by Silas House
How are YOU, Meena? I am so sick of talking about all of this that I would much rather hear what’s going on with you. I still think about your dadi and feel bad for you. I hope you are not too sad, still. I hate to think of you being sad.
It started snowing yesterday and I thought of what you said about your grandmother being in the snow and the sunshine.
To answer your question: No, Rufus doesn’t come in when it’s cold. He’s a country dog and would freak out if we brought him in the house. One time he ran in the house because he was scared of a thunderstorm that was coming (he heard it before we did), but then he got even more scared to be walking on the linoleum, so he ran back out and ran under the porch and wouldn’t stop shivering for the rest of the night.
In all the excitement I guess I haven’t really told you about Dad coming home. He had only been home a couple days when the rockfall happened, so I haven’t been with him the way I would have regularly. But the first couple days were real good. When he came in I realized how much I had missed him, and I hugged him so hard I hurt his neck. “Whoa there, now, little man,” he said. “You’re going to break me in two.” I had forgotten that he called me little man sometimes.
When he went in to see Mom, he kissed both of her eyes and whispered, “Oh, how I have missed those pretty, pretty green eyes.” But later on that night when I was supposed to be asleep (but was finishing the new Spider-Man instead), I heard them arguing. Their words were muffled through the wall, but I could tell by the way the words bounced around that they were fighting. She was in the hospital until about a week before the rockfall and wasn’t doing much better, really, until the rockfall. She hasn’t had a headache since.
There was one more question I needed to answer: I only listen to “Here Comes the Sun” when I’m alone, because it makes me sad, even though it’s a happy song. I don’t know why it makes me sad. It just does.
I know, I’m weird. But I can be weird with you. Remember, we can be our true selves with each other.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon. Write me as soon as you can.
Yours truly,
River Dean Justice
P.S. What I said on Dec. 7 WAS “Hi.” So you did hear me. And on December 10 at 9:07 I believe I heard you say, “I am here, River Dean Justice! It’s me, Meena.” At least that’s what I thought I heard. And later that evening I thought you said to me, in my head, “Did you hear what I said earlier?” So I think we do have telepathy. Let me know if these are the messages you sent me.
January 7, 2009
Dear River,
Happy New Year. Everyone is so glad you are OK. Mum did a special aarthi for you and I have been sending lots of telepathic messages. Are you still needing Little Debbies to feel better? What kind of medicine is that?
I am writing tiny so I can fit on the back of this flyer. I have just finished hanging twenty of them up around school. I drew the picture and Carlos did the lettering. The show “goes up” next week.
How is your friend Mark? I hope he still has both his legs. I hope he is not in pain.
We did see your mamaw on TV. I knew it was her from her last name and from what she was saying and because, I don’t know, I just knew. In the group photo, I think you are the smiling boy with freckles at the end of the front row. Am I right? When the photo came on TV, I jumped up and pointed, and said, “That’s River! I know that’s him!” Mrs. Lau yelled at me for getting fingerprints all over the screen.
It was so scary to find out from TV. I was watching the news with Mrs. Lau and Cuba and then all of a sudden there was Town Mountain looking like something had taken a big bite out of it. It was terrible to see the trees knocked over and your school squashed flat. When the news lady said boys from the basketball team were hurt, I got so scared I couldn’t breathe. I can’t believe this has happened to you.
We watched the story on TV for three days. Mrs. Lau cursed in Chinese whenever that man who owns the coal company came on. She said he was greedy and had a liar’s chin. For the past week, there hasn’t been anything on about your school. Now all the stories are about Obama’s inauguration and the subway fare hike.
Since Jennifer and her baby got kicked out of the building, Mrs. Lau has been picking up Jennifer’s newspaper from the vestibule. She cut out all the articles on Town Mountain, and Mum let me put the picture of your basketball team on the fridge. I started saying, “Hi, River,” every time I opened the fridge. Then Kiku started doing it, too, to make fun of me, and now everyone does it, even Mummy-Daddy. Not like it’s funny, just like it’s something that’s part of opening the fridge around here.
I have read your letter five times to myself and once out loud in Ms. Bledsoe’s class (don’t worry, just the part where you described the rocks coming down). There are seven other kids from the Summer Program in class, but nobody but me is still writing to their pen pal. They were all surprised that we are best friends but we haven’t ever met. Ms. Bledsoe said that’s what happens when you find a “kindred spirit.”
Where are you going to school now?
I am sorry about all the bad things that happened. But it is good that your mum got out of bed and your daddy came home and that people are listening to your mamaw and helping her fight. It’s like everything you’ve been praying for has come true.
I feel like we have been through some very hard times together. I am almost out of page. Sorry this is so tiny. I will write more soon. Be safe, River Dean Justice. I am thinking of you and Town Mountain.
Your kindred spirit,
Meena
15 January 2009
Dear Meena,
This will be short because I have so much homework to make up. Ms. Stidham is making us write another poem, so I am going to practice by making this letter like a poem. So here goes.
Here are the answers to your letter:
Little Debbies are not medicine.
