the habit of being

I am sitting on a broken chair watching Mexican-American ranchers try to stretch a rubber belt around some gears that turn on a cement mixer. They�re speaking Spanish. I pick up a few words. An old house is being fixed up.

A severely battered type-writer sits on the ground behind me. There is a pink bathtub in the yard on the opposite side of the house, with a little plant growing up through the drain.
James just helped move a 94-pound bag of cement from the back of the pickup truck into the house. Near this place there are cattle of all colors, antelope, buffalo, goats, and horses grazing in huge fields. One of the ranchers is going to take us to Albuquerque. He has a cowboy hat and a rifle and fancy leather boots.

�Do you want to see where the water comes out?� he asks.