands, Liz would give them wrist bands. Once we got to 35 wrist bands, we'd close the doors. Then Mandy would get as many contacts as possible from the people still in line. Then Zane would suggest or re-direct those people to hang out nearby. Either the coffee shop, or the Dungeon, or anywhere else down town that wasn't our front steps. That way when we did contact them, they'd be able to get here quickly. It was sort of a half baked, omg I hope this works kind of plan, but it was all we had. So we ran with it.

"You only have 35 of these. When you give out the last one grab me or Kris and we will get things moving with the line, ok?" I explained everything to Liz.
"Got it." She said taking the wrist bands.

We opened the doors and everything seemed to go pretty smooth. Just like we had planned, we gave out 35 wrist bands, and then Mandy either got Facebook information, phone numbers, or waiting location of anyone still waiting in line. And Zane helped re-direct people away from our doors.

"That went really smooth." Mandy said amazed. "I have 20 people on the list." She said showing me.

"No one is outside." Zane said looking out the window. "I think we will be ok."

Ok good. We are good. Everything is going to be fine, I thought.

We had posted online about our no re-entry policy, and also explained it to people while they paid at the door. But we decided to make one final announcement before the show. There were a couple pissed off people, but we reassured them that we had sodas, monsters, teas, and coffees available for purchase, as well as snacks. So that there would be less need to leave. And people seemed to calm down. We also took $1 off the door price to help ease the sting if someone did have to, or decide to leave.

The first band played their set, and everyone seemed in good spirits. As they were packing up a handful of people left the venue.

"Mandy, we have 5 slots open, can you contact the first five people on the list?" I asked.

"Yea I got it." Mandy said pulling out her phone.

Zane went down stairs to watch for people.

A few moments later Mandy grabbed my arm. "Hey I can't reach this girl." She said pointing to a name on the list. "She said she'd be at the Dungeon, but they are not answering their phone. Should I just go to the next name? Or what?"

I looked at the name. "Oh! That's Zane's friend. I'll get him to contact her."

Zane didn't have her number, but decided to walk down to the hoard to get her.

"Hey Liz!" I said climbing back up the stairs. "We have 5 open spots, so here are 5 more wrist bands. Once these are gone that's it ok?"

"Okidoki!" She said smiling.

Cool, I thought as I watched the next band set up, this isn't so bad at all.

K is for Kid Chapter 15

We all knew to expect some sort of backlash from what had happened. We couldn't do anything with out getting someone's attention, so something like this would definitely not fly by unnoticed.
Kris was expecting a liability lawsuit, what we got was inevitably much worse.
The mother of the girl didn't call asking for money to fix her daughters nose, to anything like that. She decided that reason her daughters nose got broke was because we had way to many people in the building.
So she called the fire marshal.
He showed up one day while I was there for my mentorship. Kris also happened to be there, thank god!
"Hello!" He called as he climbed our stairs.
I peered through the window. "Hi?" I said suspicious of the man in the suite standing in our lobby.
"Shit..." Kris said under his breath as he went out to meet him.
Kris talked to the man a little, and walked him around the gallery for a while.
Then the man left.
Kris came in and sat in his chair.
"So, who was that?" I asked.
"The fire marshal." Kris said. Then he explained that even though we have three rooms in the gallery our max occupancy was 35 people.
Apparently since we only have one bathroom and no fire exit, our occupancy limit goes way down. I could see him telling us we wouldn't have 200 people in the place, we all knew that was pushing it. But 35? That is a death sentence.

"So what happens now?" I asked.
"I mean as long as we aren't obviously over capacity, we'll be fine." He said smiling. "You know. We could probably still have shows with 50-80 people and it'll be ok. As long as we don't get inspected during a show."
This is why I liked Kris. He was willing to take risks. Yea, we were going to actively double our capacity. But as long as we didn't get a complaint, we'd be fine.

The problem was.
We couldn't do anything without getting attention. So of course we got complaints.
We skidded by most of them. Someone would call in a noise complaint, or a customer of the bistro next door would wine that they couldn't eat a decent meal without being scared of teenagers or something. And we'd count heads and move people around, and do whatever we could to make sure we never got caught with more than 35 people in the building. It worked for a while. But then we had another issue on our hands.

The police had been getting so many complaints from people at the Bistro that they told Kris his customers could no longer "hang out" in front of Kronos. So shuffling people around became impossible. What was even more infuriating, is that some of the people who hung out in front of Kronos never actually came in. And a lot of them would actively harass passer-byers, well you know, because teenagers. And I know it's hard to pass up harassing the Bistro customers. I mean think about it. The people eating at the Bistro are either eating there casually, or maybe a date. Maybe occasionally a family. Now think about your average "at risk" teen ager. They can't even dream of eating out "casually". Let alone at a place that over charges for a cheeseburger. I mean really they serve Filet Mignon that costs more than school lunches for a MONTH! You get the drift. Of course not only will they be the kind of people that feel harassed by just the presence of teenager, but also be harassed by teenagers for being an easy and accessible target. I speak from experience.

So now we couldn't simply push people out the door to try and "appear" to be sticking to our head count policy.

