Lay-ups and Long Shots (6 page)

by

Max Elliot Anderson

Nearly every town where Jeff Spencer had lived before came complete with a new bully. Jeff’s father was a salesman, and he moved the family around a lot.

Then in the last place where they lived . . . Jeff’s father died. That’s why he and his mother moved back to Boulder Creek.

“You’ll like it here,” she told him. “I grew up in this town, and now you will too.”

Unfortunately, Jeff had a big problem. And it wasn’t the sort of thing a guy could easily hide. One look as he came ambling down the sidewalk, and a neighborhood bully was sure to pop out of the bushes any second.

Then it happened.

“Hey,” a menacing voice called out.

Trying to act as tough as possible, Jeff answered, “Hey yourself.”

“What’s your name?” this frightening character demanded.

“Jeff. Jeff Spencer. What’s yours?”

The boy first looked him straight in the eye. Then his eyes drifted down until he was staring at Jeff’s feet. “People around here call me Denny. You a new kid or something?”

Jeff grinned. “No, I’m not new. I’ll be thirteen on my next birthday.” Jeff took a half step back. He thought about making a run for his house, but he knew he’d never make it. Then he looked back to Denny. “Me and my mom just moved in. Why?”

“I’ll ask the questions around here,” Denny threatened. Then he looked down again. “What’s wrong with your foot?”

Jeff looked down and raised it slightly off the sidewalk. “This thing? I get around on it okay. Do you go to school near here?”

Why do you care?”

“Because I thought we might be in the same one. I’m goin’ out for football this year.”

Denny nearly doubled up with laughter. After he caught his breath he said, “Be serious. With a foot like that you can’t run fast, or you’d have done that already.” He slowly shook his head. “And you can’t jump high, that’s for sure.” Jeff managed to leave without a fight.

In his new school Jeff heard some of the same comments as in all the other places he’d lived before. The worst part of his day happened as he walked from one class to the next. Guys lined both sides of the hallway just to watch him stumble along. Denny was their leader.

But this year, Jeff had a little surprise. He called it his secret weapon. Even his mother didn’t know about it.

Then one afternoon, he spotted something on the bulletin board outside the football coach’s office. Jeff read the words silently.
Attention! Football tryouts today! Meet on the practice field at four o’clock.

He was just about to leave when a familiar voice taunted, “You gotta be kidding me,” Denny scoffed.

Jeff turned around, expecting only to see Denny. He saw him all right, but it looked like the entire football team stood next to him. They began moving toward Jeff when Coach Davis came out of his office. “Hey. What’s going on here?”

Denny raised his hands and cocked his head to one side. “Nothing.”

Mr. Davis studied Denny and his friends for a moment and then turned to Jeff. “Is there a problem here?”

Jeff looked to the mob, and shook his head.

The coach folded his arms and looked back at the boys. “If you have anything to settle, take it out to the practice field.” He pushed his way through the guys on either side of Denny.

Denny slowly nodded as he jammed his finger into Jeff’s chest. “Yeah. Like Coach said. I’ll see you on the practice field.”

When the team manager handed out equipment, he had no trouble until he looked at Jeff’s feet.

“I take a size nine for my left foot, and the biggest thing you got for my right.”

The coach met him around the fifty-yard line. “You sure about this?” he asked. Jeff nodded, but no matter how hard he tried, it was impossible to keep up. Because he was so slow, the coach started him out at center. Denny took that opportunity to make sure he and his friends squashed Jeff like a bug.

All during the day, the team gave him a rough time in school, and at practices they made his life even more miserable.

Then at the end of practice on the Friday before their first game, the coach took Jeff to one side. The rest of the team continued working on drills and Denny practiced kicking field goals from the twenty-yard line.

“Listen, son,” Coach began. “I admire the way you come out here, day after day, and take the kind of pounding these guys dish out. But why don’t you think about becoming one of the managers?”

Jeff slowly shook his head, his voice cracked slightly as he said, “No sir.”

“Be reasonable, Jeff. You can’t run like the other guys, and you can’t jump as high. There’s not much more a player can do for a team than that.”

“I wanna be the kicker.”

“Nobody’s gettin’ my job,” Denny threatened. “My dad was the kicker when he played here. So was my uncle.”

“There’s only one way to find out.” The coach blew his whistle and announced, “Get me a ball.” The team proceeded out to the twenty-yard line.

“Best out of five tries,” the coach bellowed. Five times the ball was placed and five times Denny put it squarely between the uprights. After his final kick he shuffled off the field with pride.

“Spencer! You’re next,” Coach ordered.

Jeff stepped forward. “Coach?”

“Yes?”

“Could we move the ball for my turn?”

The rest of the team groaned as Coach Davis shook his head. “It wouldn’t be fair to move it closer, just for you.”

Jeff straightened up, threw back his shoulders, and asked, “Closer? I don’t want the ball closer.”

“Then what?” his coach asked.

“I wanted to try from farther back.”

Several of the players jeered.

“How far back?” the coach asked.

“Yeah, how far back?” Denny taunted. “The thirty?”

Jeff shook his head. “Put it on the thirty-five.”

That caused an uproar from the whole team, but Coach Davis ordered the holder to take up his position.

Jeff limped over, carefully measured off his steps, then leaned forward. Three steps later he buried his big right foot into that ball. The pigskin rocketed off the ground, soared into the air, and cleared the goalposts with three feet to spare.

