Night Light
October 27, 2023 – San Diego, California, USA
Kim and Brady slouched in the backseat of the SUV wearing dark clothes. They chose dark green and blue because all-black might arouse suspicion. Each held a dark backpack that matched their outfits. They knew they could be seen through the tinted windows so they tried to act natural as they rolled past the first Navy checkpoint. The driver did the talking when they reached an entrance gate. The guard did not spot anything out of the ordinary and waved them through.
“You sure you got everything?” the driver asked, turning his head toward the backseat. “Hats? Flashlights? You should keep your phones off unless there’s an emergency.”
“Right,” Brady replied.
“And the lock picking kit?”
“Yeah, we got it,” Brady replied defensively.
“Just trying to help. This looks like a good spot for a drop off. I’ll be in the same place in the morning to pick you up. Good luck, you two.”
The dark-clad pair cracked open the rear doors and slipped outside. They walked away without looking back, knowing surveillance cameras would be recording every move. A few seconds later, they blended into a small crowd of people. In the distance loomed the San Diego skyline. A couple hundred feet below, the afternoon sun glared off the smooth waters of the Pacific. The temperature was a predictable seventy-four degrees with an ocean breeze.
Kim and Brady Kenzler had stood on this exact part of Point Loma many times before. The picturesque view from the Cabrillo National Monument was one of their favorite places on the coast. They looked right at home walking around the Visitor Center and were practically indistinguishable from several other couples. Both Kim and Brady appeared healthy and comfortable in the outdoors, although they were not as fit as they used to be. Brady’s hair had turned smoky gray instead of black. Kim could not hide her wrinkles no matter what anti-aging serum she tried.
“Is anyone watching us?” Brady asked in a whisper.
“I don’t think so,” Kim whispered back.
“Don’t be nervous.”
“You saying that makes me more nervous.”
A park ranger walked past. In order to demonstrate he was a harmless visitor, Brady made a point of saying hello and commenting on the clear skies.
“Can I answer any questions?” the ranger asked.
“On no, we’re just enjoying the afternoon,” Brady replied.
Kim self-consciously gripped her backpack’s straps, praying the ranger did not ask to look inside.
When the ranger continued walking, leaving the couple alone, Brady exhaled and said, “That felt like a close call. How about we hike up to the lighthouse?”
“Do we want people seeing us there?”
“We’re blending in. Everyone visits the lighthouse. It’s the whole reason this place exists.”
The couple climbed the hill to the highest spot on Point Loma. From there, they could see the end of the peninsula and the ocean on both sides. The lighthouse perched on the hill was built in the 1800’s but had been left dark for many years. It now served as a small museum consisting of a whitewashed rectangular building with a giant glass lamp sticking out of the roof. While the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard controlled most of Point Loma, the area surrounding the lighthouse had been turned into a National Monument, run by the National Park Service.
No one else was inside as Kim and Brady admired the rooms used by former lighthouse keeper families. A spiral staircase climbed from the bottom floor to two small bedrooms. A ladder led up to the glass lamp. The rooms were guarded by locked plexiglass barriers. A metal gate covered the entrance to the lamp tower. Kim and Brady smiled knowingly at each other after confirming one of the locks was closed tight.
Brady looked at his watch. “Probably time for us to find our spot.”
They retreated from the empty lighthouse and followed one of the manicured dirt paths that traced the peninsula’s perimeter. The path was surrounded by prickly desert bushes that survived on the little rain that fell. Most bushes grew waist high, but small patches were dense and chest high.
Brady already had a good idea for a place that would work. Less than five minutes away from the lighthouse, he carefully scanned to make sure they were alone and then pushed his way through the sturdy bushes, clearing a path for Kim. After thirty feet of plowing, they found a mostly clear patch of ground surrounded by chest-high plants. They ducked into the secluded hiding spot and laid flat on their backs. Looking up, all they saw was sky and bush tops.
“Nobody’s gonna see us in here,” Brady said with a satisfied chuckle.
“You think any people have ever been in this exact spot?” Kim whispered back.
“In the whole history of the world? Probably. But not in the last ten years.”
Kim listened for anyone passing nearby before saying, “I can’t believe we’re really doing this.” The tone of her voice revealed a terrified thrill. She grabbed Brady’s hand.
As the sun slipped out of view, Kim and Brady struggled to find comfortable positions on the ground. They sat cross-legged, laid in fetal positions, and rolled over on their stomachs to avoid rocks and stumps sticking out of the ground. At 4:30, Brady announced that the National Monument was officially closed.
“There’s no turning back,” he added.
Kim imagined an empty Visitor’s Center with no cars in the parking lot. They continued to talk in whispers in case Park Rangers were still around. Kim pulled granola bars and water from her backpack to give them an energy boost.
“Now we wait until it’s black dark,” Brady whispered.
Kim repositioned herself. She had learned how to be patient. Patience was easy compared to letting go. Her previous two months had been unexpectedly painful when their youngest child left for college and she and Brady transformed into empty nesters. As much as they joked about finally being free from teenagers, the house felt quiet and empty. The loneliness and boredom hit Kim especially hard. She felt twenty years older. Brady often found her crying alone. She blamed it on feeling tired and adrift.
Brady fought the same feelings. He wanted to prove he still had fire and energy, that he and Kim were still young and interesting enough to do something reckless and stupid. She had always loved the Point Loma lighthouse and often fantasized about living there or merely spending the night in the beds and climbing up to the light tower.
“How would you like to break into Point Loma?” Brady asked one night after Kim said she was going to bed early.
“What are you talking about? Why would we do that?”
“So you can sleep in the beds. Watch the stars from the tower.”
“That’s something stupid teenagers would do.”
