Here we are at a one lane metal bridge spanning the Rio Grande found down a dozen miles of dirt road. It’s one of those that make excellent photographs of things in the process of falling apart. Rust is streaking from the bolts and there’s just a touch of hesitation before crossing, peering higher over the hood than usual to identify any places where the surface may fail.

The silty river meanders its way through the cottonwood but in a few spots there are clear pools around which people collect to dip their toes. The braver ones plunge in up to their chests and you can hear them gasp from the makeshift parking areas up above the bank. This is one of those places that feels remote but traffic comes through at a solid clip. A cloud of dust wafts in every time someone drives by.

We pull up carefully to the bridge area to discover passage is blocked. This is a theme for today as earlier, we had approached this area from the other side only to find a road closed sign a mile ahead. Not a problem, I naively thought. Hey boys, let’s walk down to the river. The eldest stops and gives me a side-eye that out-ages him by a solid ten years. You mean I have to walk back up this? No way. Firm, and with folded arms for emphasis. He’s one that thinks ahead which will serve him well in the future. It does not so much for my purposes at the moment.

So we regrouped and approached from this side and we find ourselves stymied. But just as we are about to back away and park up the road, a man spills out of the minivan that is the traffic impediment. Even from inside our car I can tell he is weathered and off balance. I look at my husband who sticks out his hurt elbow meaningfully.

I get out. The man has now fully collapsed onto the road and is trying valiantly to stand using the balance of two fingers on the door of the car. Are you ok, is the first thing out of my mouth. Clearly he is not but I can’t think of another appropriate opening salvo. He loses his tenuous grip on what remains of the interior car door and spirals to the ground. Unhhhh comes out of his mouth. My medical training is very close to zero but it is clear this is not a life threatening situation. I look to the driver side of the vehicle and a shirtless, tanned, dirty, half-lidded, dreadlocked person is strumming on an unplugged electric guitar. This turquoise instrument is the cleanest and newest thing in the entire vehicle.

I crouch down to offer my hand to the fallen gentleman murmuring things like let’s get you up. After two attempts it becomes clear he will not being doing this under his own power so I reach underneath his armpits and try to haul the majority of him into the seat of the van. This process is stalled by the momentous amount of trash at the feet of the passenger side. I now smell much the way this fellow does which is to say - he’s been living outside and so have I, but the temporal difference is clear from an olfactory perspective.

I appeal to the driver/musician. Can you come over here and help, I ask over the laughs and grunts of my patient. Well I mean, he drawls, I was really enjoying playing the guitar. I have a sense this will amuse me later but in the moment it is enough to push me over the edge towards the use of my teacher voice. The parent-of-a-toddler tone. Everyone has either used or heard this particular sound.

Please put the guitar down, open your door, and come over here to help me get him back in. The teacher, parent, and manager in me knows that giving clear and specific directions is the fastest way for any of us to make it to the other side. Whatever the bridge in any given situation may actually be.

So he does. He stands next to me and opens the door a little wider and carries the weight of exactly one of his companion’s arms. You know, he says, it’s hard to help someone who cussed you out this morning. A bit of me softens. I definitely understand that.

It is, I say, but we still need to get him back in. I am now pushing any piece of this guy into the vehicle that I can with little regard to whether things bend the way they should. At long last his seat is in the seat. Legs still dangling but this has crossed over into a doable situation. Both men ask, are you a park ranger? Evidently, neither is a stranger to the teacher voice. A list that can be expanded to include National Park Ranger. These two have had enough dealings with authority to recognize what’s going on even through the substantial haze of THC that brought them to a standstill here.

I love you, says the man as I’m putting his legs back in the car. Rather, laid his limbs on the piles of Gatorade bottles, crumpled papers and aluminum cans. You’re a good ranger. How did you get here? I’m more flattered than I’d like to admit at being compared to such a monumental figure even if it is by someone so blitzed they can’t control a single one of their major muscle groups. I’m not a ranger, I say. Just someone passing by.

The man in the driver’s seat picks up the guitar again with no apparent effort to move the vehicle. There is now a line of five cars behind ours and I can see my husband alternately worried and amused in the front seat. You need to move the car away from this area, I say (“this area” being a phrase often used by teachers, parents and, evidently, faux rangers.) Ranger lady, you’re so beautiful, he responds. I wave my hand to indicate the line, Do you see those people? Let’s move the car out of their way so they can cross the bridge. We’re all so love, he replies.

This is cliche beyond the telling of it. I shut the door and point in the direction of an easy pullover spot hoping that will move him along. He shifts into drive and with one hand on the wheel and the other on the guitar, he inches over.

My husband waves the other cars around I get back in our vehicle. He wordlessly offers me the large bottle of hand sanitizer in such a way I don’t have to touch any part of the car until clean. Although not a germaphobe, I double the usual amount. I still can’t get the smell of the fallen man off my hands. It doesn’t leave even after being in the river for the next hour. The scent clings and although it is off putting, it’s a reminder that someone needed to get back in a car today and I was there to give a little assist. Of course, it would have been far more responsible of me to take the keys and chuck them in the river. But I can’t imagine this would have bothered them that much in the end.

We all have our fall-out-of-the-car moments. They don’t always clog traffic and so aren’t treated with the urgency of a blocked pathway. I have a feeling this was a state this these men found themselves in often. Nonetheless, a stalled journey was continued on both our parts and all limbs ended up back in their respective vehicles.

Maybe these two will fall in love with another beautiful Park Ranger down the line and she will see them on their way too.

This story inspired by events at John Dunn Bridge near Taos, New Mexico.