“ANTI-VAX! ANTI-VAX! ANTI-VAX! ANTI-VAX!”
It was music to Ricardo Smith’s ears. After years of going to anti-vax rallies this was definitely the biggest he had ever been to.
Ricardo Smith was 20 years old. He had been homeschooled as a child and never went to college. He was 5”8 and 140.32 pounds with blue eyes and was a brunette. He always had a string beanish build throughout his life and walked very lanky, he was white as a snowman and had a feminish tone of voice. His family was from Buford, Wyoming, his family was very religious and didn't believe in those unholy things the government calls vaccinations. As a child his parents never vaccinated any of their children he was the only one still left, the others had all gone to a summer camp and they all had gotten polio and died. Right at this point he was unemployed and spends most of his time going to anti-vax rallies like this.
As they were walking Ricardo spots a man wearing a big black coat and he was trying to find something. Now mama had always told him to be nice to strangers who needed help. As he leaves the rally he sees the strange man took out a small black roundish device. This only makes Ricardo more confused.
“Who is this strange man what does that black ball do?” He thinks to himself. As Ricardo finally gets and sticks his hand out in greeting the strange man pushes a button on the ball that Ricardo hadn’t seen.
“Here you go kid” the man says as he tosses the ball to Ricardo. “Don’t drop it” Ricardo completely confused asks the man for further explanation, but he was gone. He shrugs and walks back to the rally.
“How strange,” Ricardo thinks to himself “why would he give me such a nice ball.” He starts to wonder of the purpose of the ball. “Maybe I could play four-square with it.” He smiles at this idea, he goes out to find some friends to do so. As he was walking around he sees his old friend Jonathan John, now Jon was very similar to Rick in many ways. He was 5’9”, white, 170 pounds, blonde with brown eyes, very athletic, and was 20 years old. He has a slight british accent though sometimes it sounded more australian, he had met people like Ricardo at anti-vax rallies. He was born in Great Britain, and his family loved the show Game of Thrones so they called him Jon Snow.
His family life was very strange, growing up rich his parents homeschooled him and they had always been very anti-vax, though he never went to church. He has two elderly parents and a brother who vaccinated a few years ago so they don’t talk about him much. He is right now unemployed and living off his parents riches, for they had been apart of the very proclaimed law firm Dewy, Cheatem, and Howe. Since he was unemployed he spends a lot of time at anti-vax rallies were he meets people like Ricardo.
Ricardo walks up to Jon to ask him. “ You wanna play four square”
“Sure” answers Jon, then a thought came to his head. He looks between the two of them, then counts softly, after a few minutes Jon blurts out.
“Wait!” Jon exclaims. “In four square we need at least four people to play, it’s in the name”. Jon then puts his hands on his waist feeling very triumphant from his discovery, his mom would of been so proud of him, doing all that math and thinking all by himself. It took Ricardo a few minutes to understand Jons advanced way at looking at things.
“Oh!” Ricardo finally realizes, “That means we need two more people in order to play”
“But who else should we ask?” asks Jon
“I’m not sure” Ricardo wonders
“Well then we should ask some people”.
So the two of them go out into the crowd looking for people to play four square with.
As Ricardo walks through the rally he starts to see some pretty ugly stuff, people getting beat up, abused, attacked. All these things around him made him think about how rallies like this were unsafe for the participants and what anti-vaxxers really needed was a closed safe place for rally goers to feel protected. As this ideas dwelled in his head he tried to come up with a solution, but alas naught came to mind.
As they kept looking for people to play four-square with they come across some people. Their names were Daniel, Exy, and Stanislaus. Daniel was quitish, he never did have a lot to say not a whole lot is known from his past besides the fact he is not vaxxed. Exy was the polar opposite of Daniel, she always had a comment for anything anyone said. She was from a small middle class family from Nebraska and started attending rallies like this a few months ago after here parents told her she was not vaxxed. Finally Stanislaus was a Polish potato farmer who spoke very broken English and no one was really sure why he came to these rallies or why he left Poland.