“Why can’t we still act like stupid teenagers? I mean, not totally stupid. We wouldn’t break anything. We’ll leave it just the way we found it.”
The idea quickly grew on Kim. Before she knew it, Brady scouted out the area and recruited a friend as a drop-off driver. As she lay looking up at the night sky on Point Loma, for the first time since August, Kim did not think of her empty house. Despite the adrenaline pumping through their bodies, she and Brady fell into little naps as it grew darker and colder.
At 10 pm, Brady announced it was time to move. He and Kim stood and stretched before pushing their way back to the nearby dirt path. They moved slowly and without a light. They soon stood in front of the lighthouse, which appeared as a black silhouette against the dark sky. The ocean surf below sounded louder than it had when they were surrounded by bushes.
Brady felt his way to the lighthouse door. He reached for the metal latch and the lock holding the door closed. Brady already knew the model of the lock. He spent every night and weekend for the past three weeks practicing on every lock they would encounter. He removed his backpack and found his reading glasses and lock picking kit. Kim aimed a flashlight beam at the slot where a key was supposed to be inserted.
“Okay, let me get a feel for it,” Brady said, grasping the lock with nervous fingers. He stuck his narrow tools into the keyhole and fished around. “Hold the light still,” he said to Kim. “This is harder on the real thing.”
The lock finally popped open. Brady removed it from the latch and set it on the ground. “We’re officially criminals,” he said with nervous laughter and pushed open the door. He and Kim quickly squeezed inside and then took a moment to catch their breath.
“We’re in. Now what?” Brady said in temporary bewilderment.
“The rest of the locks.”
“Oh, right.”
Brady went to work on the locks securing the plexiglass barriers in front of the kitchen and sitting room on the ground floor. Then he climbed the stairs and picked the locks on the two bedrooms. Kim tiptoed inside and delicately sat on one of the beds.
“I feel like Goldilocks,” she said as she bounced on the mattress. “These are a lot harder and narrower than I imagined. This might be a rough night’s sleep.”
“I’ll grab the last lock blocking the lamp tower,” Brady said as Kim laid back on the bed.
The final lock proved to be the most troublesome, but Brady got it open and pushed up the grate blocking the tower. He and Kim climbed the ladder until they were in the narrow space between a cylindrical wall of glass and the lighthouse’s original lamp. They used their flashlight to make sure they did not disturb anything important and finally settled into a spot with their backs against the lamp and their gaze toward the tip of the peninsula. Kim pulled a blanket from her backpack and they snuggled together.
“This is the same size as our first apartment,” Kim said with a laugh.
“Lots of boats still out on the water,” Brady said, watching lights bobbing on the ocean.
“I love the way the city looks from here.” Kim peered up at the sky and asked, “Is that a star or a planet?”
“Is it twinkling? Stars twinkle.”
“I think it’s twinkling.”
“This is the best thing I’ve done in my entire life,” Brady declared in a very teenagerish sort of way.
“I don’t know if my heart will ever stop beating so fast,” Kim said in reply.
They talked excitedly about the past and the future and did not realize they were cold. They leaned against each other until their legs fell asleep, but neither wanted to move. The moments were so romantic, neither noticed they left the flashlight on.
It was not an especially bright flashlight. Most other times and places, it would have gone unnoticed. But the lighthouse was squeezed between an active Navy base and a Coast Guard observation station. Military personnel were awake and on the outlook for suspicious activity. When someone saw a faint light coming from a lighthouse that was supposed to be dark, it could not be ignored.
Rather than calling the military police, someone at the Navy base called the National Parks Service who oversaw the lighthouse. Ty Wirthlin eventually got the message and had to drive out in a truck to check on things. Kim and Brady did not see him coming because they were staring in the opposite direction and giggling in each other’s ears.
Then they heard something downstairs. They stopped giggling and their eyes popped open like they had seen flashing lights in a rearview mirror. If someone was searching the lighthouse, they had nowhere to hide. They squeezed each other’s hands and waited for impending trouble.
Down below, Ty scanned his flashlight around the ground floor rooms. He held his radio close, ready to call for backup. Finding the dark rooms open and empty, he climbed the stairs and inspected the bedrooms. Then he saw the open grate above the ladder. He expected to find troublemaking teenagers up the tower. Instead, he shined his flashlight beam into the intimidated faces of two people who looked closer to Ty’s own age.
“What in the world?” Ty muttered.
“We can explain!” Brady blurted out. “We didn’t mean to cause any trouble. We just had this crazy idea. My wife’s wanted to do this for a long time.”
“We’ve never done anything like this before,” Kim added. “We weren’t going to break anything. We were going to put everything back the way it was. Even the locks. We’re not criminals. We’re good citizens.”
Kim and Brady continued with a rambling apology and more explanations about being in a funk and their child going off to college. Ty listened with his flashlight still in their faces. Finally, he started laughing.
“You aren’t who I expected to find. You’re not exactly hooligan types.”
Kim and Brady laughed in relief. “No, we’re not,” Kim said. “And it was mostly my husband’s idea.”
“I’m officially supposed to charge you with trespassing, but that would be a lot of trouble for both of us. But I can’t leave you here. If you promise to keep your mouths shut about this, I’ll drive you out past the guard gate.”
“We promise! We promise!” Brady gratefully repeated.
They all climbed down the ladder and relocked the rooms and the front door. As they talked on their way out of the National Monument, they discovered they had a mutual friend who worked with Brady.
“This far enough?” asked Ty as he pulled over beyond the entrance gate.
“Sure. We’ll call someone for a ride home,” Brady replied. “Thanks for being cool about this.”
Ty chuckled to himself. “If you ever try again, find a lighthouse away from a Navy base. And don’t leave your flashlight on. Lighthouses are easy to see for a reason.”
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