Much of this story is true.  But not all.  You decide what may have really happened and what did not. That’s the fun of a good Halloween story.

When we were kids, my siblings and I would trick-or-treat unescorted around our neighborhood and beyond from just after dinner until nearly bedtime.  Our costumes were purchased a day or two before Halloween at the local drug store, and there weren’t a lot of choices back then:  devil, witch, princess, nurse or fireman, mostly.  Costumes were made of thin nylon fabric that draped over our clothes in front and tied down the back, like a hospital gown.  We wore plastic masks that cracked or split with the slightest pressure.  They were held over our face by a flimsy elastic band secured on either side.  Our breath caused the masks to steam up and we couldn’t see very well through the eye holes, so most of the time we pulled them up to rest on our heads like a hat.  We’d pull them down again before ringing a doorbell, but with the mask pressed against our lips the best we could do for the people answering the door was a wet and muffled, “Trick or Treat!”

We collected our candy in a paper bag, sometimes decorated with some sort of Halloween drawings in crayon.  We took as large a bag as we could find to collect as much candy as possible.  Some people gave popcorn balls or raisins, which always made me groan and I’d usually dump them before I got home.   By the age of twelve, trick-or-treating was lame, and Halloween became more about going to a horror movie or a friend’s house for a party. 

By the time I was a teenager, I was over it completely.  And this is where this story begins.  I was 17. My boyfriend, John, was 20.   

Both of us grew up Imperial Beach, a relatively small town in San Diego County about five miles north of the border of Mexico.  That Halloween, John and I opted out of going to a party and decided to go to the beach after dark, find a secluded area and build a fire, just the two of us.  Because local regulations did not permit building a fire on the beach, it would be reckless and nervy, and maybe a little scary.  Perfect.  We loaded the back of his car with a small box of firewood, matches, a sleeping bag, snacks and sodas.  We parked as far South as we could and walked further south down the beach toward the border, where we thought we’d be less detectible to cops or border patrol.  Ah, youth.

We stopped and spread the sleeping bag in front of a rock face that led from an empty lot down to the beach.  We cleverly decided this would shield us from nearby residents or authorities.  To the South lay Mexico, the lights of Tijuana smeary against the encroaching fog.  Ahead was the ocean, white caps like low clouds in the moonlight.  To the right of us in the distance, the pier stretched through the mist into the dark water, and above it all,  the sound of waves breaking and receding.  Looking around to be sure we were alone; we bent to dig a hole in the sand and dropped wads of newspaper in.  We balanced pieces of wood into a tent shape over the paper and sat back to inspect the structure for flammability.  Looks good.  John turned his back to the wind coming off the water and pulled a matchbook from his pocket.  It took several tries to get the match to light.  When it finally flickered, he cupped his hands around it and lowered the tiny flame to the paper kindling.  The scent of burning paper and victory made us giddy. 

We sat close together on the sleeping bag and ripped open some of the snacks we’d brought.  We stoked the fire to keep it burning as we discussed what everyone else might be doing at that moment, how much cooler it was being at the beach than whatever they were doing, and how we wished we’d brought heavier jackets.  We were concentrating on the fire, our little-engine-that-could source of heat, when I lifted my head to rake the hair out of my face and caught sight of something that appeared to be floating over the water.   I slapped John’s leg.

“Hey!  Did you see that?”  I asked, sure he hadn’t.  “There was a white – something — out there,” I said, pointing over the water to the south.

 John glanced in the direction I was pointing and then went back to tending the fire.  “I don’t see anything,” he said, believing I was trying to rattle him.  Halloween and all. My eyes searched the area where I’d seen the white shape hovering in the dark.

 “It’s probably a dolphin,” John said, finally looking up to scan the water. 

“There it is again!”  I nearly screeched.

The shape was larger, closer, almost iridescent against the misty fog. It moved slowly, stopped a couple of times, and then came straight up the beach toward us.  I supposed we were like the idiots in horror movies who know that an axe-murder is in the house, and still choose to hide IN THE HOUSE.  Fair enough.  The truth is, we were paralyzed with fascination.  We just sat there, watching, as the figure slowly materialized into what we could now see was a person.  A man.  He kept coming toward us, slowly, as if weighed down.  He was dark-skinned, barefoot, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt.  His dark, wet hair was pulled back, heavy strands had come loose and hung dripping down his face.  He swiped water from his face with open hands and shook the water off.  He was trembling, his jaw quivering from the cold.  He slowly approached us and our meager little fire, which, in the dampness was more of a smolder with a few weak licks of flame. 

