by Silas House
I better get off the computer. I have been typing to you for 17 minutes and 20 seconds. Since the library has free computers, there’s a time limit: 20 minutes for each person. It makes it easier to share. Write soon and tell me what is happening with you and Town Mountain. I am getting the telepathic messages from you but I still get worried. OK. Time to press PRINT.
Bye for now,
Meena
P.S. Yes, an aarthi is a kind of prayer with lamps and oil and burning wicks and bells and singing and gods and goddesses. It is very beautiful to watch. Mum does this two times a day.
13 February 2009
Dear Meena,
I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to write you back. Even though I’ve been thinking of you every single day, I haven’t been able to write, mostly because I haven’t been able to think straight here lately.
I have been over at the hospital a lot, with Mark.
They had to cut off his left leg.
All the way above the knee.
Every time the sheet is off him I get a little sick to my stomach when I see his half leg there. I don’t mean this in a bad way. I think I just get sick because I feel so bad for him. I think of him and the way he was always running and jumping. If you think about a thing like that too much it’ll drive you crazy. So I can’t even imagine how Mark is feeling. But the weird thing is that he’s just as happy as can be all the time. He has bad days sometimes, but for the most part he is upbeat.
I was at the hospital the other day and he was telling all these jokes and laughing big and loud and I was thinking how I hoped I’d be like that if I were in his situation (I started to write “if I were in his shoes,” then that seemed weird since he only has one shoe now).
Anyway, I must have zoned out, thinking about that, because all at once Mark was slapping his hands together and hollering, “Earth to River! Hey, man, are you still there?” And so I realized that I was staring off into space. Mark knew what I was thinking, though. “The way I look at it, them rocks could’ve killed us, man,” he said. “So I feel lucky.”
They say Mark will be in the hospital for at least two more months.
Yes, in the group picture I am the boy at the end of the front row. With the freckles. It’s kind of cool to know that you see me every time you go to your refrigerator. It’s weird to think I am in somebody’s kitchen in New York City. There were two or three photographers who came here yesterday. One of them was from New York. I asked him if he knew you, and he laughed real big and said, “Well, New York’s a pretty big town there, partner.” I hate it when people call somebody “partner.” It’s stupid. And it embarrassed me in front of the whole class. I knew that New York was a big town, but I thought there might be some weird coincidence where he’d know you. You know what I mean? But I didn’t say that to him. He also said, “I’d sure as heck remember a name like that,” when I said your name. It made me feel like he had insulted you. Anyway, out of all the photographers, one of them was the nicest and he was from People magazine. They took a picture of me and all the other boys gathered around Mark’s bed. I am sitting up on the bed right beside him. I think they said it would be out in a couple of weeks, so look for it. Do you all have newsstands out on the streets like they always show in the movies of New York?
We were out of school for snow on the day of the inauguration (since we have real curvy mountain roads and are not used to that much snow, we get out of school even if it only snows a half inch), so I watched it at the hospital, with Mark.
Usually the hospital is a big noisy place with nurses hollering to one another or joking with the patients, people running this way and that. But when the inauguration started, everything got very quiet. Lots of people were gathering in the big waiting room down the hall to watch it, and Mark said he wanted to watch with everybody else, so I wheeled him down there in his wheelchair. His mom went with us. The waiting room was so packed with people that she and I had to stand behind Mark’s chair and watch. Nobody said a word the entire time, but when Obama was sworn in, I heard someone let out a little weeping sound and I looked around and there was Dr. Patel. I hadn’t even known he was there. He had tears in his eyes. So then I looked at every single person and MOST of them had tears in their eyes. Mark’s mom kept her hand over her mouth like she was amazed. This little old woman sitting in a plastic waiting room chair beside me dotted a wad of Kleenex to her eyes. It was the strangest thing.
So then I thought about what it meant, to be watching something so historic. The first black person to become president. If he could overcome the odds, then so could a hillbilly, or an Indian, or anybody. And it made me feel like anything was possible. People are always saying how you can be anything you want in America, but I had never really believed it, or even thought that much about it. But when Obama was sworn in, I DID believe it. And I think that’s why everyone had those tears in their eyes, because they knew that, too. I’ll never forget that moment.
But then, later that night, I was in the waiting room getting a bag of Funyuns and a Sierra Mist and this big beardy man was in there talking bad about Obama to this little nasty-looking woman who just nodded to everything he said. He said the country was going to hell, and he called Obama the N-word. When he said the word, I felt like somebody had punched me in the belly. There were lots of people in there, including some people I had seen with tears in their eyes earlier, but nobody said anything. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there with my pop and my Funyuns and I gave him the dirtiest look I could. It took him a minute to realize I was staring at him on purpose, but then he went, “Take a picture, boy.” I didn’t know what to say, so I just stomped off.
I feel really terrible about that. When I got back to Mark’s room I kept thinking how I should have said something, how I should have told him that he shouldn’t have said that word. But I didn’t know how. I felt like a big coward, like the biggest chicken in history. Since then I have thought of lots of good comebacks (like “Who’d want a picture of somebody as stupid as you?” or “I wouldn’t want to break my camera” or “I don’t take pictures of racists”), but at the time I just froze up.
