WERE GOVERNMENT STIMULUS CHECKS USED TO BUY
CHINESE and MEXICAN FIREWORKS?
By Christine Trzyna
My dog is hiding under the bed today, after a month of fireworks in the neighborhood, every night, sometimes in the middle of the night. I have held her, shaking, pawing at me to communicate that she wants to get even closer, night after night. She has been so agitated she can barely eat. But people who buy illegal fireworks and illegally shoot them off, and get off on that, could give a fuck about the animals among us. They don't give a fuck about other humans either.
There was obviously no police presence what-so-ever. The street is littered with refuse from fireworks that were set off in it, despite cars being parked on either side of it; who cares if someone's car, their transportation lifeline, might be damaged?
I've experienced waking up from booms but also from seeing frightening brightly illuminated flares being shot between houses. The vacant building on the street was aimed at repeatedly; apparently there was desire to burn it down, never mind that the whole block could end up burned down.
On Friday night some asshole in the neighborhood shot off what could be a cannon every half hour from 9:30 PM till about 2:30 in the morning. I resorted to foul language.
I haven't gotten decent sleep in weeks, am falling asleep in the afternoon, something I hate to do but apparently need. I wonder when I will have a normal sleep pattern again. I felt alone in this unpopular attitude of mine, until Sunday night when two friends complained to me, feeling the same.
Our mayor, Eric Garcetti, announced the cancellation of any fireworks displays so as to avoid the assembly of large Coronavirus -19 spreading, and it seems there is no end in sight to this plague. I understand that people are ready to pop. The novelty of down time at home to do repairs and home improvements, to catch up on projects, art, painting, cooking new recipes, reading, all of it, is no longer feeling like an unexpected vacation.
It feels like a prison sentence.
Friends asked me if I could come to their home and be there for the numerous dogs and cats that live with them, so that they could go to their grandchildren's home and have a peaceable celebration there, all masked up. They had not seen their family in a couple weeks. I agreed. At about 9:30 mayhem began. Fireworks were shot on just about every street in the neighborhood. They were shot in the streets. They were shot at houses. The dogs cowered and shook. They followed me around when I got up. The cats came indoors and stayed put. I put on a Led Zeppelin concert film and put the sound up to 90, when I usually can hear at 18, but could still not drown out the noise outside, and so close too. The eruptions were rapid fire. Large and small, pops, whizzes, explosions - it sounded like a battlefield.
And I thought, "Don't tell me that these people have spent their government stimulus checks on fireworks."
I wasn't the only one who was thinking this. My friends got back with reports that they had been up the hillside where, looking down, the entire town had erupted. Fireworks, be they illegal from China or illegal from Mexico, be they illegally imported here or brought back from a road trip, are expensive. Those little poppers and sizzle sticks that are sold legally some places are not expensive, but when you see a bloom of multicolored explosions, that is. They heard one local had spent $1000 on fireworks. It may have cost the asshole down the street who set off what could be a cannon every half hour from 9:30 PM till about 2:30 in the morning, about $500 to screw his neighbors of their sleep. So the questions of where so many people had gotten the money to buy all this, while some people are facing evictions, was in the air.
"Shit," one of my friends said, "I see some of these people in line for free food at the Los Angeles Food Bank, too."
OK, so let's say that firing off all those fireworks helped people let out their frustration. But was any of it about PATRIOTISM? About the love of this country? The country that is distributing free food and actually has some so called government benefits?
Another friend, a citizen after legally immigrating from Guatemala, shook his head and said, "In my country, all these people would be on the street, begging."
We, the people, as PROTO-Americans, used to throw barrels of tea into the Boston Harbor protesting paying tax to the English, on tea imports. Now, poor old Christopher Columbus, who did not plan to become famous, apparently has some blame - his statue is thrown in.
In some cities all those fireworks were used as a cover - to hide the sounds of bullets shot and people murdered. Baltimore, New York City - I want to think we in Los Angeles are better than that - but I just haven't read any horror news stories about Los Angeles this morning. There are definitely neighborhoods where no one I know wants to live.
I don't care if I ever hear or see another fireworks in my life though I bet I will. The thrill of being a child and being taken to a fairgrounds to watch a thundering display - long gone. I will not go to Disneyland or Monaco - where people in range are treated to this noise every night.
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