“Puedo compartir el fuego?”  He asked as he rested on his haunches and put his hands out in front of the fire. 

What the Hell is happening?  I thought, but didn’t speak.  This guy just walks out of the sea and sits down like we’ve invited him for coffee. 

We stared at the man who stared back across the fire through wisps of smoke.  John tilted his head toward me and whispered, “He swam across the border.  He’s illegal.”

I had already figured this out on my own.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was a smoker back then and reached for my cigarettes, as one does in moments of crisis.  I lifted the cigarette to my lips, my hands shaking with nerves and chill.  I lit the cigarette in the fire rather than try to light a match.  The man watched every move I made. 

“Give him your cigarette,” John said. 

I shook my head.  Are you crazy?  After a few beats, I tossed my pack of Marlboros to the man.  He caught them in the air, “Gracias,” he said. He pulled one from the pack and tossed them back to me.

He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, the smoke appearing to somehow warm his bones.  He pushed his wet hair back, biting the cigarette between his teeth.  He stood and reached into his pocket.  A knife?  My mind ran wild with possibilities, and I scooched back on the sleeping bag with my feet.  I smashed my lit cigarette into the sand in case I had to run for it.  The man pulled a plastic baggy from his pocket.  Inside was a folded piece of shiny paper.  He unfolded it and handed it to John.  John took the paper and turned it over. 

“It’s a gum wrapper,” he said and inspected it.  “There’s an address on the back.”  We both looked from the gum wrapper to the man who nodded his head as if to say, “That is correct.” 

He said, “Puede llevarme hasta allí.”  Neither John nor I spoke Spanish.  Seeing our confusion, the man mimicked driving a car, then pointed to the gum wrapper.  He looked to John and then to me, nodding in the affirmative. “Por Favor.”

John sighed and whispered, “I think he wants us to drive him to this address.”

I looked back at the man.  He was soaking wet, cold, and exhausted.  Who knows what he’d been through tonight? Maybe he’s escaping from a terrible life. Maybe he has a family here. Or maybe he’s a murderer and we’ll end up on Unsolved Mysteries.

“Puedo pagarte,” the man said, pulling up his shirt.  Strapped to his chest was a blue plastic pouch, bulging with what we surmised was cash.

John and I exchanged looks.  We understood that the man wanted to pay us to transport him.   

“No,” John said. “No dinero.  It’s okay.”   He turned to me and said, “I’m taking him to the address.  Look at the guy – he’s freezing.  He needs help.  I can drop you at home first if you want.”

In a rush of thoughts, I considered this.  The one thing I did know was that taking the man to the address on the gum wrapper would be transporting an illegal alien.  An illegal fire is one thing, committing a federal offense was another.  But I was young and dumb and some part of me wanted to see this adventure through.  (Yes, in the horror movie analogy, I rushed toward the chainsaw rather than the getaway car.)  I kicked sand over the glowing coals from our fire and gathered our belongings. 

“Let’s go,” I said.  And the three of us walked up the beach to the car.

John drove.  The man sat in the passenger’s seat, and I sat behind John so I could keep an eye on the man and jump out the car door if he tried anything funny.  While putting on his seat belt (safety first), the man felt something between the passenger seat and console.  He pulled out a Casper the Friendly Ghost mask that John wore earlier to startle people at stop lights.  The man put the mask on and turned around in his seat to look at me through the exaggerated eyeholes.  “Boooo!  Casper el fantasma!” 

A violent shiver ran down my spine.  Sensing my anxiety, he pushed the mask up to rest on top of his head.  He laughed again and turned forward.  Not funny. 

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked John.  My stomach was churning and I was rethinking my decision to come on this ride.

 “It’s down by Monument Road,” he said.  “Like where the horse stables are.  I think I know the street, we just need to find the address.” 

His voice was almost cheery.  Was he enjoying this?  Good God.

The man rode quietly, peering through the windshield as if he’d know the house when he saw it.  We were in a rural area in South San Diego.  Not many houses and a lot of dark empty road.  After what seemed like endless circles, John pulled up in front of a house set back on a dirt road.   

“This is it, he said.  “I read the address on the mailbox when we passed it a few minutes ago.”  He stopped the car and turned to look at the man.  “We’re here,” he said, “Have a nice life.” 

