Watt's Echoes

Two months ago I was heading home from the grocery store, taking my usual route, riding my bike—pretty much the same old routine I follow day in, day out.
Unfortunately, just as I came into the intersection just steps away from my apartment, a car sped through the stop sign and slammed into me. I went flying, my bike was crushed; and the load of groceries I had in the rear basket exploded and shattered all across the street.
It was 3:58 pm.
The time really only becomes a salient fact in that it was the peak of pedestrian traffic on my street, and no less than twelve witnesses came dashing to the scene, but here’s the rub: were they proverbial Good Samaritans, concerned about my welfare, given that I lay in a heap of piss and blood and scattered books and gym clothes, moaning with my left ankle at a right angle? I like to think they were anxious to help, but then again, even as I contemplated the situation I felt the low, angry rumble of the mob that was quickly forming, fueled by their common hatred for the Evil Driver whose first words upon stopping her vehicle were not, “Omigosh! Are you okay?” but rather, “It’s not my fault!” quickly followed by a hasty call for back-up submitted via her police-band radio.
Irony of ironies: I had been bowled over by a parking enforcement officer!

(Pause for effect)

Faster than you can say “Johnny Cochrane!” eight (count ‘em) eight police cars, a fire truck, two ambulances, and (curiously enough) four more parking-ticket-mobiles shut down traffic in the lower Whitley Heights section of Hollywood for a three block radius.
The shouting and swearing and gesticulating dimly filtered through my pain-fogged senses as I watched the real become surreal even as I teetered on consciousness. I vaguely remember growling through clenched teeth, “I hate to be the voice of reason here, but can you guys just let the paramedics through so they can get me to a hospital?” This to a crowd, which had become a mob, and as more siren-topped vehicles arrived, there evinced a legitimate concern for the First Responders to break out the riot gear.
Fun times.
En route to the Kaiser Emergency Room I broke into hysterics, crying from the pain, laughing at the absurdity of the situation, all the while episodes of The Simpson’s running through my head with Mayor Quimby snarling at the ubiquitous mobs, “Can’t you people go one day without a riot?”
It is only recently, since I’ve gotten out of the hospital and finished up an intensive course in physical therapy that I have come to reflect on the deeper picture here.
I’m not a native Angeleno, but like the rest of America, I was glued to the TV when the riots broke out back in 1992 after the acquittal of four police officers on trial for the beating of Rodney King, despite evidence caught on tape and hence televised to the troubled city. The verdict and the damning tape incited looting, burning, pillaging and murder. After three days, ten thousand businesses had been destroyed; fifty-five people lay dead; and an estimated $ 1 billion of damage had been suffered by the “City Where Dreams Come True.”
Perhaps it’s egotistical to compare my “little riot-that-never-quite-happened’ to those grim days, even more so compared to the infamous Watts riots of 1965 which turned the South Central into a war zone where thirty-four people died with thousands more injured, and property damage costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
In both instances National Guardsmen, state troopers, and local police joined arms with the Army and Marines to quash the rioters and restore order to the city.

“The mistakes of history are repeated in farce.”

All these thoughts tumbled through my head as I was lifted onto a stretcher and taken off to the ER. I watched the yelling and screaming crowd; angry faces indignant.
Enraged!!
For what reason?
Is it because we live in a police state, that is, under martial law, despite the assurances to the contrary from the talking heads?
Is it because of the sullen impotence we suffer each time a parking ticket is written (Fuck you, and have a nice day!) with no recourse but to pay fines, which are assessed to those with the least ability to pay them.
How about when we are required to show I.D. for no particular reason (apartheid, anyone?) other than the man with the badge and the gun requests it.
Maybe you’re one of the millions who have assembled to protest some indignity and wound up being clubbed and handcuffed and brutalized (if you are lucky—they carry guns to kill, silly!) and even arrested for disturbing the peace, despite the fact you bore no arms, and dealt no blows. Perhaps looking into the face of supposed “authority”—brutal, uncivilized…evil…catches in your throat and burns deep in your chest and resonates with your neighbor whose experience echoes your own, and you feel the rage.
RAGE!
Rage of the righteous, of the Marxist proletariat.
Rage against the machine—the evil empire.
Rage and shame—that you were cowed by the pigs and their dogs, as Orwell might say.
Come to think of it, I rather doubt that crowd formed around me out of concern for my health and safety. Looking back at them through the ambulance doors, I couldn’t help but sense a tension, an itching, a burning waiting, just waiting for a reason…any reason to ignite.

And burn.