Out of the corner of my eye, I perceived a man standing farther down the dock, clad in a peacoat and captain's cap, and as drenched as I was. I had been a volunteer at a downtown shelter for a couple of months earlier in the year, and had gotten to know many of the city's homeless, but this man I did not know. As he approached me, I braced myself to be panhandled. The homeless are so despised, so used to unfriendliness or indifference, that I felt I would have to speak to him though I was in no mood for it. I'd have to explain in all honesty that my unemployment insurance had run out and I had no idea where I was going to get this month's rent. Unless my luck changed soon, I was going to get this month's rent. Unless my luck changed soon, I was going to get this month's rent. Unless my luck changed soon, I might end up sitting beside him in the mission, awaiting a free meal.

But he was not a panhandler. He spoke to me in a rough but quiet voice, saying, "Don't worry about the rain, my pretty doxy. There's always the sun behind the clouds."

I was unexpectedly moved by his odd sincerity, so much so that I lifted my gaze from the water's surface. I expected to see a grizzled, grandfatherly face. To my surprise, he was relatively young, his trimmed beard void of grey, though he seemed old in his expressive eyes and in his weather-worn features.

He turned away from me and began walking toward the far end of the pier. Wind and mist whipped around him. He faded from view, as though he had stepped into fog. Only-there was no fog, and I stood with mouth foolishly agape, staring at the space where the ghostly captain had vanished.