Virga

The old blue Toyota buzzes through the Hopi Reservation south on Route 87.  Behind the cracked black steering wheel Vince watches the road.  The early morning land looks holy.  Sacred mountains have lost their heads in white smoke clouds.  The sun creates a miracle on the eastern horizon, red hands of light touching a purple mesa.  In the rearview mirror Vince sees sagebrush dancing in the wake of the car’s little wind.  He’s taking his sister to Flagstaff for the flight to Phoenix.  From there she’ll fly with her family home to L.A.

She sits in the passenger seat, her arms folded under her breasts.  She wears a long-sleeve white blouse tucked into a pair of designer jeans.  Below the cuffs her new cowboy boots rest stiffly on the floorboard.  Her profile is a line drawing against white paper light that fills the car.  Over the years Vince has forgotten how pretty she is.  Next to her he feels homely, though people have always compared them.  Even Arnold Sekaquaptewa, the janitor at the school, noticed the resemblance.  Carol smiles through the car window at western clouds.  “It’s raining over there,” she says.

Vince follows her gaze to dark fingers of rain.  “It’s virga.”

“What’s that?”

“Rain that evaporates before reaching the ground.”

 Across the flat plane of desert, away from the little car, a beam of sun breaks through the clouds to spotlight a large ochre boulder.  The rock looks like the face of an old man watching the sky.  A gaping crack forms the line of his down-turned mouth.  Two symmetrical holes make eyes.  Above his head two hawks spiral at different heights surveying the earth for prey.

* * *

On the way up yesterday, after hamburgers in Winslow, when the land began to change and they looked through the windshield across a painted desert floor, he said, “What do you think?”

The brief conversation went like this.

“Why don’t the Indians build on this land?” she said, her eyes wrinkling into crow’s-feet.

“Why should they?”

“Do they use it for anything?”

“Some dig for uranium,” he said.  “They die of radiation poisoning.”

She looked at his dark face, then turned away.

* * *

He stops for gas at Two Guns, and while he pumps it into the black hole behind the maroon license plate she goes to the restroom.  He watches after her.  When the tank is full he hooks the nozzle back onto the aluminum pump and carries money to the attendant inside, who never leaves his chair.  He’s an egg-headed man with a dirty white name tag in the middle of his blue ball cap:  Sam.  Sam takes Vince’s money and says, “Is it going to rain?”

“I don’t think so,” Vince says.  He collects his change and heads for the men’s room.

There he walks on toes across a sticky red floor to relieve himself at the solitary yellow toilet.  The sink basin is caked with rusty dirt, except for a white path the dripping water follows to the drain.  He rinses his hands and face and is glad to find brown paper towels in the dented white dispenser, though lunch bags are more absorbent.  He shoots them into a green plastic wastebasket.

Outside, Carol finishes raking a squeegee across the car’s front window.  A wind of guilt blows over him.  He meant to say it when he picked her up at the airport yesterday, but he waited.  In the lounge she gave him an honest hug.  “Good to see you, Vinny,” she said.  At the car she said, “I don’t believe it–you’ve kept this thing running all these years?”

“I did the windows,” she says now.

“Thanks,” he says, climbing into the car.

They turn out onto the interstate and drive west, in sight of the San Francisco Peaks.  The mountains look like blueberry desserts.  When she first saw them, she said, “This is the place for me.  I’m packing my family up and moving here.”

“Why do you stay out there?”

“We’re stuck, Vinny.  It’s as simple as that.”

What had he expected her to say?–“I love L.A.  You should move back to the city.”

To which he would have said, “I’m doing what I want.”

“Teaching Indians English?”

“Why not?”

“It’s a dead-end job, Vinny.  You have talent–why don’t you use it?”

 He looks over at her now.  She smiles at the mountains as they roll by.  He can almost hear himself say the words, but he doesn’t.

* * *

Yesterday, on the ride to his place, they saw an old woman hitchhiking near a dilapidated shack in Navajo land.  She had been selling jewelry, but had packed it in for the day.  She stood at the shoulder of the road, her withered brown thumb pointing north.  He pulled over.  In his mind, Carol said, “Oh, Vinny, you’re not?”

“People need rides up here,” he said.

Did Carol breathe like the air had been polluted when the old woman crawled in back?

After they’d gone fifty feet, the woman said, “How about a bracelet for your wife?”  Her voice was like the bleating of a lamb.  The oldest land on earth couldn’t have been more weathered than her brown face.

“I’m his sister,” Carol said, turning.

The old woman shrugged her lips.  “Sisters need bracelets, too.”

“What do you have?”

The woman parted her thin blue blanket to reveal a skinny forearm, the twisted limb of an old mesquite.  Five silver bracelets with polished turquoise stones hung loosely on her wrist.

“How much for this one?” Carol said, touching the narrowest of the glittering hoops.

