Becoming a Man in the Shadowlands: a Survivor's Story
Copyright© 2019 by Dennis Randall
Chapter 17: City of Angels
Stepping off the plane at Los Angeles International Airport was like walking into an oven. It was late afternoon and the temperature hovered around a hundred and five degrees Fahrenheit. A layer of tan-brown smog hung over the city like the lid of a pressure cooker and the hazy air smelled like exhaust fumes.
Waiting for me was my dad and Dory, my dad’s new wife and my new stepmother. She gave me a big hug and Melissa, my eight-year-old stepsister, smothered me in kisses. She was apparently delighted to have a big brother.
Leaving the airport, I asked if we could stop at the ocean on the way home. My dad asked, “Why?” and I told him of my desire to feel the waters of two oceans on the same day as I explained I had already stood in Boston Harbor before my flight.
Dory thought it was a “marvelous idea and something epic;” my father laughed and directed the car toward the sea. We arrived at the beach just as the sun was setting over the Pacific Ocean. To the applause of my new family, I completed my two-ocean quest.
My new home was an apartment complex on Normandy Avenue. It featured a cloudy swimming pool which smelled like bleach and about thirty apartment units jammed into a steep hillside. Across the street was a huge open field clogged with tumbleweeds and oil rigs.
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