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The clouds that blanket the Plains of San Augustin rarely notice the science traveler, the Mescalero Apache, the patchwork family with a bag of marshmallows and one unused match. The clouds push from Arizona toward Texas, push across the reservation, the dried lake flats, push past the twenty-seven radio antennas without a second glance. Every time I drive past the installation, I feel those wandering jewels mock me, tell me I don't belong in this wilderness.
Click, I tell them. Click. My camera speaks the only words we have in common.
I tried to describe the sky to Hector as he bagged my groceries. I wanted to tell him that his skin looked like the San Augustin clouds - mysterious, dark, rippled, old. I bit my tongue.
"Hector, I can't believe you've never visited the Very Large Array. It's incredible! Even if you don't like astronomy, it's worth the drive. The sky always looks like she wants to dump secrets, ya know?"
Hector shoved my jalapenos into the pink reusable bag I brought from home. He dumped a bag of rice on top of them, a dusty box of tofu, an ear of corn.
"Bye, Birdie. You need help outside?"
My Turkish friend, Ulak, grabbed the tote and grunted.
"No, thanks. We're walking. Good day."
I patted Hector on the shoulder and chased after my friend.
"Geeze, man. You didn't have to be so rude. What's wrong with letting him walk us outside? He likes to do it. He's my friend."
"Birdie. How can you let such an old man pack your food? He must be 80 years old. He should not be packaging groceries for young mothers. Where are his children?"
Ulak's long legs carried him across a vacant lot seeded with sweet grass, across Friedman Drive where the New Age acupuncturist presses needles into the taut skin of the pained. A starling squawked warning as we lifted angry foot onto compact dirt.
"Well, Ulak, he is old, but he likes to work. I don't think he has a family. Why not let him do what he likes to do? He's always so nice to me. Besides, I'm not a young mother. I have adult children now, and I am now officially middle-aged. Hector just wants to work. He probably needs the money. Heck, I know what that's like."
Ulak, didn't let his leather sneaker hover, didn't slow his long-legged pace. I struggled to match his stride, even though he carried the groceries, carried the heavy piece of twisted mesquite I found in the alley on our way to the store.
"You are not old. You are younger than me, and you look like a young mother. You are like that old man, you know. You don't let anyone take care of you. What is wrong with all you people in New Mexico? It must be something in the water. I think I need to visit more than once every six months. You need someone to watch over you. No camel route is long with good company. "
I stifled a giggle. Ulak let right foot lead, let his weight shift from one slim hip to another. His arms rippled with muscle, with years of hauling one bag of coffee beans after another. His salt-and-pepper hair flew behind him. So long, I thought. His hair got so long this year. We're all changing in ways we don't realize. He looks older, stronger, as if some artist continued carving him out of the mesquite he carries, carved a Turkish man on vacation in New Mexico, a man out of time, out of element, a man in love with an aging woman who can't love him back. I know I look my age, look forty, look forty-one, look as tired as the months behind me.
"Yeah, it's the water. Or the lack of water most years." I laughed. "But honestly, Ulak. Would you like me any other way?"
That night Ulak prepared coffee the way of his ancestors, let the ground beans boil with a thousand exotic spices. He poured sweetened milk into a tiny cup, topped it with the black pitch. My mesquite acquisition leaned against a stuffed bookcase, one end splayed with exposed root, the other pointed, firm, arching toward the sky.
"Birdie. Tomorrow we go to the Very Large Array. And then I must leave. You know I am returning to Turkey for a year to buy coffee and make new business arrangements. I wish you'd come with me. The boys would love it. My family is very wealthy and
