Same Sun Here Read online

  I do not know “Here Comes the Sun.” I will ask Kiku if he has it. If you like it I know I will, too.

  I forgot to answer one of your questions from a while ago. You asked about Gandhiji. In Hindi, “ji” is something you put at the end of someone’s name to show that you respect them.

  Gandhiji is to be respected, so we always say “ji” at the end of his name. You do it for people who are older than you, too. Like if I had met your mamaw in India, I would call her Mamawji.

  It is a sad night here. I can hear Mrs. Lau’s television through the wall. I better go fold the laundry. Having Kiku’s bike inside has made everything very cramped. Right now the bike is in the middle of the living room, covered in all of our underpants and socks. It saves money on the dryer to hang things up. I can see Mum studying at the kitchen table. She has decided to go to nursing school when she becomes a citizen. There is a lot she has to learn first, though.

  I have been trying to be cheerful in this letter. I hope it has worked. I hope you are doing OK. I will send you another telepathic message tomorrow. Maybe if I stand on the roof you will hear me better. I hope that your mother is home and that she doesn’t have a headache. I hope your daddy arrives soon and in a good mood. Merry early Christmas. Keep your chin up. Ms. Bledsoe has been saying that to me. Keep your chin up. I like it.

  Namaskar, mera dost,

  Meena

  P.S. I never heard that word “Sabbath” before. It’s very pretty. Thank you for telling me about it. I think it would be a good name for a parakeet. I will tell Mrs. Lau.

  P.P.S. Today the sun was out, and as I walked to school I wondered if it was sunny in Kentucky, too. And then I thought to myself that it’s the same sun here as it is there, and that made me feel like you’re not so far away after all.

  15 December 2008

  Dear Meena,

  There were lots of good things in your last letter, but I think you’re a total nymphomaniac for asking me if I’d like to make out with a boy or a girl. I don’t want to even THINK about that, man!

  Let’s make a deal right now, that we won’t talk about things like this anymore, because it’s just weird. I am writing a contract below and you can sign it and mail it back to me, OK? All right.

  I, Meena Joshi, do solemnly swear that I will never again write to my friend River Dean Justice about

  1. anything to do with hair

  2. making out of any kind

  Signed, ____________________________

  (your signature)

  Date ____________________________

  Bye,

  River Dean Justice

  December 17, 2008

  NYMPHOMANIAC!?!?!?! I’m a nymphomaniac for asking if you’d rather make out with a girl or a boy?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

  I had to look that word up in the dictionary.

  Who says gross things like that?

  It’s not true. I AM NOT A NYMPHOMANIAC.

  I am not going to sign your stupid contract. If I were a lawyer, I would sue you for “defamation of character.”

  You are JUST like Mummy-Daddy. You get mad about the craziest things. If you don’t want to tell me who you’d rather kiss, you should just say so. You don’t have to insult me to get out of answering.

  By the way, I’d still be your friend no matter how you answer.

  Let’s see how YOU like it when I call YOU names:

  You’re a great big squawking, mean, cowardly chicken-boy.

  I can’t believe I had to waste a stamp on this letter. I’m not writing to you again until you apologize for freaking out on me.

  This letter is from:

  Your Friend Who Shaves Her Hairy Legs

  (Hahahahahahahahahahaha. I bet you’re really freaking out now.)

  19 December 2008

  Dear Meena,

  We have been in a fight for three letters now, and that is too long for friends to be mad at each other. I have decided to say I’m sorry for calling you that name. It wasn’t right of me, and I’m sorry. I have been worried about it, and sometimes when I try to go to sleep at night I lay there for a long time, wondering if you are still mad at me.

  Mamaw got mad the other day because somebody called Sarah Palin a bad name. She said that even if you don’t agree with somebody that you shouldn’t call them names and that when you start calling names you’ve lost control of the conversation. So that made me think about what I had said to you and made me realize that I’m real sorry.

  If you are sorry, too, please write me back so we can be friends again.

  Yours truly,

  River

  December 22, 2008

  Dear River,

  Thank you for your apology. I am glad we can put these bad times behind us.

  I don’t think I should be sorry for being myself and asking you a question I was curious about. So I am not going to say I’m sorry for that. What I am going to say is that I am very sorry to have upset you. I did not mean to do that. I hope I never upset you again.

  Mrs. Lau says that boys mature slower than girls. She says that maybe you are not ready to talk about things like what I asked you about. She says I should respect that it upsets you and just not talk about it anymore. So that is what I will do.

  I want you to know that you’re my friend no matter what. OK?

  Yours truly,

  Meena

  Google News Item

  December 22, 2008, 4:56 p.m.

  Boulders Dislodged from Mine Site Crash into School; Building Destroyed, At Least Five Children Hurt

  (Black Banks, KY) A bank of rocks — left over from a mountain blasted by thousands of pounds of explosives at a coal mining site — crashed into a Kentucky middle school, leaving behind irreparable damage and injuring five children who were in the gymnasium during basketball practice.

