by Silas House
River Dean Justice
August 16, 2008
Dear River,
Hello from New York City!! Thank you for saying you liked my drawing of Mrs. Lau and Cuba. I think my handwriting is messy, so I am glad you think it’s neat.
It was nice of you to say those things, but I am wondering, why did you call me weird and cheesy? Also, I’m not “some kind of saint.” You wrote LOL after that but I couldn’t tell if you meant it nice or mean. I don’t mind doing the laundry, even on a Friday. I don’t think you would mind either if you had lived far away from your mom and dad and brother for seven years. I am glad to finally be with them. If you want to know the truth, I think Americans have it easy. I was raised to do whatever is best for everyone in my family — even if it is something that is not fun or relaxing for me. Mum would say I shouldn’t say rude things about Americans to an American. But I guess I already said it, so it is too late.
You asked how come I picked your name and address, so I will tell you. Kiku always says, “Tell the short version of the story or I’m not going to listen.” He thinks he is Mr. Cool and he is so not. Anyway, I like long stories. I hope that is OK with you.
I think this has been a lucky summer. First, I got into the Arts and Humanities Summer Program by writing an essay about Mrs. Lau and how we are friends. Second, Ms. Bledsoe, my teacher at the Summer Program, is really nice. Every week we go someplace new, and it is all free. This week we went to Ellis Island. It was so interesting, all the different people and photographs. My favorite picture was of a little boy who got sent back to Italy alone because he had tuberculosis. I liked the picture because I could see what he was feeling by looking at his face. Everything at Ellis Island reminded me of our family, except that we came on planes not boats.
Last month we went to the Van Cortlandt House, where Dutch people lived a long time ago; the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where the red hibiscus is blooming; and the Tenement Museum, where we saw what life was like in Chinatown in the 1880s. Back then it was a Jewish, Italian, German, and Irish neighborhood. We also wrote a group letter to Mayor Bloomberg. I love to write. Whenever I put my pen on paper, I cannot stop. When I grow up, I want to be a poet.
I also love fruits and vegetables, and actually that is how I came to be writing to you.
Ms. Bledsoe took the Summer Group to the supermarket last week. Everybody said it was a lame field trip, but I was excited. Ms. Bledsoe says city kids don’t think about where things come from, especially food. She’s from North Carolina and grew up on a farm. She talked about how food is shipped into the city and how big trucks use a lot of gas and that young men and women fight wars over things like gas. She told us to be mindful of what we waste and use. I like that word: mindful. It makes me feel like my brain is a big bowl brimming over.
So we went to a D’Agostino (that’s a grocery store) on Essex Street and stood in the vegetable section. Some of the lettuce was getting watered from little sprinklers and we got wet. Ms. Bledsoe picked up an apple and said that in NY, apples get picked off the trees in October, so for us to have apples in August means they have traveled a great distance.
We looked at the labels on the apples. Some were from Israel. Some from Washington State. Ms. Bledsoe said we should picture those places on the map, to see how far the apples had come. While she was talking I saw a pile of okra. I thought maybe it had come from India, like me. It was in a wooden box that said KENTUCKY on the side, and there was a picture of mountains. I looked at the okra and the mountains and I wanted to go to Kentucky. It looked just like home.
When we got back to class, Ms. Bledsoe handed out a list of names and addresses. She said the assignment was to pick a pen pal and write a letter. Everyone said this was stupid and babyish, but I thought it sounded like fun. All the other kids wanted to do e-mails, but I wanted to write a real letter and put a pretty stamp on it, so I got a different list. There were lots of names and addresses on the list, kids from all over. Malaysia, Scotland, Hawaii, Trinidad, Moscow. Everyone, even Ms. Bledsoe, thought I would pick someone from India. But all the addresses were in New Delhi, and I didn’t like it there the one day I saw it. When I saw your name and that you live in Kentucky, I wanted to write to you.
Do you grow okra? If you do, I will send you my grandmother’s recipe for bhindi. That’s how you say okra in Hindi.
Hmmm. I guess I told the realllllly long version of the story. Sorry about that.
I have to go help Mum make dinner now, but I will write you more very soon. I am wanting to talk to you about basketball and those nice walks you take with your mamaw.
I hope you are having a nice day.
Your pen pal,
Meena Joshi
P.S. Please write a longer letter next time.
P.P.S. Sorry if that was bossy.
23 August 2008
Dear Meena,
Sorry my last letter wasn’t longer. I was running late for basketball practice and just wanted to get something in the mail to you. But I still don’t think I can write as much as you.
You asked what I look like. I am redheaded, with freckles all across my nose and shoulders. Mamaw says the freckles are because our people are originally from Scotland and Ireland. So I guess when you really think about it, we are all from some other place, way off across the ocean. Mamaw is half Cherokee, so I have her big nose. People give me a hard time about it and call me Toucan Sam sometimes, but I don’t care. I kind of like my nose. Mamaw says I will grow into it and it will be the best thing about me. I wish I was taller so I could be a better basketball player. Lately I have been doing this leg-stretching exercise my buddy Mark told me about, where you squat down and put one leg at a time out behind you as far as you can. It’s supposed to make you taller. I’ve only been doing it a week and already, according to my measuring tape, I have grown 1/16 of an inch. It’s pretty amazing.