They’re little cakes. We are going to school
in the Lost Creek Church of God now. It’s weird
to be going to school there. We are
in the basement, which is damp and cold all
the time, and smells like Summer Bible School.
I liked how your teacher said we were “kindred
spirits.” I looked that up on m-w
.com and it says that means we are related
spirits, like family who is not blood
family. I told Mamaw this and she said,
“Sometimes that’s the best family of all.”
There, that seems like a good place to end the poem. I actually kind of like writing them. It’s fun to count up the syllables and think about where the best place is to make the line break so that there is a mystery. I guess I better run for now, but write to me when you can, please.
What is an “aarthi”? You said your mum did one. I’m guessing it’s like a prayer. ??????????????????????
Later, Tater,
River
January 20, 2009 (Sometimes I forget and still write 2008. Do you?)
Dear River,
Surprise! I’ve been learning to type!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It just took a second to make all those exclamation points.
I don’t think I would have ever learned to type if it weren’t for you and our letters.
I am at the library. The man at the computer next to me keeps sneezing, and everyone around him keeps saying, “Bless you.” It is kind of funny. I never used to say “Bless you” when someone sneezed at home. That is something I started doing since I came to New York.
Happy Inauguration Day. We watched it on TV at school. Did you? Ms. Bledsoe was so happy she cried. She talked to the class about what it means to have a president who looks like her and so many other people in the country and world, and she talked about how times have changed. Her great-great-grandparents were slaves in North Carolina. She said she wished they were alive to see this day.
Kiku said that if he and Ana Maria have a baby someday, maybe it could b
e president. He said he would like to have a half-Mexican, half-Indian leader. I like Obama because he is very smart and because it seems like he tries hard to be fair to everyone. Also, I think he has nice hands and teeth.
My favorite parts of watching the inauguration were the music, the pictures of Washington, D.C., and when President Obama said his middle name. “Hussein” is also an Indian name, and it made me feel very proud and like I belonged to what was happening, in some way.
I am at the library because there is no heat in our apartment. There is also no water, and yesterday a dead mouse fell through Mrs. Lau’s ceiling and onto her kitchen table. Cuba stretched his nose over the edge of the table and sniffed the mouse for a long time. It is so cold we have all been sleeping in our coats and hats and scarves, and when Mum gets home we turn on the oven and leave the door open and huddle around it to warm up.
Mrs. Lau says the water and heat aren’t really broken. She says it’s the landlord trying to make us all so uncomfortable that we will leave the building so he can sell our apartments for a lot of money. Mrs. Lau says this is illegal but it is what happens all over Chinatown. She says if it were rich white people living in our building, the landlord would fix things and take good care of everyone.
I have been listening to “Here Comes the Sun.” It is a really nice song. I love the way he sings “It’s all right.” Kiku gave me a little picture of the Beatles from a magazine, and I taped it inside my locker right next to my picture of Beyoncé.
A Chorus Line is over. It went really well. I’ll tell you about it now:
When the show started, the first thing you saw was the backdrop I drew and painted. It took me until the day before the show to finish. It’s a New York City scene of the Empire State Building and the Manhattan Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. At the bottom of the backdrop is a street full of buses and cabs and the entrance to the F train and lots of people walking on the sidewalk. I drew lots of random faces and also people I know, like Mrs. Lau and Cuba, Kiku on his delivery bike, Mum and Dad in the back of Sushil-Uncle’s cab. All along the sidewalk, I drew every kind of person there is in New York: black, white, Thai, Mexican, Pakistani, Jewish. I spent a long time trying to get their faces right. I stink at drawing noses but I’m pretty good at eyes and mouths. I have not told anybody this, not even Kiku, but in the middle of the block, I drew a little pagoda tree with a monkey sitting in it, and underneath the tree I drew Dadi in her white sari holding her grass sickle and schoolbooks. She is the best drawing I have ever done. She looks just like herself. It made me feel a little better to put her in the show and to put her in New York.
Daddy could not see the show because he had to go back to New Jersey. Mum was supposed to come to closing night but Mrs. Rankin had an emergency at work, so Mum had to stay late babysitting. Sometimes it makes me mad that those two little children see more of Mum than I do. I was really sad about Mum missing the show, and Kiku and Mrs. Lau tried to make me feel better.
They both got dressed up. Mrs. Lau wore a long red skirt and a black turtleneck and a jade comb in her hair, and Kiku put on Daddy’s suit (he called Daddy first to make sure it was OK). We ate an early dinner and Mrs. Lau called Kiku “good-looker” and they argued about politics. Mrs. Lau doesn’t like Obama as much as Kiku does, and that makes him really mad. Afterward, when we were cleaning up, Kiku sat on the couch and watched TV. I said, “Hey, good-looker, do you think you’re too pretty to wash dishes?” And he said, “I’m too pretty to wash. But not too pretty to dry.” He took off Daddy’s jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves and we stood together in the kitchen, me washing, Kiku drying, Mrs. Lau putting everything away.