The man rolled down his window and looked toward the house.  My nerves were on edge from what had felt like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and it was getting late. My brain screamed: Get out, get out, get out!

The house sat on a large lot.  Trees crowded the front yard and east side of the house.  The road ran along the West side. We could see dim security lights shining out from behind the property.  All we could see of the house itself was a ruddy walkway to a dark door with a single light shining above it, and a large window to the right of the door, obscured by vertical blinds.  The nearest neighbor was barely visible up the road.  There were no streetlights.

The man opened the car door and got out.  Still wearing the Casper mask on his head, he ambled toward the house.  Before climbing the walkway to the door, he turned to wave at us.  In the dark haze, under the bright moon, his T-shirt had the same unearthly glow as when he had emerged from the water.

“Let’s get out of here before somebody comes out with a gun or something, or a cop pulls up behind us,” I said.

 John laughed and put the car in gear.  “You’re such a wuss.  Are you hungry?”  Oddly, I was.

The next morning, John picked me up early to get a head start on a trip to L.A. to visit friends.  We talked about the night before and wondered what would ultimately happen with the man.  I was happily jabbering on about what a good deed we had done for him and how it would probably change his life for the better, when I realized that John had driven past the freeway on-ramp and was headed toward Monument Road.  I knew it.  I knew he wouldn’t leave it alone.

 “Why are you going back there?” I asked him with more than a little annoyance in my voice. 

He told me he wasn’t sure why, but that he wanted to see the house in the daylight.  I stared at him from the passenger seat, my eyes boring into the side of his head from behind my sunglasses.   

He turned toward me.  “Don’t be a wuss.”

The drive there was not nearly as hairy as it was the previous night.  We got lost again but eventually found the house and parked across the road.  There were a few cars parked randomly around us, which was good.  We didn’t want to call attention to ourselves while we spied.  There were no people outside, too early, I guess.  It was sunny and breezy.  Leaves skittered along the dirt road. Nothing to see here.  Just as we were about to leave, a man stepped out of the front door of the house.  His face was a thundercloud.  He carried a broom to the cemented area in front of the large window and began to sweep vigorously.  Another man, massive and shirtless, followed him out of the house cursing in Spanish.  He tossed something blue into the open box where the man with the broom had been dumping debris from a dustpan.    John and I crouched down in the front seat. 

“What is he sweeping up?  Leaves?”  I wondered aloud.  Then, I noticed that what he was dumping into the box was glittering. “It’s glass,” I said.

My eye was drawn to the window; it was broken.  The vertical blinds hung askew as if they had been tugged down.  The glass was on the outside, so the window had been broken from the inside.

“Someone tried to get out the window.”  I whispered.  My heart picked up a few beats. 

“Shit,” John said.  “What went on here after we left?  Where’s our guy?”

The shirtless man was inspecting red marks and scratches on his chest as if he’d just noticed them.  He glanced across the road (we ducked way down in our seat) and up and down the street.  The other man had finished sweeping and had started spraying the area down with a hose.  After a few minutes, they both retreated into the house. 

We sat in silence for a minute.  John started the car and slowly drove around to the back of the property.  There was a brick wall running along the back, too high to see over. Trees along the outer road and on the East side of the property inhibited anyone from seeing in from either side.  We didn’t stop the car but got out and walked up to the wall.  John laced his hands together and bent over.

 “Here, step up and look over the wall,” he said.  I took a long moment while he waited, hunched over, staring up at me.  “C’mon,” he said. 

I shrugged and stepped onto his hands and hoisted up the wall, my elbows akimbo along the top as I hung there.  I crooked my neck to look at John.

“If anyone sees me, I will shit my pants,” I said.  “And you better keep the car running.”

I surveyed the back of the house.  Nothing much to see.  A rusted barbeque grill and a few lawn chairs sat under a covered patio.  An old lawnmower, a deeply discolored twin sized mattress, and at least 6 pairs of shoes littered what used to be a lawn area, now dry and covered in dead grass and weeds.  To the right, close to the tree line, stood six 55-gallon steel drums.  Five were covered in varying degrees of rust and dirt.  One was newer.  No rust, no dirt.  I saw something white flutter near the top of the newer drum.  It twisted and swung lightly in the breeze, captured in the lid of the drum by one end of the elastic band.  It was Casper the Friendly Ghost.