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PINK AND RUST SET THE sky ablaze as dawn enveloped the coastline. Beached jellyfish and strings of washed up seaweed, nests for breeding sand fleas, speckled the dull gray of the wet beach in the early morning. The sounds of the city had yet to begin anew, the atmosphere filled with the sound of the tide sliding toward land, occasionally building enough momentum to crash against the rocks.
Ray walked past several bodies huddled in the patches of Santa Monica grass, passed out on park benches, and leaning against the bases of palm trees. L.A.’s true beach communities; loosely organized in squalor like the associations of riches among the gated homesteads of Malibu. Kicking white sand into his pants cuffs as he walked, the resistance of the soft foundation sending pain into hi
