Out Of The Fog

He floated there effortlessly. He opened his eyes. For a moment all he could see was the brilliant green light that surrounded him. Then the light directly in front of him began to fade and he could see outside of the shaft. The one thing he knew instantly was that he was no longer at home on the deck. The faded area became porthole size and he stuck out his hand. Nothing happened except that the portal expanded a little more. He stuck out his head and looked around. Just as he did so, he fell through the portal out onto a sandy beach. He had no idea where he was. He stood up and looked around. Behind him was a small cabin with a walkway to the beach. Beyond the cabin, the tops of some pine trees poked out of the fog and he could hear the sound of the waves hitting the beach. The small beach had a retaining wall separating sand from water and the water lapped against the wall. A white gull flew out past the wall and banked at the edge of the fog that obscured the lake. To the left, an island rose out of the mist, pines and oak trees floating in the grayness. Darjeeling heard something and turned to see a man sitting on the seawall. He was a large man with dark hair that was closely cut. He was dressed in a pair of blue bib overalls and a white tee-shirt. Next to him was a fishing pole laying with the butt end in the sand and the rod propped up and over the seawall directly over a “No Fishing” sign painted on top of the wall. On the other side, the fellow had a small cooler into which he was now reaching. He turned toward Darjeeling as if he had known he was there all the time. Looking at the naked Darjeeling, who still had some residual smoke coming off him made the guy laugh out loud as he got up off of the wall. Picking the fishing pole up with one hand, he deftly flipped the other and a green bottle arced its way toward Darjeeling.
“Look’s like you could use a cold Mick’s,” he said, cranking on the fishing reel. The tip of the rod bent toward the water. He seemed to be always doing more than one thing at a time. Now he was putting a straw hat on his head after combing back the jet black hair with his fingers. Darjeeling watched as the man picked up the cooler while still holding the bent pole, put the cooler under his arm and continued cranking. Darjeeling twisted the familiar cap off of the green bottle, forgetting for the moment his nakedness, the fog, and how he happened to be there. The beer tasted good and he quaffed about half before taking the bottle from his lips and using it to point toward the fisherman.
“I know you from somewhere,” Darjeeling said, “You. . . Why, you’re Hoyt Axton.” He let the green bottle drop to his side and stared as Hoyt continued to crank the reel, hold the cooler, and now reach down on the sandy beach to pick up a huge Gibson guitar with the pearl fretboard inlay that said “Hoyt Axton”.
“How’d you know?” Hoyt laughed out loud again, cranking open another Mickey’s and using it to point at Darjeeling’s nakedness. “You’d better get some clothes on boy, cause yonder comes somebody that wants to talk to you real bad and she most likely would be embarrassed to see you in your current condition.” Darjeeling quickly turned and saw the cabin door open. He couldn’t see who the person was behind the door, but taking the man seriously, he darted behind a large mugho pine to hide himself only to find that he now had on his painter whites and black tee shirt. This was an appropriate time for Darjeeling to make the following remark: “What the . . .”