I think the kids next door moved. I don’t know for sure. They have been telling me about their new house, a house in Norwalk with a pool, they go there on occasion to swim but always come back here saying the kitchen there is not finished or something lame and vague.
There are like 7 or 8 of them and they have older sisters too, one is pregnant the other is the mom of one of the kids or maybe of two of them, but aunts and uncles that are the same ages as the brothers and sisters of the older kids – who are like 11-ish – the ones that know english and talk to me, that I have been hiring to do yardwork now for a couple of months, the ones that have become damn good negotiators.
We got back today and their yard was empty and the door was closed – with 8 kids running around all day that door was never closed, but it was a silent, empty yard at dusk today. The last time I saw them, Saturday, they had painted one of the little one’s face white and ran over here yelling “Mateo, Mateo, tu hija!” … like “look, her face is painted white, she must be your daughter.” They were laughing hysterically. They stayed close to their yard and were kind of growing up in a vacuum. They are dirt poor, I think there were a few days that the kids made more pulling weeds and raking leaves at my place than mom, dad and sister made working wherever the hell they worked. I took a picture of two of they younger ones – they shared the family’s one pair of rollerskates:
They would play all day in that one lousy, oversized pair of skates and have more fun than kids with a hundred video games to choose from.
So I knew them for a year and we were out of town for three days and I think they are gone. I would like to think maybe they learned something from the gringo. How to squeeze an extra buck out of “The Man,” to be nice to dogs, that In-N-Out is better than McDonalds even if it costs more, to do math better when there is money involved, to use coffee grounds in the garden. To not hit your sister. I don’t know. Who the fuck knows if they were listening or caring or following too deeply. I am going to miss them and I am NOT going to jump up in the morning to do yardwork…