Over Here Ghere
2005
It was about 10:30 in the evening, towards the end of October, probably about 1970 or 71, when I got a call from the police department dispatcher. Apparently there was a report that someone was in the water off of Oak Street yelling for help and since I was on call I would need to respond.
I put on my Speedos, grabbed my fins and tube, and jumped in the car and head down the hill to Oak St. I figured that I could run all of the stop signs because any policeman on duty would be headed there also. It didn’t take long to travel the three quarters of a mile. By the time I got there several people had already informed the police officer that they had heard someone yelling for help well beyond the surf line. They said the voice had become rather faint because he seemed to be out so far.
None of their stories made much sense to me. It was pitch dark, there was not any surf to speak of and therefore there was no rip. Who besides a diver would be out in the water at that time of night? And if there was someone out there how was I suppose to find him in the dark? There was certainly no indication to either the officer or myself that anyone was still in the water. There had not been another yell for help since either one of us had arrived. The only troubling part was that everyone agreed that they had clearly heard someone yell for help, not once, but several times. I hadn’t taken a board or a light. I had not even taken time to get a wetsuit. It didn’t look like I had very many options open to make people think that I knew what I was doing. I was going to have to get in the water and make it look like I was there to find and save the yelling victim. My heart wasn’t really into getting in the water. I didn’t expect to be able to swim out in the dark, find the victim and return to the beach with the admiration of all who were there. As I slipped off my pants and shirt I asked everyone to shout to the person to see if they could get a response. They did as I requested, but no sounds returned except those of the breaking waves.
I asked a guy to point in the direction that he thought the last sound came from. As he pointed I entered the water and dove under the first wave. I didn’t figure this would take too long. I would just swim out past the surf line, yell a few times and then return to beach. I figured that I would probably have more luck finding a diver who had gotten scared and started yelling in the dark for his buddy. I wouldn’t expect to find them still in the water, but back on the beach, probably at Mountain Rd. or perhaps Thalia St. But for now I needed to do something and this was the best thing I could think of. So out I went. I yelled loud enough for the people on the beach to hear “Is there anyone out here?” Then I swam another 25 or 30 yards and repeated the yell. Each time, as expected, there was no returning voice seeking help. It was chilly, but not so cold that I was in any great hurry to get out of the water. I don’t remember how many times I called out, but I will never forget what happened after my last call.
I had finally swum about as far as I wanted to go when I made the last call. This time I yelled towards the beach. I wanted to make sure that everyone was well aware that I was trying to find the person and that I was not going to give up easily. I yelled, “If there is anyone out here you had better yell now or I am going to leave you here. I am swimming back to the beach.” That is when I heard a quiet voice come across the water from the dark abyss of the ocean, “Over here Ghere.” The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up, every nerve in my body was prepared to send a message somewhere and I was about ready to dance on the water all the way back to the beach. What was happening? Who was in the water? And most importantly how did they know it was Ghere.
It didn’t take too long to get all of the answers and for my heart rate and blood pressure to return to normal. I swam in the direction of the voice and found one of my old beach gremlins from Saint Ann’s having a good time swimming around. He was high on something. We talked for a while and then I asked him to swim to the beach with me so that everyone could go home and know that all was well for the evening. When we started out of the surf I realized that he was naked so I asked the officer to get my towel and give it to him. He couldn’t remember where he had left his cloths so I walked down the beach searching for the missing cloths. I found nothing. Sadly, by the time I got back to where everyone was the police officer had decided that he was going to take him to the police station for being on drugs.
Ten years earlier Laguna was the center of the drug culture for southern California, to some degree it was probably the Mecca for all druggies of that era. The preaching of Timothy O’Leary and the drugs took a heavy toll on the youth of Laguna during those years.
It was several years later before the next time I saw the errant gremlin. Once again our encounter was on the beach, he was visiting Laguna from a halfway house in Costa Mesa. He said that life had been difficult the past few years. Most of the kids made it through those turbulent years and developed good lives, some didn’t.
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