  “It’s a miracle the boys weren’t killed,” said Carl Blanton, a parent of one of the injured basketball players at Daniel Boone Middle School. “If school hadn’t been out, there would have been dozens of dead children here.”

  Most of the boys’ injuries resulted from them trying to escape the approaching boulders, which were slowed down only by the thick walls of the gymnasium. However, the jolt of the boulders caused ceiling trusses to fall into the gymnasium and onto five of the boys.

  The largest of the boulders managed to break through an exterior door and struck Mark Combs, who remains in stable condition after his left leg was crushed by the three-ton boulder.

  The massive rocks — more than a dozen — rolled down a 1,500-foot-high embankment at a mountaintop removal mining site. Mountaintop removal is a controversial form of coal mining that has recently come under fire from citizens groups in the Appalachian Mountains. In this practice, the entire contour of the mountain is changed forever and waste — or overburden — is stored in nearby “valley fills,” impoundments containing rocks, dirt, and felled trees.

  Opponents of the mining practice say it was just a matter of time before someone was injured by the mining site, which stands atop Town Mountain, whose final slopes serve as the backyard to the school.

  The Environmental Protection Agency is on-site and assisting in the cleanup. The school’s principal, Harold Wright, who refused an interview for this story, would only say that the buildings are beyond repair and will have to be razed and rebuilt. In the meantime, when students return from their Christmas break, they will attend school at a local church and will take lunch in double-wide trailers that are being supplied by FEMA.

  The fate of the basketball team, which was on track for the state championship, is more uncertain. A local elementary school’s gymnasium is available for practice, but with so many team members out for the rest of the season, the coach is unsure about restructuring his team.

  “I can’t even think about that right now,” says Coach Ted Simpson. “These boys are like my own sons, and all I can think of right now is them getting better.”

  Local grassroots activists have been fighting the
mining practice for years and have been galvanized by the recent opening of the mine so close to the school. Nellie Justice is among the most vocal of those opponents. “We’ve been saying for years that something like this would happen,” Justice says. “They think we’ve fought hard before, but they’ve not seen anything yet. This means war.”

  Justice’s grandson, River Dean Justice, is one of the members of the team but was not harmed in the accident.

  From:

  Date: Dec 23, 2008 at 3:18 PM

  Subject: Very worried

  To: [email protected]

  We heard about your school and the boys on the basketball team getting hurt. I know you are alive but I am very, very, very, very worried. Please don’t take a long time to write me back. Last night I dreamed you were all bloody and had no teeth. I hope you are OK.

  Your friend,

  Meena

  P.S. This is Kiku’s e-mail but you can write me back here.

  From:

  Date: Dec 23, 2008 at 6:45 PM

  Subject: Re: Very worried

  To: [email protected]

  Meena,

  It was so good to see your e-mail. Thank you for worrying about me. I am all right but it was awful scary. I’ll tell you about it as soon as I can. They say that the boulder that came through weighed THREE TONS. You remember me talking about my best friend here, Mark? They say now that his leg is torn up so bad he’ll never play basketball again. I’ve been real upset for him. I better go for now, but I wanted to let you know that I’m OK and will write soon.

  If something like this ever happens again, you can call me at 606-553-4852. We should have given each other our phone numbers way back, but I just never thought of it. Sorry. I guess sooner or later we would have to break our rule about No E-mail.

  R

  25 December 2008

  Dear Meena,

  It is Christmas morning and the house is real quiet since everybody is still in bed, so I thought I’d write you. We open our presents on Christmas Eve, so all that is left to do today is open the stockings. Then later this afternoon we would usually have Christmas dinner, but not this year since we are going to the hospital to visit the boys who are still in there.

  I guess there is not much use in telling you all about it, because the whole country knows about it now. People let the big businesses get away with anything until the news gets involved. Mamaw says it’s only because a school is part of the story — and it also makes for a good Christmastime story because it’s sort of a miracle that we weren’t all killed. She says that they’ll forget all about us until the next time something like this happens. Mamaw says that mountain people get rediscovered every once in a while, but usually only when something bad happens.

  When my parents were little, there was a big mud slide caused by the coal company that killed 125 people. But people have forgotten about that, too, although everybody was all mad about it at the time. Mamaw says that people don’t really care about people here because they think we’re a bunch of stupid hillbillies who are looking for a handout. She said you’d understand that better than anybody, because people think that immigrants are all looking for a handout, too. She said that the stereotype is that Indians are smart, though, and either REAL poor or REAL rich. Mamaw says that the bad part is that people “reduce” us — hillbillies AND Indians — down to some kind of little “generalization.” These are her words. They sort of make sense to me, though.

  Anyway, I’ll try to make this quick as possible.

  We have to practice basketball even during Christmas break, which sucks, but Coach is pretty cool, and I really do think he makes us work so hard just because he cares about us. So we were at basketball practice and we’d been there about an hour. Had a pretty hard workout. Skins verses Shirts. Then all at once it felt like there was an earthquake. We have them here sometimes. The biggest one I’ve ever felt was a 6.5 on the Richter scale. This felt way stronger than that. We knew that they were blasting up on the mountain because we’d felt little tremors all day long, like it was running right under the hardwood of the gym floor. But this was a thousand times stronger than that. I truly thought the floor would stand up in front of us. It was like we all froze, not knowing what to do.

