Signal Hill, July 4th 2019

This is a non fiction piece that was inspired by my recollection of events from exactly a year ago. It's been revised by me, but never copy edited so don't expect publication style writing. Enjoy, and happy 4th.

Signal Hill, July 4th 2019

The 4th isn’t what it used to be. Probably for a lot of reasons. When I was a kid, I was totally in awe of fireworks. Most kids were. They were loud and big which made them sort of scary, but they were also so colorful and captivating that it was hard not to look. I used to cover my ears to watch. I’ve got so many fun memories of running around the yard with sparklers. I occasionally giggle to myself when I look back on that time I set a bush on fire with one of them and my parents freaked out. Those nostalgic patio parties with friends and family were fun to reminisce about. Barbecue hot dogs and burgers wrapped in foil, Ruffles on paper plates, candy bowls with red white and blue M&M’s, fresh and sweet watermelon cut into triangles. It’s an experience that I wish didn’t wear off.

On this particular 4th, my girlfriend and I didn’t have a whole lot of incentive to celebrate. It was a simple afternoon and the plan was to do something similar to the years prior, which was nothing. We lacked friends or family that were motivated enough to want to do anything anyways, and truth be told I was feeling antisocial. I remember just lounging around, laying out on the couch on my phone, looking at Instagram stories full of sorority-type girls in face paint and backwards trucker caps shotgunning beers on a boat or at a beach somewhere.

Brielle, obviously bored, asks if I want to try to watch the fireworks tonight.

“No? What? Why would you wanna do that?”

She said something along the lines of “I don’t know. Just to enjoy the day off together.”

I shoot her down quickly like a total scrooge, or whatever the equivalent of one on Independence Day would be. I noticed how subtly sad and disappointed she got from my response and I immediately felt guilty about it. I thought about the stories she told me back when she was a kid living in Corona. Her and her friends would climb a big rocky hill and watch the fireworks from one of the best vantage points for miles.

I quickly corrected myself and ask, “Do YOU wanna go watch them?”

“Yeah, I just thought it could be fun. We could go to Signal Hill or something. I know people say it’s a good place to watch from.” she said somewhat excitedly.

“Are you sure? Other people probably have the same idea so it’s gonna be super crowded and it’s gonna be so hard to find parking, and-”

I stopped myself again. The skeptical realist my mom trained me to be was taking over. Sometimes it’s just better to try anyways. I realized that Brielle was only just trying to reconnect with any of the childhood magic she used to feel on this day as a kid. Like St. Patrick’s, Easter, and many others, I guess I had just shed the idea of having fun and actually celebrating on the 4th of July as I grew older. I made a personal mission to help her recapture some of those fond feelings, but I also wanted to see if I could revitalize any of my own. It was good to get out of our stuffy little apartment anyway.

The sun was setting with a classic Long Beach hue. We stayed silently determined to find some parking around Signal Hill. The AC blasted our faces and feet as the giant “up and down” arms of the oil wells squealed ominously around us. Red and blue luminescence danced along the brick fences as the The police blocked off the main roads to the hill. Reflective barriers and caution tape kept anyone who wasn’t a member of the neighborhood community built on top of the hill from entering. The cops would occasionally let a nice Mercedes or a Range Rover on by.

The rest of the city cleverly utilized a mostly empty Home Depot parking lot at the base of the hill. We followed suit and went with the line. Once we parked, Brielle went to find the quilted blanket in her trunk. While I waited, I looked around to see tons of other people unloading folding chairs and grocery bags. I bopped my head along to some Playboi Carti that was playing from another parking lot car driven by a group of other college-aged kids. I smiled and nodded at them as they passed by. What followed was a long ocean of people all making the pilgrimage to the top. Signal Hill is steep, and walking up it is no easy feat.

There’s not much to do but think when you’re endlessly climbing like that. It’s easy to get out of breath, and that’s all you start to focus on. I needed to look around and people watch or something to distract myself.

“I guess I don’t need to get my cardio in later,” Brielle said sarcastically.