So I feel awful bad about it and wish I could do it over.
I wish I could’ve seen A Chorus Line. It sounds like a lot of fun. Our school never does any good plays. I wish you had taken me a picture of your drawing of Dadi with her grass sickle and schoolbooks. That sounds awesome. Next time you design a set, draw me into it so that I can say I have been on a stage in New York City. I keep thinking about Ms. Bledsoe crying in the wings when “What I Did for Love” played. I don’t know why I can’t get her out of my mind, but I keep wondering why she was crying. I looked up the lyrics online, and to tell you the truth, I think it is a pretty good love song. I bet she loved somebody and they left her and now she’ll never get over it and die a lonely old woman who sits by the window crying every night because she can’t move on (actually, this reminds me of the woman you heard crying, the one Mrs. Lau said has a heart like a squashed tomato). I like to make up stories for people sometimes. Sometimes the made-up story is way more interesting than the real one.
Since you are so good at designing sets and all, maybe you should think about getting a job working on Broadway. I can write plays and you can design the sets and do the lights and help everybody memorize their lines. We could be partners.
It’s weird that your parents have been fighting, because mine have been getting along better than ever. Dad stayed with us as long as he could stay away from the job down on the Gulf, but he finally had to go back. Before he left he spent the whole evening playing basketball with me, the way he used to. And we went to the Dairy Dart and ate foot-long chili buns and large orders of onion rings and root beer floats. Mamaw never takes me to the Dairy Dart. She doesn’t believe in hot dogs and cheeseburgers.
The day before Dad had to go back to the Gulf, I was coming out of the woods and I heard my mother laughing. I hadn’t heard her laugh in so long that
I thought I had forgotten what it sounded like, but as soon as I heard it, I knew that laugh belonged to her. Her laugh is like a kind of music. And when I came around the porch Dad was kissing her on the forehead. She hasn’t had any more headaches yet and has been going down to the little office building to help Mamaw make posters and get ready for the big rally.
I’ve been helping make signs for the rally. Here’s what some of them say:
SAVE THE ENDANGERED HILLBILLY
NOT AN ACT OF GOD — AN ACT OF GREED
NOT ONE MORE MOUNTAIN,
NOT ONE MORE SCHOOL,
NOT ONE MORE CHILD
Last night Mamaw had a bunch of people come up to the community center and teach everybody how to get arrested without getting hurt. She says that some of the people in the rally might end up getting taken to jail. They also learned how to do what they call “non-violent protest.” Some of them are talking about chaining themselves to the front porch or the front doors of the capitol building.
On our way home I told Mamaw I didn’t want her to get arrested. I’d be worried to death about her if she got taken to jail. She pulled the car over to the side of the road, and we weren’t even halfway up the mountain to home.
“Now, listen here, River Dean Justice,” she said. She propped her elbow up on the steering wheel because she was turned all the way around in her seat to face me. “The law isn’t protecting the people, son. They’re not making the coal company go by the law because it has all kinds of money. So we’re going to go up there and get their attention.”
All night long I thought about what she said. And I believe she’s right. So, late that night I got on the phone and called all the boys who had been there when the rocks came in on us (they are all out of the hospital now; Mark was the only one who got hurt really bad). So we all decided that we are going to the capitol, too. Ever since it happened, I’ve been wanting to do something to help Mark. There’s not been anything I’ve been able to do except sit in the hospital and watch TV with him. But now I can do something for him. So we’re all going to march. We’re going to march for Mark. And for Town Mountain.
More later,
My Own True Self,
River Dean Justice
February 18, 2009
Dear River,
Today I am a teenager. Thirteen years old. Hello 12, Hello 13, Hello Love (that’s a song from A Chorus Line). Mum brought a bakery cake home after work that said NINA in blue frosting. I thought maybe they had given Mum the wrong cake, but she said the bakery hadn’t heard the name Meena before, so they misspelled it. Kiku stuck his pinkie in the frosting and made NINA into MEENA and then put some frosting on the tip of my nose. He is such a goof. I am almost out of room, so I will write you another postcard.
PART II. We called Daddy and put him on speakerphone and everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” We sang quietly in case the landlord was lurking in the stairwell. Mum gave me socks and some of Mrs. Rankin’s old books. David Copperfield, The Wind in the Willows, and a biography of a scientist named Marie Curie. Best news: Mummy-Daddy’s citizenship exam date is May 14. In three months, maybe we will be citizens. Hello to the postal people, if you are reading this. Meena
22 February 2009
Dear Meena,
I have never gone to the store and bought a birthday card before, but we were at the Dollar General yesterday and I had just gotten your postcard saying it was your birthday, so, well, I thought it’d be a good time to buy a birthday card for the first time. I am not much for writing in longhand, so that is your birthday present, to see my handwriting in more than just my signature, which is all you usually see. Not much of a present, huh? Since it really is not much, I’m also enclosing a buckyeye, which I found in the creek. That’s why why (sorry, I’m not used to writing by hand so much) it’s so smooth. You probably never heard of a buckeye before. They grow on trees. Some people here carry them in their pockets for good luck. I thought you’d like it better than if I went and tried to pick out some kind of stupid gift. Anyway, I hope you are knowing that you’re my best friend and that I’m real happy you’re alive, and I hope to know you for many more birthdays. So I hope you have a good one.
