To the Border Guard in Ceuta
You were young too, not much older than I was. You, a Spanish guard with dark eyes; me, a blond American girl barely twenty-three, together on the worst night of my life.
I was the passenger in an old red Opel car that was stuffed with 32 kilos of hash. But, of course, you didn’t know that.
It was a late spring evening in 1971 with soft rain but little traffic on the worn two-lane road from Tétouan towards Ceuta, the town at the edge of Spanish Morocco where a ferry would take us across the sea back to Spain. Along the dark road, there was only sand with low desert shrubs.
At the border checkpoint, you stood alone with the other guard, not even a wooden crossing rail in sight. Really, there was nothing to stop us from speeding through; what could you do, shoot us? I don’t remember there being guns, not that it occurred to us to disobey your signal to stop. We were law-abiding novice drug smugglers.
My part in this fiasco was never well thought-out. I was traveling with my newest love, Horacio, and our friend, John, an Aussie Hemingway wannabe. We all shared an apartment in Barcelona where both Horacio and I were working as models, and I had made these two my family the past few months. For almost a year, since my boyfriend in New York had replaced me, I hadn’t belonged anywhere or to anyone. I had stumbled, lost, from Italy to Spain, but now I had Horacio and John. And they had the plan. I wouldn’t have been a part of it at all had Horacio not discovered, at the last minute, that his passport had expired: He could not drive from Spain and enter Morocco as planned. They needed two drivers and two cars for this drug-smuggling trip. A trip they assured me would be easy—after all, friends of theirs had done it before. Why wouldn’t I volunteer? All I had was risk and the desire that beautiful Horacio would keep wanting me. For once, I felt necessary instead of needy.
John and I would drive two cars from Spain to Morocco, taking the ferry over then picking up the drugs in Tétouan. One car was to be left as payment for the hash, and the other car, the one you stopped that night, was to smuggle it. Horacio would wait for us back at the Spanish border, a ferry ride away. This was their plan, and at the time, it seemed perfect.
John and I had been careful when we reached Tétouan. We checked into a touristy resort, had lunch by their pool, and then left the payment car there so it couldn’t be tracked; it was common knowledge that the same people who sold the drugs to you might later turn you in for a reward. Then, John and I drove to the address given by the dealer in Ketama, that village high in the snowy Atlas Mountains, the source of all the hashish, where instead of adobe, the huts were made of reddish bricks of hash.
At the house, a woman in a hijab answered the door and welcomed us. I wasn’t afraid: I was with a man and felt protected. Now, as an older woman, I’ve learned that giving away my power to the men in my life would leave me with incurable regret. But back then, inside the dim, aqua room, we sat calmly on a faded floral banquet while she prepared sweet mint tea. An alcove was filled with blocks wrapped in plastic. There was a toddler with flies wandering over his face, sipping water from his eyes. I blocked my instinct to brush them away. I didn’t know what was normal in this house; this was not the tourist’s Morocco.
John tested the quality of the dope by smoking part of a joint. He gave a thumbs up. In reality, he had no idea what he was doing, nor that in fact, except for the cube she handed him, all of the hash we bought was cut deeply with henna. He gave her the car keys and we walked into the light with tote bags full of bad hash.
On the street corner, we caught a taxi to the resort and called Horacio to say it was done. All that remained was to drive the Opel into the desert and begin packing the tires. A few miles away from the city, we turned off into the dunes where we’d be hidden. John jacked up the car and took off the wheel. He was to take the tire off the rim and put the wax paper covered blocks of hash inside. He began struggling with the tire. Sweat ran into his eyes, and he muttered Aussie curses, but the tire would not budge. When John and Horacio had practiced this, it was the two of them, both strong young men.
The only help I could offer was to watch for scorpions in the sand. After an hour, I began to worry. I watched the sun sink lower across the desert. When the sun is at a certain point the light changes and things are more defined. I remembered our first drive through Valencia on our way to Morocco, when the sun had lowered and spread light evenly across the landscape. Suddenly, what a moment before was just green fragrance became miles of trees heavy with white flowers that one day would become oranges. That’s when I remembered the loose back seat which tossed me forward when we descended every steep hill and folded into me on each tight curve as if it was another passenger.
