This was originally written for and performed at the November 4th edition of Tuesday Funk, the long-running reading series in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood. It's been lightly updated here.

I spent Halloween chasing ghosts. Not kids in costumes, or jumpscares in a haunted house. I spent Halloween, much of it anyway, chasing ghosts of a different kind: careening from one ICE spotting to another.

We were always just a little late. They'd disappeared by the time my wife and I would pull up, a crowd left in their wake, angry and heartbroken. Dozens of people in the streets pointing at nothing, at ghosts, wondering what to do—what to do practically, right now, but also what to do with the welling anger inside them. Inside us.

For now we'd tamp it down and check our phones. There was already another sighting, blocks away, so we jumped back in our car, and head out. Sometimes it feels like a little parade—a Halloween parade today—of cars chasing down another ghost.

We're too late again. This time there's an empty truck, a landscaping crew, disappeared. In the truck, the keys are still in the ignition. They may have gotten snatched, but nobody knows for sure. They may be hiding.

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