He was face down in the grass. It didn’t smell nice like the grass at home; too many people had stood on it. He could feel the drums from the stage pounding through the ground. He liked it when the music was really loud like that; so loud he could hear it hitting against his heart.
Bullfrog scooped him off the ground.
“How was your first mosh pit, kiddo?”
Eli turned around to see the crowd of big boys he had accidentally fallen into. They were running into each other like charging bulls, shouting almost as loud as the music and shaking their heads around. It looked liked the most fun Eli had ever seen.
“Let’s do it again!” He cheered jumping up and down in his mud-covered Doc Martens.
A man with no shirt on ran over to see what was going on. His arms and neck were very red but the rest of him was pale and white.
“He’s fine,” Bullfrog said, “don’t worry about it. It’s his first mosh pit.”
“Did you seriously bring a four-year-old to Edgefest?” The man said, getting into Bullfrog’s face. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
”Aw, come on, the little guy lives for this shit, don’t you Eli?"
Eli nodded his head, trying to shake it up and down like the big boys in the mosh pit.
“Are you this kid’s father?” the man asked, sounding very angry. People quite often sounded angry when they asked Bullfrog that.
“Yeah, he’s having fun with his old man.”
“Does his mother know he’s here?”
”My wife’s getting some beers, what’s the problem?”
“He’s too young to be here and he’s getting hurt. This is fucking child abuse, man.”
Bullfrog stood infront of Eli, getting more in the man’s face than the man had gotten into his.
“Hey, fuck you – he can do what he wants, can’t you little dude?”
”Yeah,” Eli echoed “fuck you!”
Bullfrog high-fived him before throwing him onto his shoulders and watching the shirtless man walk away with a grumpy face. Fuck that guy. Eli could do what ever he wanted.
And what Eli wanted was to feel the music hit against his heart.