I mentioned the loose seat to John. Once pushed forward, the seat revealed several open rows of vertical springs, as if made for smuggling our bricks. We slipped them down single file, like quarters into wrappers you get at the bank.
We were pleased with our solution until half an hour from your border, when the odor hit us. The car reeked with the pungent odor of raw hash. We opened all the windows. Nothing changed. I sprayed my precious Cabochard perfume. Nothing changed. Now I was afraid. I finally understood that for all my pretense of sophistication, I did not know what I was doing or the danger I was in.
“I knew that the only thing that might save us was to stop anyone from searching the car.”
John’s jaw tightened; he slowed the car, as if by slowing time it would change our reality. It was darker now. I suppose we could have dumped the dope, but that was never discussed. I could have asked to be let out, but that never occurred to me; at stake was my love for Horacio. I knew that the only thing that might save us was to stop anyone from searching the car.
As a model, I was not unfamiliar with throwing up as a means of weight control. Though it was my private humiliation, vomit itself was a universal object of disgust. I could see no other way to keep someone from wanting to enter the car. I could see no other solution to stay out of prison. I could see no other way to save myself except to get onto my knees, lean over the seat and force myself to toss my couscous lunch all over the backseat. Because of the necessity, I wasn’t embarrassed, and John seemed impressed. It made the mess I hoped for, and the appearance of the seat combined with the odors might put off any further examination.
We were silent approaching the border. The radio played “Sweet Caroline” through static. Soon, the light at your border came into view. The rain had lightened by the time we reached the two of you in black rain capes motioning us to stop under the single pole light. You asked for our passports, then handed them to the older guard who examined them and us with a flashlight. John attempted to act nonchalant and I tried to look sick, but you only looked indifferent.
The older guard returned the passports to us and then asked John questions: Why were we there, how long did we stay, where were we headed? John answered, and you handed back our papers and gestured for us to go on. I exhaled as the wheels slapped against the wet road, but then your partner stopped us again. He began asking John more questions. And then, John gestured to the back seat and began explaining to them that I had been sick. Once more, your boss waved us on, but then you caught up with the car and banged on the back window. I thought about jail. I wondered if there would be scorpions.
“We shared a status—waiting for others to make a decision which would determine our actions.”
John fancied himself fluent in Spanish, and his grammar was perfect, but he erred on colloquialisms, whereas I spoke lots, quickly, and with bad grammar. It didn’t matter; I was an American woman, like in the song. When you are young and pretty, you can get away with a lot; maybe too much—maybe not tonight.
Your partner gestured for John to get out of the car and took him into the office. My throat tightened and my stomach whirled.
You and I stayed put like two minor characters in a play waiting for the stars to return from offstage. I didn’t have to try to look sick: Fear worked perfectly. Trying to look blasé, I took cigarettes out of my fringed Moroccan bag. You declined my offer of one. I lit the cigarette with a gold lighter a man had given me and watched the smoke drift out the window. In those days, I smoked a lot; it made me feel less alone. I kept waiting for you to put your head inside the car, and smell the dope. You were only four feet away, but you did not move.
You looked toward the office and then glanced at me. I wore my old blue jeans, a tie-dye shirt and hippie necklaces. I hoped I looked like some careless, cool American girl. I refused to think of the worst—that this would be the end of me. I think I prayed. I was raised Catholic, but never believed I was heard when I prayed; it felt like an act. Sister Mary Mountain, the nun who taught religion, once called me a heretic, but that night I prayed to be saved somehow, by someone.
I glanced at you with a tiny bored smile. We shared a status—waiting for others to make a decision which would determine our actions. We had no control. Maybe we talked about the rain, which was falling heavier again. You were getting soaked and I was glad. I added another Hail Mary, begging that neither of you would stand in pouring rain searching the car. It was the magical thinking of a child. I knew nothing of border guards, or laws of other countries, or how a nice girl might come to a bad end in an attempt to be worthy.
