L.A '56

        'People other places think it's happy here. They connect sunshine with feeling good, not understanding that you can get to resent it ................. That's how it works. Sooner or later everyone who got off a train or Greyhound with big dreams that don't come true finds out how sad L.A really is.There they are, guys with Purple Hearts from Guadalcanal working as cashiers at Clifton's cafeteria and women, who'd refused more than a kiss from their dates back home in Des Moines blowing someone in an alley for not much more, living in tiny airless rooms five flights up in brick buildings only one small earthquake away from a pile of rubble'.

L.A '56 - A Devil in the City of Angels
Joel Engel
2012