Honorable Mention
30 Feet and the Sea
by Raymond Dussault
I poured a cup of gourmet coffee and took it out on the deck of my third floor apartment. I could look down the hill, over my neighbors’ rooftops and the homes on the flat walk street, past the sand and the volleyball courts all the way to the Pacific. It was lake flat and slate grey. The clouds were close and low, as if someone had draped grey sheets under the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
It was just another Sunday morning. Volleyball with my longtime group and a liquid brunch on the Plaza, but I felt unsettled, as if something was coming. A disruption to Hermosa’s Peter Pan existence.
I marveled for a moment at my good fortune to rent, however high it might be, and still have this unfettered view. I liked my neighbours as I liked most people in Hermosa, and my view was protected by an old zoning law that limited new construction to 30 feet. So, though the couple just below me was wealthy beyond my aspirations, they could not steal my rental view.
As I dressed for volleyball, I couldn’t shake this dark cloud of a feeling. Even as the sun broke up the dirty sheet sky and gave way to pale blue with drifts of sugar white clouds, I still felt weighted with worry. Maybe it was the dream I had about my younger brother, Joseph, whom we lost to cancer four years ago. In the dream, we battled with wooden swords at a Renn Faire, and when he fake-fell from a thrust with my sword I discovered he was really gone. I woke up crying.
Even as I took a bag of volleyballs from the entryway closet, I couldn’t shake the desire to talk one more time to my kind and eccentric brother. I walked out and shut the door behind me, cutting down the narrow stairs next to the currently vacant Franklin home and headed toward the beach.
As I hit Hermosa Avenue, I ran into Henry, the retired aerospace guy who wore socks with his Birkenstocks and was perennially upset with the local government.
“You heard?” he asked, gesturing with his chin toward the Franklin house.
“Heard what?”
He held up his phone. An architectural rendering glowed on the screen: five stories of sleek, modern boxes with steel balconies, towering 50 feet. “Builder’s Remedy,” he said. “City manager messed up. And the Franklins are exploiting that loophole, claiming low-income units. Total BS. It’s the end of old Hermosa.”
My stomach sank. I looked back up the hill. The Franklin house, modest, unoccupied, quiet, would be scraped away. My view, my mornings, my sacred slice of sky and sea, was about to be stolen by people who didn’t even live here.
Henry shrugged. “I don’t even know what we can do. It’s a state law trying to ram housing down small town throats.”
We talked and smacked volleyballs. I played harder in my frustration and almost everyone seemed resigned to the city’s plight. I went to brunch and drank margaritas at Tower 12. Everyone else found reasons to laugh.
I still fought with my melancholy mood and rising anger. I had a tendency to lash out, to give voice and action to my frustrations. I had always liked the Franklins. Billy and Amy were always friendly, threw fun parties on their rooftop deck. They had moved the year before, to be closer to Amy’s aging parents and had planned to remodel and sell their Hermosa home.
Now I only felt anger replacing the good time memories. If I touched my phone, I knew I’d regret the words I’d say. I wished I could talk with my brother, who had always been the low-key to my quick anger.
By late afternoon, the margaritas turned into a long Sunday nap without dreams. When I woke, the sun was setting and I had a plan. One I thought Joseph would prefer to my typical hotheadedness.
That evening, I drafted my first email to neighbors. Hermosa is a city worth fighting for.