“Forty.”

Vince looked over his shoulder at it.  “We’ll give you twenty,” he said.

“Thirty,” the woman said.  “No less.”

 They dropped her off at the road to Seba Delkai.  She came to Vince’s open window before he drove away.  “Twenty-five,” she said.  “That’s a bargain.”

As soon as they were on the road again, Carol said, “Was it right to haggle with her?”

Now it starts, Vince thought.  “They’re like anybody else,” he said.  “They get all they can.”

Carol said, “You know better than me–you live here.”

Vince was quiet the rest of the way.  The moment seemed wrong for what he had to say.

Before they drove to Keams Canyon, he took her to Oraibi, the grandmother of pueblos.  On a yellow oxide mesa at the center of the world they stood looking down a dirt road into the past.  Except for pieces of roofing paper and clothes flapping like trapped kites on outstretched lines the village could have been mistaken for a collection of boulders.  On a rotting wooden post next to the car an uneven rectangular sign read: PRIVATE PROPERTY: KEEP OUT!

Vince said, “It’s the oldest continually-inhabited city in North America.”

“Incredible,” she said.

“Unlike some people, they don’t believe in progress.”

“Progress?” she said.  “Is that what you see happening in the world?”

“No–of course not.”

In the gift shop at the tribal museum she eyed the silver bracelets that sparkled beneath the glass counter.  All were too expensive.  In the restaurant they ate Hopi tacos and drank cokes.  She loved the food.  The Native American waiters and waitresses pleased her.  She admired the view through the picture window overlooking orange mesas.

 A group of Hopi boys and girls on a field trip from the elementary school came into the restaurant, filled the seats at their assigned tables, and sat quietly until asked to order.  They were the most well-behaved children Carol had ever seen, handsome nut-brown faces with hair as straight and shiny as raven feathers.  “They must be wonderful people,” she said.  “I wish my kids were this good.”

Along the road to his trailer she spotted the concrete-block houses the government had built at the foot of First Mesa.  They’d been empty for years.  Carol said, “Whose houses are these?”

It was an argument Vince had rehearsed for.

“The B.I.A. built them for the Indians.  They’ve been vacant ever since.”

“I don’t understand these people.  They’d rather live in houses made of stone.”

“Better than glass houses.”

“What do you mean, Vinny?”

“Figure it out.”

In reality, Carol had said, “I see why–these houses have no character.”

Arnold sat on the stoop at the trailer, a twelve-pack next to his dusty black pants.  The top buttons of his white shirt were open, exposing a red-brown chest.  The brim of his black cowboy hat angled across his wide forehead.  When he saw the car he flashed a smile that flattened his broad nose.

Carol looked at Vince.  “Who’s this?” she said.

“A friend.”

He could see what she was thinking.

“Is he a teacher at the school?”

“He’s the janitor.”

“The janitor?”

When they reached the door, Arnold said, “This is for your sister.”  He held the beer out to her.

“Thanks,” Carol said, taking it.  “That’s very kind of you.”

Inside, she sat with Arnold at the kitchen table.  Vince put the beer in the refrigerator.  Before he shut the door, he said, “Do you want one, Arnold?”

“No.  I have to go to Walpi.”

“I’ll drive you.”

Carol said, “Can I go, too?”

“I thought you’d want to freshen up.”

“I can freshen up later.”

They drove along the road to First Mesa.  The blacktop ahead of them bent toward the setting sun, distorted like a stick in water.  Carol smiled at the cloud shadows in the canyon.  Distant plants waving in the afternoon breeze were as green as the earth was red.  A white police car passed in the opposite direction.  The man inside waved.  Vince waved back.  Arnold said, “Did you hear about his sister?”

“No.”

“She killed a man in Gallup over a bottle of wine.”

 Vince looked at Carol.

“Hey,” Arnold said, “is there money behind this seat?”

“I’ve never looked.”

Carol watched Arnold run his hands along the crack between the cushions.  “You’re from Los Angeles,” Arnold said.

Carol said, “That’s right.”

“I went there once.”

“What did you think?”

“Too many people.”

“I think so, too.”

“What do you do there?”

“Take care of my family.”

“People do that everywhere,” he said.

As the car tilted up the dirt road toward the top of the mesa, Carol said, “Can you drive all the way up, Vinny?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you call him ‘Vinny’?” Arnold said, leaning forward.

“I’ve always called him that.”

When they dropped him off in the parking lot at the pueblo, Arnold said, “See you later, Vinny.”  He disappeared into a maze of rock apartments, a smile on his brown face.

 Before they got out of the car, she said, “I didn’t think.  You don’t call yourself that anymore.”

“It’s okay.  I go by Vince now.”