It’s weird that you are originally from the mountains, because that’s where I live now. I looked up where you were born online, and it’s cool because the mountains there look so much like mine, with pine trees and everything. I always expected India to only have big palm trees, for some reason. You said your mamaw wouldn’t come to America because she would miss the mountains too much, so maybe she could move here instead of New York City. At least that way she’d be way closer to you than she is now, way over in India, and I bet she’d like the mountains here. My uncle sells houses and could find her a place. Let me know if you need help with this.
We have an Indian who lives here, Dr. Patel. My mamaw goes to him because she has sugar diabetes, and they are always laughing together. He says that she reminds him of his mother, and you should hear the way he says “Mama Justice” (that’s what he calls her). It’s funny with his accent, although Mamaw says it’s not polite to laugh at him over that and that he must be real smart to be able to even learn our language and to be a doctor besides. We have seen him and his wife at the Piggly Wiggly before, and she has a red dot on her forehead. Do you? I would like to know how those things work. Are they glued on there, or is it a Magic Marker, or what? I don’t understand, and Mamaw always elbows me when I stare at her.
My father is nothing like Mamaw, though. He is always making fun of anybody who is different. He used to say the N-word all the time (especially when we were watching basketball), but now he is friends with all kinds of black people down there in Biloxi. He works with them. So I wonder if he still says that word. I hope not. It makes me feel tight inside, like I am smothering.
You asked if I have been to New York City. HA!!! I’ve never been anywhere except to Dollywood, which is a big amusement park not too far away, with this awesome roller coaster called the Thunderhead. You should ride it sometime. When somebody is real sick they get sent to the hospital in Knoxville, and that’s where Mom used to go to shop for my school clothes on Tax Free Day, so I have been there a few times. It’s the only city I really know, but it’s too loud and there are too many cars. The houses are right on top of
each other. I don’t believe I could stand it without my woods.
You asked me about music. (We have been studying poetry at school and how it doesn’t have to rhyme, so I think I’ll write this next part like a poem.)
I mostly like music that my parents
were always playing back when we all lived
together on Free Creek. Sometimes, in the
evenings, Daddy would put on his
favorite album, which was by Tom Petty,
and he’d play this song called “Wildflowers.”
Daddy would put me up on his hip and
Mom would lean in real close and we were like
a circle going round and round the room.
This one time I remember Mom putting
her head against Daddy’s and singing all
the words with her eyes closed. Sometimes I think
that was the last time we were all together,
but I don’t know if I just have that mixed up
in my mind or not. When I am missing
my parents real bad I put on that CD
and listen to it and feel sadder,
even during the real fast and happy songs.
Actually, one reason I did that was because my English teacher gave us homework to write a poem about a memory, and so after I typed that I realized it was a memory and I could kill two birds with one stone by writing to you about it but also making the poem for English class. Do you think it’s any good? Ms. Stidham says that the main thing is to make every line of poetry a mystery so that the reader wants to go on and read the next line. I thought that was pretty cool, when she said that, because I always thought the most important thing was to make it rhyme, but she said, no, and that nowadays poems that rhyme are kind of lame. We all laughed because it was funny to hear a teacher say something is lame. Don’t you think so? The only poetry I have ever really read is Sharon Creech stuff, like in Love That Dog. And I love this poem by Joyce Kilmer, but the only part I know by heart is “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.” Mamaw recites the whole poem sometimes when we are out walking in the hills. She says it real loud, the way preachers will boom out a big prayer sometimes right in the middle of church.
Anyway, I did try to put in as much mystery in my poem as I could, but I still don’t know what to call it. I’ve been reading it over and over but I can’t think of a title. I think I’ll just call it “My Memory Poem.” Or maybe “Wildflowers” or maybe “A Memory.” I don’t know.
Oh, there is one more thing you need to know to meet me. I also have a dog, Rufus, who is the best dog that ever was. Everybody says so. I have had him since I was four years old (I am 12 now), and he is the best friend anybody could ever ask for. He will run around and play with me if I’m in the mood for that, or he will sit real quiet with me and look out at the mountains, too, if that’s what I’m in the mood for. He always goes along with me and Mamaw when we go walking in the cool of the day. That’s what Mamaw calls it, the cool of the day. When we go fishing, Rufus just lies down on the creek bank with his chin on top of his paws — until we start to reel in a fish. Then he gets so excited that he runs back and forth along the water’s edge with his tail wagging and his whole butt shaking, he’s so wound up.
Rufus smiles all the time. Have you ever seen a smiling dog? I don’t know what kind he is. “You old mutt,” Daddy always says, and gives him a good pat on the side. Mamaw thinks he has beagle, blue heeler, Jack Russell, and maybe even some pit bull. I’ve put a picture of him in here. It’s not a very good one because he moves around so much that it’s hard to take a picture of him. But I got him to lie still by rubbing his belly.