The show was so good. I wish you could have seen it. Beforehand, we did voice warm-ups, and Ms. Bledsoe made a speech about togetherness and gave us each a red carnation. I saw her in the wings crying during “What I Did for Love.” As for me, I only messed up one light cue, at the very end, and Kiku said no one noticed.
Some things did go really wrong, though, like one of the trombonists got a nosebleed in the middle of “At the Ballet.” And Alice Tong stuffed socks in her leotard so it would look like she had boobs, and one fell out while she was dancing. Also, Peter Schiff had an asthma attack just before his solo number.
It is so amazing how all this stuff goes into making a play and how all these crazy things happen backstage, but to the people in the audience, it looks perfect and easy. It’s like there are two worlds in Drama Club. The world onstage and the world backstage. It reminds me of how I feel all the time. Like there is America right in front of me, but backstage, in my mind, are Mussoorie and Dadi and the mountains.
At the end of the show, the audience gave us all a standing ovation. Everyone who worked backstage, like me, also came out and got to take a bow. I could see Kiku and Mrs. Lau smiling and clapping in the third row. I wished Mummy-Daddy and Dadi and you could see me. Afterward, Mrs. Lau said maybe it was good that Mum hadn’t been there, because she would have been upset about the girls in leotards. Kiku said, “That was my favorite part.” Totally Gross. But then he said he was proud of me, and when we got home, he told Mum about everything and said it was the best play he’d ever seen.
I am really glad I joined the Drama Club. It makes me feel like I belong at PS 20. I can hardly wait for next year’s play. We are going to be doing Oklahoma.
It’s the time of year in New York when lots of Christmas trees are dragged to the trash. There’s tinsel flying everywhere in the street. There aren’t many trees out at the curb in Chinatown, but where I go to school, which is a little bit north of here, there are. In six days, the streets of Chinatown will be filled with confetti and firecrackers for Chinese New Year — the Year of the Ox. Mrs. Lau knows the boy who will be dancing in the head of the dragon. She used to work at the factory with his grandmother.
Things with the apartment have gotten bad. There is a big CONDEMNED sign on Jennifer’s door, and Mrs. Lau is worried that we will be found out soon. We wait at the top of the stairs and listen before walking down so that we won’t see anyone in the building. We used to say hi to people, and Mrs. Lau would tell them we helped her with cooking, cleaning, and laundry and to expect us to be coming and going all the time. But now it seems better to disappear. At least for a little while. None of us has been sleeping much.
A few days before New Year’s, Mum woke me up in the middle of the night and said, “Help me cut my hair.” The light was bright and I was sleepy and confused. I sat up in bed and watched her as she stood in the middle of the room and cut off her hair. She said she had to do something to change things, to feel different, or she’d die of grief. Her hair fell all over the floor in big black ropes. It used to hang past her waist. Now it is as short as a boy’s. What’s weird is that as soon as her hair was cut, she looked in the mirror and said she felt better. And she’s been happier ever since. I think she looks quite pretty with short hair. And I like seeing her ears. They are small and sweet.
Daddy came home a few days later. He got upset when he saw Mum. He loved her long hair. He said she looked American, not Indian. She said, “It will grow back; don’t worry,” but he went in the bedroom and shut the door. The next day, they had a big row because Daddy gave Mum money for the electricity bill and she said she didn’t need it, she’d already paid the bill. Daddy started shouting and, well, since I’m on the computer, I’ll type it out for you like a play:
DADDY (shouting): You already paid it?
MUM (whispering): Be quiet — they’ll hear you downstairs.
DADDY (quiet now but still very mad): So these days you pay the bills and tell me what to do? Who is the man and who is the woman?
MUM: I have to be the man while you’re away.
DADDY: And now that I am here, there are two men?
Here Mum started to cry and went over to Mrs. Lau’s to get away from Daddy. I sat with him on the couch. He had the citizenship study book open on his lap, but he wasn’t reading. He said, “Nobody needs Daddy anymo
re. Everyone is fine. Making their decisions and paying the bills.” I told him that wasn’t true and that Mum had only cut her hair because she was so sad and she needed to make a change. He looked surprised but then nodded. By the way, I forgot to say all of that actually happened in Hindi.
I know just how Daddy feels. Sometimes when Mummy-Daddy-Kiku talk about something that happened before I lived with them in New York, it hurts my feelings. I feel left out and small, even though I know they don’t mean to make me feel that way. Like over New Year’s, they talked about their second year in New York and how they had gone to Times Square and gotten confused about the subway. . . . They laughed so much as they told the story, and I could see it had been a really good time. I thought of me and Dadi at home in Mussoorie while the three of them were laughing in New York. It hurt. Kiku noticed I was sad and he made a face at Mum and they changed the topic. But it still hurt.
Mum always says it was money and immigration laws that kept us apart all those years. But I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like they just abandoned me. Like they wanted to leave me, like they wanted to go off and live a happy life without me and Dadi. Maybe that sounds crazy but I don’t think they missed me as much as I missed them.