As they start their game Ricardo starts in the fourth square, Jon in the third, Exy in the second, Daniel in the first, and Stanislaus started off to the side because he hadn’t fully understood the game yet. They had gone up a couple dozen yards to the side of the rally to set up the game. Ricardo takes the ball and throws it up to start the serve. When the ball hits the ground it starts to hiss and didn’t bounce back up. Exy, looking very confused, picks it up and examines it. Stanislaus noticing the confusion walks over. He looks over the ball a few times and starts to back away, waving his arms in alarm, and yelling in Polish. Everybody, now all very confused, tentatively listening for anything English until they all hear one word.
“BOMB!”
Running, there was suddenly a whole lot of running, and a lot of screaming, and yelling, and panic. It was crazy, total chaos. The situation went by in a haze for Ricardo, he knew all he had to do was follow the crowd and he would be fine. As Ricardo got into his car, he started to think again. He started to think about a safer rally for all anti-vaxxers and vows that one day he will make a safe rally for all people. As he drives he notices a billboard advertising the music festival Coachella. Ricardo had gone to one of them before, they were kind of fun. But this one gave him an idea, he wasn’t sure what the idea was yet, but it was still an idea. And as this idea he grew it started to gain shape and form, and before he knew it, his idea was an idea. He was going to organize an Anti-Vax Coachella 2019.
Ricardo enthralled with this idea pulls over and picks up his phone and called Jon Snow and his old friend Joe Schmoe to tell them. Joe was a simple man from a simple family, he had grown up in the Poconos were they hadn’t invented vaccinations yet and he had gone to gone to college and became a world renowned peace speaker by going to collages and other public events trying to find world peace. He was 5”8, 170 pounds, and 47 years old. Nobody was really sure what his hair color was because he was bald. He has 12 siblings, seven boys and 5 sister, he was the middle child. His family was very olden style so if they vaccines they wouldn’t of vaccinated. He had met Jon and Rick from rallies he had spoken at. They both pick up.
“Hey guys” Ricardo says “how have you guys been doing”
“Good” they both answer, both obviously confused.
“Great I've been thinking about a new rally idea…” Ricardo starts to explain the basic ideas of this rally. The two of them seem less confused then when they started the conversation, Ricardo satisfied gave both of them jobs. Joe would do the legal stuff, Jon would do marketing, and Ricardo would do the planning and scheduling. Ricardo now overfilled with joy wished them both luck and hung up.
His drive home was a blur, as he thought about different anti-vax celebrities. When he got home he wrote them all down, and started making calls.
Hours later it was about 3am as he finished his last phone call. In the end he only managed to convince four people. He was going to start with Jenny McCarthey as the host, then Toni Braxton, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Britney Spears. It wasn’t much but it had to be enough. He puts his phone down and walks over to his bed to get as much sleep as possible.
The next morning he wakes up to find a few million messages from Joe and Jon about what they did. As Ricardo scans through the texts something catches his eye. Joe, being the greatest thing ever, already had a date for the rally, but the thing was it was in three weeks. Ricardo, then freaking out, calls back the celebrities telling them about the date. They, taking the new surprisingly well. Tells him its fine.
Those next few weeks went by in a blur, with John advertising the rally, which they all agreed they should call it Anti-Vax Coachella 2019, and Joe with the singers and Jenny where the rally was going to be, so Ricardo spent the time barely leaving his house from the excitement, he was going to do it. But right now he had to visit the celebrities at the stage. The drive wasn’t bad but he still had cramps from the ride, mostly from his stress.
He walks into the area. It was a fairly big outside area fully fenced in, they would have guards. Their were no chairs just a place that you can stand up in. He saw the singers up on stage working their sound check. The admission to the rally would be fifteen dollars per person. He leaves feeling satisfied, finally things were going right.