A CONVERSATION IN THE SKY
I went out on the corner after dark on July
4th to watch the folks in my neighborhood set the sky aflame with fireworks, one
of the most brazen displays of non-cooperation with authority since Mr. Ghandi led
his followers down to the seashore to mine salt.
Before I go any further, I suppose I should let you know that I’m not much for fireworks.
I don’t flat-out hate them, as some of my good friends do. I’m not scared of fireworks,
either. And though I can understand and appreciate the concern about the fire hazard
and the noise and the trauma to animals and such, for my part, given the nature of
the neighborhood I live in, I’m pretty much relieved when the popping sound outside
turns out to be an M80 rather than a 9 mil.
Mostly, I just don’t see the point of it–at least, not setting them off myself. Given
the chance, I can figure out a lot better things to do with $7.95–or whatever these
things are going for these days–than to set it down on the sidewalk outside and blow
it up.
But I went out on the corner after dark on July 4th to watch the folks in my neighborhood
set the sky aflame with fireworks, and for a half-hour or so stayed there while the
screaming missles and cartwheeling spinners and exploding bursts of color set off
from sidewalks and driveways and backyards all around, as if a hundred prisoners–trapped
by themselves in hidden dungeon cells, mute and unnoticed for years on end–were suddenly
given voice and were sending up shouts of “Here I am, friend!”–first one, then another,
then a third and fourth–until the whole, joyous conversation rose up from every degree
of the circle, meeting and then overflowing at the top of the sky to proclaim, “Oh
hell yeah, here we are!”
The next day, and for several days afterwards, the local television stations and
newspapers reported over and over that all across Oakland, people had defied the
city’s “zero tolerance policy” against fireworks displays.
So for a couple of hours on one night, the voiceless had a voice. And it was even
acknowledged in the media that it was a defiant voice, that got everybody’s
attention. What power!
For years, such individual fireworks-shooting was both legal and commonplace throughout
Oakland, though on a much less explosive scale. My father used to buy one of those
box assortments, with a couple of bottle rockets and a fistful of low-level firecrackers,
some sparklers, and those black-charcoal buttons that you’d set down on the sidewalk
and light, and it would rise in an eerie, spasmodic dance like a snake being born
out of the concrete. There was always one big firework which would always be saved
for the last, my father being the only one who could touch it off with a whirr of
whistles and bangs and light, which ended the fireworks-lighting for us, but did
not end the night. The whole neighborhood was out there with their own boxes, usually
larger than ours, and we’d stay out there til the last cracker was popped. There
is something of a community-building about neighbors mingling outside in the night,
summer or winter, children and adults, regardless of the cause–whether fireworks
or Trick or Treat or an ambulance called to someone’s house, or a traffic accident
down at the corner. It is a realization that we are not just alone, separate families
reading books or watching television behind our individual front doors, but there
are others who share the night with us, only a holler away.
Wisely, I believe (because we live in a tinderbox in the summer, and the fireworks
are gradually getting larger and more dangerous), the legislature eventually outlawed
individual fireworks-shooting in the state, but what we got offered as a substitute
was a poor imitation. At various spots around the city and county–near Jack London
Square, or the Coliseum, or the Alameda County Fair before those got canceled–the
authorities invited you to come out and watch them shoot off fireworks. They
were bigger, brighter, choreographed and orchestrated and I’ve watched my share over
the years, but it is not the same thing. It is the difference, I think, between watching
a movie–even a good movie–or sitting around with good friends, singing. The difference
between being a passive observer, and a participant.
In his 1994 book “Skyline: One Season, One Team, One City,” Tim Keown wrote about
one 16 year old Oakland kid, Jason Wright, who dreamed of making a noise in the city’s
season-opening basketball jamboree, packed with players and fans from Oakland’s six
public high schools. "The Jamboree was on his mind the entire week before, and
in the unlikely event that he would forget about it, somebody was sure to remind
him. ... 'J Wright, you gonna get a dunk for me?'" And two minutes into
the game, when Wright did, indeed, get a massive, breakaway breakaway slam, "he
hung on the rim just long enough to accentuate his point, and the crowd responded
with a reflexive grunt, followed by a tremendous ovation that filled every silent
space in the huge building. This was what they had come to see, and this was what
Jason came to do. He ran downcourt yelling at the top of his lungs, his mouth wide
open but no sound audible amid the roar."
But who roars for the Jason Wrights of Oakland–or Berkeley–or Richmond–or Emeryville–when
they come back on these crowded, broken blocks, and they’ve got no basketball in
their hands, and there’s no game to play, even if they had one? Who even listens,
when they’ve got something to say?
We’ve got a whole inner East Bay full of Jason Wrights, folks who never appear on
television and are never quoted in the newspaper, and so they are faceless, nameless,
voiceless, dark haunts and wraiths that hover just outside the edge of our consciousness,
coming to our attention only when they have followed the hip hop deejay’s call to
“MAKE SOME NOISE!” and do something–like set off fireworks, or play their music loud,
or spin donuts in the middle of an intersection–that annoys us. Then we write columns
about them, and fill up talk shows and news broadcasts and newspaper stories about
them, and make them the subject of council meetings, and pass new laws about them,
and send the police out after them. And so if the purpose was to get attention–anybody’s
attention, in any way–then damned if it ain’t worked, if only for just a moment,
however brief.
People need to be heard, and so they will be heard. It’s the human way. The only
real question is, how will we answer, and will that answer change the dialogue in
some way, or keep it down the same destructive path its been going?