Happy Birthday (one more time)!!!
River
P.S. If I had known in advance, I would have sent the card BEFORE your birthday, so just in case you need to know, mine is June 8.
February 25, 2009
Dear River,
I am writing to you from under the bed. It is 1:00 a.m. and I have rubber-banded a flashlight to the springs beneath the mattress so I can see.
Mum and I had a big scary row tonight.
She came home from work in a bad mood. I can always tell her mood from the way she takes her shoes off at the door. If she slaps them down on the ground, she’s frustrated. If she lays them down gently, she’s happy.
Well, tonight, she slapped her shoes down hard and then she started banging pots and pans around in the kitchen like she was REALLY mad at them.
She cooked aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower) and dhahi vada (yoghurt and donut things that are too hard to explain). The whole time she was making dinner, she was acting forgetful, like her mind was flying around somewhere else. She forgot to salt the potatoes, she forgot to start the rice, but the worst thing was when she let the phulka (bread) burn, which set off the smoke detector. Mrs. Lau had told us to never let that happen because it would draw attention to us.
Kiku took the broom handle and knocked the batteries out of the smoke detector, and I flapped the bedroom door open and shut to make the air move around. Mum whispered some curses and huffed around. She was covered in flour and looked a little crazy. And in the middle of all this, Kiku’s phone rang with Beyoncé’s “Put a Ring on It,” which is Valentina’s ringtone. He handed me the phone.
Valentina was excited and talking fast and squeaky. She said a bunch of Drama Club kids were going to a 6:30 movie with Carlos’s aunt as a chaperone. I had to call her back in ten minutes to say if I could go so she could buy me a ticket before they all sold out.
So Mum was in a bad mood but I had to ask right away if I could go see Coraline. I guess you can already see where this is going. . . .
I almost didn’t ask. I almost called Valentina back and said, “Sorry, I can’t go out on a school night.” But then I thought about how you said that sometimes I should do what I want to do.
I got Kiku to meet me in the bathroom, and I asked him for some money. He gave me enough for a ticket and popcorn. He said, “Good luck, Mee-Mee,” and patted me on the head like he felt sorry for me.
Then I went back to the kitchen and asked Mum.
She slipped almost immediately into her “No” face and said, “Who are these people from Drama Club?”
I said, “Valentina, Carlos, Jeremy, Tasheka, Peter, and Carlos’s aunt Bianca, who is a grown-up. She’s a guidance counselor, so she’s very responsible. And I don’t need any money for a ticket because I have some of my own.”
Mum didn’t even look at me. She sighed and stirred the aloo and said, “Boys, too? I don’t know these people. I don’t want you sitting in dark places with them. You’re too young to see films without your family.”
I guess I should have stayed quiet, but all of a sudden I wanted to see the movie so badly I couldn’t breathe. I pictured all my friends laughing and eating popcorn and having a great time without me. I felt like all my bones were frozen in place and I was completely alone in the world. So I guess I kind of freaked out.
ME: Maybe you’d know them if you weren’t always with other people’s children.
I sounded mean and desperate even to myself, but I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth.
Mum slammed down the tava (a flat kind of pan).
MUM: Meena, if your father heard you speaking this way, he would spank you.
ME: Well, he’s not here, so I have to ask you — even though you NEVER let me do anything. And I’m just going to marry whoever you make me m
arry, so what’s the big deal with boys being there?
MUM: Meena. Don’t forget yourself. You are my Indian daughter, not my American daughter.
ME: Breaking news, Mum. YOU BROUGHT US TO AMERICA.
MUM: You’re not going to see a film on a school night. And stop shouting or we’ll get thrown into the street.
ME: You’re the one who set off the smoke alarm, so if we get thrown out, it will be YOUR fault.
MUM (now crying): I am your mother, Meena. I am not your enemy. I had a very long day and I don’t want to see you behaving so badly. Please go to the bedroom and leave me alone.
(By the way, all this time she was talking in Hindi and I was talking in English.)
ME: That’s what you really want, isn’t it? For me to leave you alone. For me to disappear. Mothers don’t leave their daughter for six years! Mothers don’t abandon their child and move across the world and bring only their son with them JUST BECAUSE HE’S A BOY. Mothers don’t do that, but guess what! That’s what you did. That’s what you did to me.
I was crying so hard I didn’t even know what was going on when Kiku picked me up and dropped me on the bed. He stood in front of me and said, “Mee-Mee, you better stay here and be quiet for a while. I’ll call Valentina.”
As he was closing the door, I saw Mum lying on the kitchen floor. She was holding her head in her hands and kind of rocking from side to side like her stomach hurt. Oh, River. I felt so bad. But at the same time, I also felt like what I said was true. She did leave me. And I always have to say and do what she wants because SHE works so hard, because SHE made sacrifices, because SHE may die of grief and shame. But what about me? What about when I feel sad and angry? What about what I want?