"What are we going to do?" I asked Kris.
"I don't see how we can be responsible for people outside of our building." he said. "That is city property. And besides, what am I supposed to do if people hang out down there? I mean I can't physically remove them."
I daydreamed about Kris tossing punk kids around the wharf parking lot. It would be good stress relief.
"I can be your security guard!" Zane said walking into the room.
We all laughed.
"What?! I can!" he snorted.
"Ok." Kris said still laughing. "If you can keep people away from the entrance and side walk that will be helpful."
"Thank you!" Zane said sarcastically.

We all left the gallery that day feeling uneasy. We needed a better plan.

K is for Kid Chapter 14

I sold 23 of the 48 pieces. A Kronos record! I needed that money too. The college I was supposed to go to was already breathing down my neck for payments.
The show did really well too. Kris made sure we had our three top local bands in the line up. Embers from the Alter,  Secret Ninja Death Squad, and Pablo and the Dregs. That night we have well over 200 people come through. The band room was packed so tightly, and people were so sweaty that people had to leave periodically just to breathe real air. People were getting so tightly squeezed that even before the first band had finished a few pit fight broke out. Generally there weren't many most pits at Kronos, because there was a lack of room. But Embers always seemed to bring a crowd that just did not care, and would swing their extremities with out any regard to the people around them. A lot of people liked that. Zane was one of those people. He looked forward to the Embers mosh pits, and would often start them himself. But that night was not a good night for a pit. Most of us knew it. We'd look around at everyone all crammed together, then look at each other like "oh well." But there was this one burly ass kid that decided he did not care, and he was going to mosh. It started slow like it usually does. Then he'd bump into someone. If that someone was chill, they'd just sort of push him in a different direction. Then he'd bump into someone else, and they'd push him in another direction. Eventually he bumped into someone who was not very chill. A kid larger than him, whom I had never seen crack a smile. When the burly kid bumped into him, he grabbed him and shoved him hard in the other direction. It was like watching someone throw a bowling ball, when the burly kid hit the wall of innocent bystanders, he knocked like 10 of them down. They all stood up, some shook it off. Other sought revenge and went after him, or whomever was closest to them. But, of course, they did it in a dancy fashion. You know, mosh dancing style. So a most pit broke out. I shot a panicked look to Zane. A sort of "Don't you dare get in that." mixed with "Omg we need to stop this." Zane stepped forward and tried to put the burly kid in a sleeper hold. But Zane was like half this kids size so he just kept thrashing around as Zane tried to hang on and get control of this kids arms. He'd get one in a hold, and the kid would trash it free, then he'd get the other, and rinse repeat. I saw Mandy had jumped in to try and move people away from getting mauled. I wondered if I should try to get Kris, I looked back. There was a sea of people between me and the Window Kris stands in to watch the shows. I wondered if he was watching what was going on too. I looked back over to Zane and the burly kid. He almost had him. His arms were locked with the kids and he was trying to lace his fingers behind the kids head. I could tell it was a struggle. I started making my way towards the pit. The kid bent down sideways, and jerked himself back up. Losing Zane in the process, who hit the floor. When the kid came back up, his arm flew around and hit this girl square in the nose. She had been standing in front of her boyfriend who had his arms around her waist. Her arms flew up to hold her face. I saw blood run between her fingers. I jumped over and around people to get to her.
"Zane!" I yelled as he was standing up. "Get her out of here!" I said pointing the girl and her now pissed off boyfriend. Mandy jumped in and grabbed the boyfriend to try and calm him down. I saw Kris coming in through the back entrance. He must have seen it. The burly kid was still swinging his arms. There was no way I'd be able to get him to stop. I had to stop the band. Hopefully Kris will be able to do something. I ran up to the singer and waived my hands in his face.
"Dude stop, stop!" I yelled now attempting to get the entire bands attention.
They all stopped and everything was quiet.
In that moment I turned to see Kris grab the back of this kids shirt, with both hands, and drag his ass out of the band room. I don't know if he threw him down the stairs, carried him down the stairs or what. But by the time I got back out to the lobby area, that kid was no where in sight.
"Charley..." Zane said coming out of the bathroom. "Her nose is broken."
"FUCK!" said Kris stomping off into his office.
"Can she get home?" I asked.
"Yea, her boyfriend is taking her." Zane said as they both came out of the bathroom, and silently left.
"Ok..." I said trying to breathe. "Ok.."
The drummer came out into the lobby.
"What the Fuck just happened." he asked.
"That girl just got her nose broke." I said.
The lead singer poked his head in. "Dude that's fucking metal."
"Oh yea dick head, a lawsuit is so fucking metal!" I yelled.
It was quite for a minute. People were starting to get antsy, not to mention nosey.
I looked at the drummer. "Finish your set." I said turning to the singer. "Tell everyone No more fucking Moshing!"

They finished their set and the other two bands played with out another incident. We decided that we needed to make some sort of policy for moshing, or have some sort of safety to insure that this kind of thing wouldn't happen again. But we never came to a conclusion. By the end of the night after everyone left, we were all so tired we all just passed out in the gallery.