About that okra: Mamaw grows a big garden and okra is one of her favorite things. She says it’s beautiful to look at and delicious to eat. When it’s ready, she slices it up and soaks it in buttermilk, then rolls it in meal and flour and fries it in the skillet. It’s delicious, especially with fried green tomatoes. One time Daddy was eating some of Mamaw’s okra, and he said, “This is so good you have to pat your foot to eat it,” and we all laughed like it was way funnier than it really was. Have you ever had a fried green tomato? It is the best thing in the world, guaranteed.
I guess I better go and get my chores done. I have to mow the yard this evening. I can’t believe I wrote so much, but that’s what happens when I get to typing. My mother taught me to type when I was only eight because she said that a person can’t do anything nowadays if they don’t know their way around a computer. And I can type almost as good as I can play basketball. I’m not meaning to brag, it’s just that those are the only two things I can really do good at all. I suck at lots of things, especially mechanical things. Mamaw is all the time having to put the chain back on my bicycle, because I never can figure out how. I’m terrible at cooking, too. I can’t even make a peanut-butter sandwich right. I always tear the bread when I’m trying to spread the peanut butter.
What are you good at?
I sure hope you’ll write me back. Tell me more about New York City. I can’t imagine what it is like to live there with all those taxi cabs and people in suits and going to plays all the time and eating at the Rainbow Room. I don’t believe I’d like it, but it sounds like an exciting place to visit.
Sincerely yours,
River Dean Justice
P.S. The movie star your brother is thinking of is River Phoenix, who died two or three years before I was born. My mother always loved him, but I’m not really named for him as much as I am for the rivers of this place.
P.P.S. Sorry this letter is typed on paper that has already been used on one side, but Ms. Stidham taught us all about the environment last year and she says that it’s better to reuse before you recycle, so that’s what I’m doing here. Just ignore the writing on the back; it’s just stuff Mamaw had typed out about some kind of mining she’s getting informed about. She is always saying that she’s getting informed about something.
August 27, 2008
Dear River,
Thank you for your letter!!! It was as good as reading a book. I put Rufus’s photograph under my library card in my box of Special Things. I keep the box hidden behind the sack of rice in the kitchen closet. Nobody, not even Kiku, knows about this hiding place. It is also where I keep my watch set to India time so I always know when Dadi is sleeping.
I have been thinking of what you said — that we can tell each other secrets and be our own true selves. That sounds very nice to me.
I think it is cool that you play basketball. There is a basketball court near here, and I like to watch Kiku and his friends play. Kiku taught me H-O-R-S-E, and sometimes he picks me up so I am almost as tall as the basket and I toss the ball into the net. I guess that is cheating in real basketball, but Kiku says for me it is OK. What is it like to play a real game? It must feel good when everyone cheers for you.
I would like to try eating okra the way your mamaw makes it. It sounds delicious. Dadi and I used to watch the okra leaves in her garden turn to follow the sun across the sky, from east to west. It was like a kind of magic. I am so happy to know that you live in mountains full of okra. And no, I have never eaten a fried green tomato before.
I wonder if we can mail things like tomatoes to each other?
I like that your poem is about how things used to be in your family. You should keep writing lots and lots of beautiful poems until you have enough to fill a book. And I think it’s super funny that your teacher said “lame”!
On the subway, there is something called Poetry in Motion. Poems are printed up above the seats so that when you are sitting there on your way to the next station, you have something to think about. I read a poem on the subway that rhymed called “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” I never knew before that the title of a poem could be a whole long sentence, did you? Actually, maybe you could do that for your poem! Maybe you could call it “We Were Like a Circle” or “What We Used to Be.”
This month there is a poem printed in the sub
way called “Quarrel.” It’s like something you’d overhear walking down the street. I memorized it because it’s short and because I was on the F train for a long time. It doesn’t rhyme, so maybe you will like it:
Bob and I
In different rooms
Talking to ourselves
Carrying on
Last night’s
Hard conversation
Convinced
The other one
The life companion
Wasn’t listening
Sometimes Mum and Daddy act like that.
After I read that poem, I started listening in on people’s conversations, and all of a sudden, it was like everybody was talking in poem. Here’s something I overheard this morning while I was walking to the library. A lady in denim shorts and red high heels, carrying a package of toilet paper she’d just bought at the deli, said it into her cell phone.
If you had been there
It would have been
The best bus ride ever.
It’s nice to have someone to talk about poetry with. Thanks!
Are freckles bumpy? I have always wondered. I think red hair is beautiful. My best friend in Mussoorie, Anuradha, has red hair and gray eyes. She is light skinned, like a white person, but she does not have freckles. Kiku says my skin is the color of tea in a cup. He says that in America, being dark and foreign can get people in trouble. He says that is clear if you look around the world and read the New York Times. I didn’t know what he meant until last month when we were at the library waiting in line at the photocopy machine. A crazy man called us terrorists. Then Kiku called the man an _______ and the security guard made us leave the library. I had never heard Kiku say a bad word before. He was so mad he punched a garbage can. I wish Kiku had explained that we are not terrorists. I am afraid the security guard at the library thinks I make bombs. I walk by him very quickly now. I never told anyone about this because Kiku said not to. He said it would make Mum cry.
