Yoel in a line of them

What would it be like to have 29 brothers and sisters? 22 thanks to dad. 7, soon to be 8 from Mom. That’s 29 and one on the…way more siblings than I have! And to think about it, that’s more than my extended families on both sides combined. What in the WORLD would that be like???

Well Yoel knows. And so does Diomedis. And Wilson. And Benjamin. Along with a bunch of other kids I just learned were brothers. I was going about the usual tonight and decided to take a load off in Georgi’s colmado and chat with Bonnie a bit. Bonnie was in her best Doña evening attire/hospital gown and was sitting behind that broken down counter of theirs that moves forward with my weight when I lean on it. Bonnie is always pleasant to talk to or pleasant just to sit with. Has a certain maternalness that seems to radiate from her. I’m obviously not the only one who senses it, as their house overflows with their own kids más 4. If not more on weekends.

I’m sure Bonnie and Georgi started out living with their own 3 kids at one time. But since, this thing has exploded. What with Bonnie’s overpowering maternal force and all. I bet it’s hard for the neighborhood kids to resisit their desire to become one of Bonnie’s boys (not one girl lives there). Now her and Georgi don’t even spend the night in their own house. They’ve set up a bed behind the canned Paco Fish and Brugal covered wall of their colmado.

One day a while back I saw a small new face behind the counter despachando, struggling to return the right number of pesos, and I knew this was it. It’s happening I thought. And honestly, I felt fortunate to have witnessed the assimilation/adoption process occur. Like watching a baby being born, into a family of few who are related, and already having control of his bowels, not to mention able to speak in full sentences. It has almost holy overtones to it.

The boy was skinny, the skin on his face only covering his eye sockets and cheek bones, which made his nose, already disproportionate, that much longer and curve that much more prominently over his top lip. Imagine a nose on a skull. It just wouldn’t look right at all. His feet were bare, clothes thin, tattered and dirty, although not much different than standard muchacho ware. He was timid and shy. Unsure of himself and not so quick to smile. After a week or two of calling him by the only name I knew him as, el chivo but which I had diminuitized to el chivito, Bonnie set me straight saying, “Mateo, él no se llama el chivo. Se llama Yoel.” I was glad Bonnie made the clarification as I did feel it somewhat wrong to be calling him “the little goat.”

About Yoel’s family situation I know little, except the bit about all his siblings and the fact that his mother left her 6 kids here alone one day and went to live in Consuelo. Yoel and his brothers fended for themselves for a while which explains why Yoel showed up to Bonnie’s and the condition he was in. What kind of mother packs up and leaves her kids alone!? I remember thinking when I first heard this. Now, after seeing other situations of the sort play out here, I react not by throwing my hands up and furrowing my brow in indignation but with small facial movements like my Dominican friends, being not so surprised and having an almost what’s new attitude to it all.

I remember in the days, weeks, and months that followed watching Yoel tag behind Bonnie on her walk past my house to theirs to prepare lunch everyday. She, always conscious of him while still moving uninhibitedly at her own pace, him just trying to keep up, swerving where she swerves. Much like the mother hen and her little peeper’s novela that plays out only two inches off the ground, all over this country and especially on my street, everyday. Slowly but surely the distance would increase between them on these daily walks from the colmado to the house, Yoel allowing his attention now to be caught by other distractions along the way.

Le dio brega, pero Yoel finally learned to count and return correct change. He began taking on more advanced colmado tasks but still leaves the salami cutting, bulk item weighing, and bigger menudo transactions to Bonnie. He is sure of his products and will even asserts himself with old men who charge him of not giving them that caja de fosforos when indeed he did and they just lost it in one of their 4 shirt pockets. He lets that big toothed smile cover his entire face more often now days too.

I still wonder what he thinks about his Dad and being part of such a big bunch of brothers and sisters.