Our wait felt like forever: you in the rain, your gear sloppy with water and your lashes wet, and me smiling like I was not a criminal, till finally John scurried back to the car.
Shaking off water, he chuckled and explained that when he told the guard that I’d been sick on the seat, he’d used the wrong phrase, and they thought we had left our sick little girl behind in Morocco. Funny how the wrong words might determine one’s fate. John seemed victorious, but I felt stunned, like I had survived something awful. And you, dear stranger, continued to stand there as the rain poured and we drove away.
Were we just lucky, or was it the confluence of the storm and my little prayers? I don’t know. What remains with me is your dark eyelashes sparkling with rain, your youth like mine, your role that night when I was allowed to go on, to have a life filled with other mistakes, ones I could not see and you couldn’t save me from.
Modeling shot of the author, Candace Wilson Culp, from the 1970s. Courtesy of Samantha Culp.
About the Author
Candace Wilson Culp was born in 1948 in Yuma, Arizona, and grew up in Los Angeles, Santa Ana and Las Vegas. After graduating high school, she worked as a dancer in Las Vegas and New York, and then as a model in Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. She later returned to Los Angeles, married and started a family, and worked as an interior designer, antiques dealer, and jewelry designer. Always a passionate reader and journal-keeper, Candace only began writing as a dedicated practice later in life. She studied in workshops with renowned teachers like Jack Grapes and Seth Fischer, and became an engaged member of the Los Angeles writing community at large. In 2014, she was selected as a finalist for the PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship. She independently published three chapbooks of poems and essays, and was working on a memoir at the time of her unexpected death in January 2024. Her family and friends are working to collect and shepherd some of these works to publication. For more information on Candace’s work and legacy, please visit http://www.candacewilsonculp.com.
Note from Samantha Culp
This essay is by my mother Candace Wilson Culp, who was still working on edits with the Off Assignment editors when she unexpectedly passed away in January of this year. Together with Aube and Anya, I have assisted in doing some final edits in accordance to what we think my Mom would have wanted. This is her first officially published essay, a lifelong dream of hers that I am so sad she did not get to see.
It’s impossible to summarize any life, but especially my Mom’s, as she lived so many different ones in her 76 years. She was working on telling her own story in a memoir, also unfinished at the time of her death, which my family and I are working to collect and publish. After a tumultuous childhood, she was raised by a cocktail-waitress single mother in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Before she finished high school, she was already working in local fashion shows as a model, and at casinos like The Sands and the Riviera as a showgirl. Eager to leave the dusty mob town of late 60s Vegas for the bigger world, at the age of 19 she followed modeling work to Manhattan and soon onto Europe. She lived in crowded apartments in Milan, Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid, and Barcelona for a job that, she often explained, was always less glamorous and more precarious than it seemed from the outside.
This essay recounts an episode from that time in her life, a story she actually never told me until I was much older than she had been when it happened. She was 23 years old, newly arrived in Spain and newly in love, and decided to go along with an ill-advised plan of her new boyfriend and his friend out of, as she described it later, sheer naïveté and the desire to be valued. Though it was not uncommon for hippie travelers to smuggle hashish from Morocco to Spain, it was also still incredibly illegal. For some people, this would become a go-to cocktail party story, retold and embellished over the years as a tale of wild and brazen youth. But for my Mom, raised a good Catholic girl forever stressed about following the rules, she always looked back on this incident with embarrassment and astonishment, and even five decades later, a faint chill of how things could have gone so wrong so fast—but somehow did not. It was a pivotal near miss in a lifetime of both good luck and bad. Ever since she first told me the story, I’ve viewed it with so much tenderness toward who my Mom was at that time, and toward any of us who have felt lost and alone in the world, and seeking acceptance and belonging at all costs.
Edited by Aube Rey Lescure.
Header photo by Robert Kuyumdjan.