  Then we heard the first big rock slam into the side of the gym. My first thought was that a car had run into the wall. It hit so hard the wall buckled. I could see it, in slow motion, as the crack ran on up the ceiling and caused some of the humongous lights and rafters to fall. One of them fell right on Paul Jenkins. Right across his chest. I thought for sure he was dead, but turns out it just broke his ribs.

  Then the big boulder came right through the side door. It took out the door and parts of the wall around it and rolled right across the floor toward Mark. He just stood there. I hollered, “RUN!!!” as loud as I could. Later I found out that I had hollered so loud it hurt my throat. It’s still a little sore. Just when I said that, Mark jumped back but not completely in time, because the rock just smashed his leg. He passed out as soon as his leg was flattened.

  I started to run to him, but a big rafter fell right between us and I thought for sure he was a goner. Coach, too, because I had seen him running toward Mark, screaming and waving his arms.

  Then I figured out that I should run, too, because it seemed like the whole ceiling was caving in. I could hear the other boys behind me, hollering, but it was like they were way down in a well somewhere, they sounded so far away. So we ran out the door on the other side, and I looked up and it seemed like every bit of Town Mountain was rolling down to crush the school. All these big rocks, and lots and lots of real small ones, and a big wall of dirt.

  That’s when Coach came running out with Mark in his arms. I swear, Meena, there were two big rocks that came so close to him that I bet he felt the wind off of them. And then everything got real quiet. The strangest, deepest quiet I have ever known. Coach popped up and started counting everybody. He was like somebody wild. “Who am I missing?” he said, breathing hard, talking so fast spit was flying from his lips. “Who? Who’s not here?” He kept saying, more to himself than us, but then I told him we were all here. Four other boys were hurt pretty bad. But Mark was the worst. His leg looked like a piece of ragged meat and his face was going blue. There was blood everywhere. I saw it spreading out in a big pool around his leg. He was moaning, with his eyes rolled back in his head, and one of his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t stop looking at his hand because it was freaking me out the way it kept shaking. And that’s the last thing I remember for a while.

  Next thing I knew there were all kinds of sirens. Then we were at the hospital and I passed out. They said I was in shock. But I got OK. They gave me a Coke and a Little Debbie, which made me feel better.

  I couldn’t believe it, but my mom came to the hospital. I hadn’t seen her out and about in ages. But there she was. I know this sounds crazy, but I had forgotten how she moved. I was so glad to see her up and walking on her own, to not be lying down in bed with a washcloth on her forehead, that my first thought was that this was all worth it. I felt bad later, thinking that, especially because Mark may never walk again and they might even have to amputate his leg, although that’s not in the papers yet.

  Mom ran in with Mamaw close behind. Mom ran over and wrapped me up in her arms and then tears were just

  S

  T

  R

  E

  A

  M

  I

  N

  G

  down her face like little waterfalls. But I didn’t cry. I was so happy to see her, but I was numb, too. I don’t know how to explain it. But I thought, this is how a rock feels all the time.

  I guess people would say rocks don’t feel. But not feeling is a kind of feeling, too. Does that make any sense?

  Then Dad came running in, and I’ve never seen him so scared. He was as pale as a ghost, and once he saw that I wa
s all right, he actually had to run in the little bathroom there in the emergency room and throw up. Being scared messes with people in different ways, I reckon.

  Some of the boys are still in the hospital and all the news crews are camped out down there. I mean everybody. NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, every one of them. Mamaw has been on ALL of them. Have you seen her? You’d know it was her, instantly, especially since her last name is Justice, just like mine. Nellie Justice. I guess you don’t really know her name since I always call her Mamaw. But that’s her. Dad said she was “giving them hell.”

  Mamaw and this bunch of people she works with called Kentuckians for the Commonwealth are planning a big march on the state capital. There are movie stars and singers and writers coming to march, too. But mostly just regular people. And even coal miners. You won’t believe it but my mom and dad are going, too. Mamaw has everybody all fired up. She has been on the phone nonstop since it happened.

  Since all the rocks fell, it’s easier to see how much of Town Mountain they’ve taken. Used to be you really couldn’t see all the damage from down in the valley, but now it is just GONE. It makes me sick.

  I have thought of you many times through all of this and wondered what you were seeing on the news about it. I know it is a big news story but wonder how much you’ve seen. Let me know.

  They wanted to put me on the news but my parents said no. They have been showing the picture of the whole basketball team, so you might have seen me that way. It is weird to be on the news like that. Every time we turned on the TV for a couple days there I was in that group picture. Then they show the gym with all the rocks piled up against it. On one channel they have made up special music for when they talk about us, and they have this big movie title that glides onto the screen that says, “Christmas Miracle in Kentucky.” Mom says this is ridiculous, for news to have theme music. She has been better since all of this happened. I don’t know why. But anyway, now we just don’t even turn the television on.