The story I'm about to tell is a) true or b) a hallucination brought on by a combination of heat stroke and sewagey Los Angeles tap water. Either way, last year on the night of July 3rd, I was visited by several strange beings. Just hours before their arrival, I had declined an invitation from Sparrow, my vegan herbalist friend, for his annual Cruelty Free Fourth of July BBQ.
"I'm just going to do some laundry and clean up the place," I had told him. This was no sacrifice for me. I love cleaning my apartment. Some theories suggest that obsessive cleaning falls under the "control issues" umbrella, which also shades such quirky shenanigans as binging and purging. Some girls puke. I clean.
"But you can clean any day!" exclaimed my friend. "This is July 4th: Fireworks, friends, BBQ's, celebrating our right to free speech!"
"Humbug," I said joyously cranking up the vacuum.
***
Later that night, as I was falling asleep, I heard the distinct rattling of chains. I banged on the wall hoping my neighbors would cease whatever role playing scenario they were working on when suddenly my door burst open and a ghostly figure appeared.
It was my dead Communist grandpa, Jacob, all dressed up in what I could only assume was bondage gear. This strange looking apparition threw into doubt my entire belief system regarding the afterlife. Evidently, when we die, we don't lounge in the clouds or toil among brimstone. We get our freak on.
" Uh...Grandpa? Great to see you and all but I think I have enough on the therapy plate as is, so..."
"Silence!" He screamed. "I'm trying to save you from my wretched fate! Like you, I dismissed the patriotic fanfare of July 4th as a celebration of ruthless capitalism. I took our freedoms for granted. Now I must carry these chains for all eternity."
"So, you're telling me that you're condemned just because you were a Pinko? God is being kinda biased, don't you think?"
"Actually, it turns out that the Conservatives were right about God's hard line stance on certain matters. Except for the stuff about Gays. He absolutely loves the Gays."
"I dunno, Grandpa. It seems like patriotism has lost something since our forefathers donned featherhead dresses and chucked tea into Boston Harbor. Even if I define myself as a patriot because I believe in the basic principles upon which our country was founded--equal rights for all citizens and freedom of self-expression--other people don't see me that way. Some people think to be a patriot means being an ignorant Red-Neck, all 'We're number One' while nuking 'Them Towel Heads.' Still others think anything less then complete acceptance of our President is high treason and a betrayal of our troops. What's a girl to do?"
"Tonight I'm sending three spirits to set you straight and remind you of what our Independence Day really means!"
With that Grandpa Jacob vanished.
I thought that maybe it was all a dream until Madonna appeared draped in an American flag from her 1990 MTV Rock the Vote Campaign. Luckily this was early 90's Madonna before she became British and wrote children's books. This Madonna burned crosses in Pepsi commercials and warned people that if they didn't vote they were going to get a "spankie." I was so excited, thinking we would run around town in cone bras vogueing but she had something else in mind.
"I'm the ghost of Fourth of July past! Grab onto a corner of my flag or else I'm giving you the Gonorrhea I picked up shooting that 'Justify My Love' video." Ever fearful of social diseases, I obediently grabbed onto her flag and was whisked away to Central Park circa July 4th, 1985.
We moved through the crowd of stone washed denim and shoulder-padded sweat shirts until reaching my family's picnic. At age five, I was a patient canvas for my mom's red white and blue face painting. Meanwhile my Uncle, an Ophthalmologist, lectured us on the hazards of mixing fireworks and children--a cocktail that led to trading their eyesight for grotesque facial deformities. This was of great comfort to me since I was a child and the fireworks were about to begin. My spatial understanding was limited so fireworks in the sky or set off on the ground--it was all the same to me. I quaked with fear.
Everyone else in the park was having a great time, eating vendor hotdogs, waving sparklers and adorning themselves in as much red, white and blue as possible. It may have been tacky but it wasn't controversial. Patriotism wasn't some volatile subject. It was a red, white, and blue mess on a five-year-old's cheek.
Just as I realized Madonna had aborted our journey for a game of Strip Capture the Flag with some park rangers, a cloud swelled around me and took me back home.
The next spirit arrived in the form of Uncle Sam. Seeing him life sized like that, he kind of reminded me of a homeless person who had cobbled together an outfit from a Carnival trash heap. I couldn't help but laugh.
"Yeah I know. I'm a big corny joke aren't I? People think Independence Day is my time to shine but you know the truth? It's tax season. That's when I become a symbol of fear. So laugh now, sister. Laugh now!"
Uncle Sam snapped his fingers and we were at my hippy pal Sparrow's BBQ around sunset. A heated debate had broken out between Sparrow's guests and the more conservative neighbors across the fence. Sparrow and friends argued that Whitey was trying to take over the world to suck up all the oil and turn Third World populations into de-facto slaves. The neighbors argued that America was helping people in the Middle East by giving them freedom and furthermore Sparrow's friends should not be allowed to speak against the President that way.
"Besides we care about the people from these countries," said one of the neighbors. She produced a small, peg-legged African boy. "We recently adopted him from West Africa. His name meant 'Courageous Warrior' in his native tongue but we call him Timmy." Timmy happily munched on some Doritos before declaring "God Bless Us Everyone!"
"God is dead." Grumbled Sparrow.
More fighting was about to break out when the fireworks started. Both sides had a good view and it was enough to make them momentarily forget their fight. After the fireworks everyone enjoyed the food they had cooked and the drinks they were about to get loaded on. I could only hope no children had lost an eye to give them this moment.
Uncle Sam dropped me back at my place just in time for my final guest of the evening. But this was no ghost. This tiny figure with his huge head, little body and saucer eyes was an Alien.
The Alien refused to speak despite my efforts to chat it up with interesting topics like the "Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency" vs. "Project Runway." The good news about the future world the Alien presented was that all nations had overcome their differences to work together towards a common goal of peace. The bad news was that this had been a bit of an after thought prompted by an Alien invasion that killed off 90 percent of the human population. The Aliens were a mean bunch bent on enslaving the human race. Patriotism had been redefined once again, not as allegiance to any one country but as allegiance to mankind.
The final straw was when I saw what the Aliens were about to do to Timmy who was all grown-up but still peg-legged. As if it were not enough that his life had been so tragic--forced to sing hymns without the ability to shuffle his feet in boredom--he was now to be sacrificed as a chew toy to the Alien King.
"Spirit! No!" I screamed. "This is only the possible future, right? I see now how precious freedom is especially compared to living under an alien dictatorship. I will never forsake July 4th again!"
***
I awoke to find myself in bed, the sun already up. I called out the window to a lad on the street to find out what day it was. "Why, it's Independence Day!" He said. Hot Damn! I still had time to go to Sparrow's BBQ, wave some sparklers in the air, and teach Timmy about his Yoruba heritage before it was too late!
For all her faulty execution, at least the bare bones principles upon which our country was founded are well meaning. I guess it's like deciding to go on a healthy diet. Regardless of whether or not you follow through, at least the diet was a really good idea and you should be proud of yourself for even thinking you might be able to do it. God Bless us everyone!