I laughed and agreed. She was (and still is) in much better shape than me. I noticed a few old people, slowly but surely making their way up with us. A lot of kids were being tugged in wagons by huffing moms, or held on the sweaty backs of heaving dads. There were also big groups of them walking. Some complained about blisters and others tried to run up to make it go by faster. Some begged for their older siblings to carry them. A lot of families were big. I would try to figure out the dynamic and guess which ones were cousins or whatever. Brielle and I tried to guess which people were here on dates a few times.

We were nearing the top when eventually, it hit me. No one else here looked like us. Even when we got to the top and saw the giant amassment of people, I still saw that absolutely none of them looked like us. The crowd was mostly Hispanic, but there was an occasional black family or Asian one.

The top of the hill looked like a music festival. If Signal Hill was a bald guy, then tonight it was wearing a toupee. Street vendors and makeshift food trucks scattered the place. Several stone picnic tables held stacks of those classic orange Little Caesar’s pizza boxes. A few lone police cars were on the scene to oversee everything and hand out tickets to kick out anyone that wasn’t parked in a driveway or garage. Kids ran around chasing each other and groups of highschool-age friends gathered in circles to reconnect.

Brielle and I found a decent patch of open grass that could fit both of us. We laid out the blanket and finally got to catch our breath as we watched the twinkling city skylines. The June bugs were in full effect. They ravaged everyone up on that hill and sucked at our necks like parasites. We were slapping our ankles and necks every few seconds. Distant pops and crackles created a sort of white noise in the background. The west side of the hill had a great view of the infamous Queen Mary fireworks show. You could faintly make out a particularly active display over Lakewood. Brielle told me that fireworks are legal over in that section. It was funny to see which counties were more lively because of that. Such an expansive view of all of these fireworks wasn’t what I was expecting. We were at such a vantage point that the sun looked like it hadn’t fully set yet. It was similar to looking at something like a really populated and boisterous sky on a super starry night. Most of the fireworks were small like little twinkles.

Occasionally, we’d see a flare of blue and red rush down a street. I always wondered how actively cops pursued areas that they saw fireworks shooting up from, but tonight it seemed so fruitless. It would be impossible as hell to send a patrol car to every house shooting off. There were just too many. In that way, it seemed like a comedic display of resistance. As we leaned on each other, I looked around. I still couldn’t shake that thought from earlier. I couldn’t help but think: “I know Long Beach’s demographics, but still, where are all of the white people? It seems like we’re it.” Then, I finally found them. Once you were looking in the right spot, you could find a lot. Groups of 5 or 6 each with Coronas in hand. They were high above everyone else. They sat on patio furniture around automatic fire pits laughing and just having a good time. Gargantuan plasma screens flashed whatever baseball game was on behind them as their Boxer/Spaniel type dogs clung to their sides. I can’t make this shit up, I know it sounds like I am but that’s exactly how it was. They were comfortably watching from their balconies.

The June bugs were eating us and the other families around us up like any other patch of grass that they tend to gnaw through for dinnertime. One would occasionally rattle by my ear and I’d have to try to bat it away without embarrassing myself in front of everyone. Regardless, it was worth the gruesome and hot climb to see such a show. After about 30 more minutes of taking everything in, I could tell that Brielle was satisfied.

“Thanks for coming up here with me, Riley,” she said.

“Of course! This was cool,” I smiled.

Darkness finally fully fell and silhouettes of the smooth oil wells took up the wallpaper of the 4th of July sky as we started the trek back down to the Home Depot parking lot. We held hands and shot the shit about whatever came to mind on the way back. Reflections on the night lingered, but that was that.

Look, I don’t really write true stories or nonfiction type stuff. No moment in my inconsequential life feels significant enough to consider it worth sharing, but I remember this night so vividly. I won’t forget about it anytime soon either. Replays have come back to me year round. On the way home, we listened to Childish Gambino as we parted ways with all of the cop cars, those faded metal pumps, the god damned June bugs, and Signal Hill, where everything felt so much larger than me.

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photo by Gary Kavanagh