He led her through the village on narrow dirt walks between two-story box dwellings.  The town leaned toward the mesa edge, and there they stood, looking across a curve of blue earth to the cloudy mountains near Flagstaff.  A cool wind climbed the cliff face and took their breath away.  When they turned to leave, a round Indian woman in a green dress beckoned for them to enter her house.

“What does she want?” Carol said.

“To sell us something.”

They went in through an ancient beamed doorway.  On a gray plank table in the kitchen an assortment of buff pottery sat.  The woman gestured for them to inspect the vessels.  The earthenware was finely crafted–thin, smooth walls decorated with bold designs.  Carol was particularly enchanted by a small dish-like pot whose central image depicted, in red and black, a phoenix rising from the ashes.  “How much?”

The woman said, “Twenty.”

Carol produced the bill from her purse and set it on the table while the woman wrapped the pot in yellow newspaper.  Carol smiled at the inside of the house.  “Look around,” the woman said, handing her the pot.

 They went into the living room, where a small dark boy stood near a chair.  Carol nodded at him, and he moved behind the chair.  The interior of the residence was clean and well-kept.  Dried corn hung on the wall near the fireplace.  A red, white and black blanket lay folded across the mantel.  The view from the window was spectacular.  “I’d like this view from my house,” Carol said.  They could see across the desert to Oraibi, and beyond.

The woman thanked them when they left.  On the way to the car Carol noticed Indians watching through the windows of their homes.

“You’d do the same thing if you lived here,” Vince said.

Carol said, “Yes, I suppose I would.”

They made the short drive back to his place in silence.

After supper they sat on the couch drinking beers and talking about the past.  He reminded her of the night he caught her smoking on Garland Street Hill.  She remembered the time she found a dirty magazine under his mattress and showed it to their mother.  “You hated me for that,” Carol said, “but you never told about my smoking.  I quit a couple years ago.”

“I didn’t know.”

Silence made him think of what he planned to say.

“I’m sorry I only have a day for you, Vinny,” she said.  “We didn’t have time to drive up.  Tim and the kids wanted to see Phoenix.  I hope you understand.”

“I do.”

“Are you happy here?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see why,” she would have said in the past.  “There’s nothing to do.”

 Vince thought for a moment, then took her by the hand, leading her outside.  Beneath an obsidian sky, halved by the white river of the Milky Way, he raised his arms heavenward.  “That’s why,” he said.

Her mouth opened as she turned her face upward.  The sight of so many stars seemed to frighten her.  A coyote barked in the darkness.  Lonely light fell through the living room window and made a yellow square on the dirt at their feet.  Carol crossed her arms.  “As long as you’re happy,” she said.  “That’s what counts.”

Inside, she unwrapped the phoenix pot and set it on the kitchen table.  “I bought this for you.”

Before the numbness reached his mouth, he said, “Thank you.”  He chose that moment to show her the boots, retrieving them from a bedroom closet.  To her astonished look, he said, “Try them on.”

She sat in a kitchen chair.  “How did you know my size?”

“Mom told me in a letter.  Arnold makes them.”

“They’re beautiful,” she said.  “I love them.”  She stood, admiring the leather work.  “Thanks.”

It was the right time to tell her, while she was this happy.  But he couldn’t.  Instead, he watched her reflection in the mirror on the hallway door.

They went to bed after that, in order to get an early start in the morning.

* * *

A red twin-engine plane sinks through a crystal sky toward an asphalt runway, where it merges with its black shadow.  The motor drones loudly as the pilot taxis to an open berth between two white planes on a yellow meadow.  An orange wind-direction sock on top of the main hangar looks like a construction cone knocked sideways in the middle of a road.  The pilot cuts the engine.  The morning wind rustles through the blue pine forest around the airport.

In the parking lot, Vince pulls Carol’s suitcase out of the back of the car.  The trunk looks lonely without it–a spare tire, a scissors jack, a small red toolbox.  She takes the suitcase from his hand.  “No need to wait, Vince,” she says.

He nods his understanding.

“What shall I tell Mom and Dad?”

“Tell them I’m happy.”

They stand looking at each other.  She puts the suitcase down and gives him an embarrassed kiss.  He kisses her.  “Thanks for everything,” she says.

He says, “Take care of yourself.  Say hello to Tim and the kids.”

She picks up her luggage and walks away.  She doesn’t look back.  He watches her go.  When she disappears into a gray building he gets into the car and drives off.

He recognizes himself in the pine trees along the highway.  They’re tall and straight with stiff green needles.  They bend little in a high wind.  No two grow in the same spot.

The mountains remind him of her.

Soon he’ll be on open land again, seeing old friends: red buttes and mesas, white clouds and blue sky.  Arnold will be back from Walpi.  “From now on, I’ll call you Vinny,” he’ll say.  They’ll laugh and drink beers from the refrigerator.  Later, after Arnold has gone, Vince will look at himself in the hall mirror and miss her.