Every mouth on the team, including the manager’s and coach’s dropped open. A collective gasp followed.

“Can you do that again?” one of the players squealed.

Jeff took four more turns, and each kick was perfect.

“How did you ever learn to do that?” the coach asked.

Jeff looked toward the ground. “It was the last thing my dad taught me. I might be able to have an operation some day, but he said this foot was a special gift.”

Finally, since Denny knew so much about kicking, Coach made him the holder. Jeff may not have been able to run fast. And it’s true that he couldn’t jump very high. But man . . . could that boy ever kick a football.

Peggy Duffy

Peggy Duffy grew up in Yonkers, New York, at a time when girls did not play sports. She buried herself in books instead and managed to survive childhood. Like her character Tina, she had lots of experience with parental embarrassment. Duffy is a first generation American whose parents’ first language is not English. This has led to a lifelong fascination and exploration through her writing of how people communicate in a language that is not their native one.

Duffy lives in Centreville, Virginia, with an extremely smart husband and an affectionate cat, who perches on her lap while she writes. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University and has overcome her childhood inertia. She runs two miles a day. Her two daughters and son (now grown) finally taught her how to play soccer.

by

Peggy Duffy

My mother, she doesn’t understand at all.

I tell her, Coach says if we don’t come to soccer practice, we don’t get to play in the game on Sunday.

She says, “I need you come shopping with me.” I nod my head and obey. It is Korean way. Come Sunday I sit on the bench, hanging my head, wanting more than anything to get my foot on the ball. The final score is one to one. Tie game. I know if the coach had put me out on the field, I would have helped score a goal.

After the game, Coach says, “Coming to practice tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I say.

When I get home, I take off my cleats and leave them outside the door beside the new navy blue shoes I helped my mother buy last week. I told the man which ones she wanted to try on, what size she wore, which pair she finally decided to buy. I counted out the money and made sure she got the correct change.

“How was game?” my mother asks. She is at the kitchen sink draining salted water from chopped cabbage for kim chi.

“Okay. How was church?” I say.

She never comes to the games. Sunday is church day. I go to church in the morning, but my mother stays all day. Everyone in church speaks Korean. Sunday is why after three years in the United States my mother has never learned to speak English. No more than a few words.
Hello. Yes, please. Thank you very much.
She makes do by smiling and nodding her head like a bouncy ball, pretending she understands.

My mother, she doesn’t understand at all.

I was in the sixth grade when we moved here for father’s job. “You get to learn English,” my grandmother said when she kissed me good-bye at the airport. “How lucky is that?”

Not lucky at all. I wasn’t placed in a regular classroom. I was placed in a special class. No one else in the class spoke Korean. No one but the teacher spoke English. All day long we colored pictures. Pictures of houses. Pictures of family. Pictures of food. There were lines and loops printed beneath each picture. “These are letters,” the special teacher said. “These letters make words.”

I didn’t learn English in the special class. I didn’t learn English from father who works long days and comes home too tired to speak even in Korean with me and mother.

I learned English from watching TV. I learned that my last name, Song, is American word for music. I like American music. More than anything, I wanted to know what their songs said. So every day after school I sat in front of the TV. One day it clicked what all those words meant. Americans sing of love. They sing of heartbreak. They sing of hope. They don’t sing of obedience.

My teacher was so proud. She moved me into the regular class. My mother was so happy. She no longer needed to point to what she wanted at the store. She had me to talk.

At the sink my mother holds the cabbage under running water to rinse off the salt. She washes each piece three times. “Tomorrow I have errands to run,” she says in Korean.

“Tomorrow I have soccer practice,” I say in same language.

“Why always soccer practice?”

“Coach say,” I tell her. I think she should understand such loyalty. But I forget. She gives me a look to help me remember. I am only child. I am also oldest daughter. Oldest daughter’s responsibility is first to mother.

“Please, coach won’t let me play if I don’t go,” I say.

“Is not so important, this game,” she says. She tightens her lips and goes to work mixing green onions with garlic, chiles, ginger and water. Then she pours the mixture over the cabbage and stirs everything up in a big crock. A scowl is etched into her face, and her eyes disappear beneath tiny folds of skin. She thinks I should play the violin or the cello and be in the school orchestra. Or twirl around in a leotard in front of a wall of mirrors at dancing school and be in a recital on stage.

But I am a big girl, not little like she. I am stocky girl, thickset like grandfather way back in father’s family. My fingers are too wide to press on one violin string without causing the one next to it to squawk like the geese we feed in the park, my feet too clumsy to stand long on toes for ballet. I topple over to one side. But I am a good soccer player. I run fast and have what Coach calls ‘a big foot’ that can kick the ball far up the field. He says I have a good chance of making the high school varsity team in a few years, but I need lots of play time with my club team. I want to tell this to my mother, but I don’t know how to make her understand. I don’t even know Korean word for varsity.

“There,” my mother says, spooning the cabbage mixture into a large jar. “In a few days’ time we have kim chi.”

“In one day’s time I have soccer practice.”

“When?”

“Four o’clock.”

She lowers a lid onto the jar. “Not done with errands by four o’clock.”

I lower my eyes to the floor.

In English I say, “Thank you, thank you very much.” I say it in a way that Americans call sarcastic, but I say it very soft, under my breath, so far under that I know the words will not rise to my mother’s ears.

I do not want to disobey my mother, but if I don’t go to practice today, there is no hope of me playing in the game and that would break my heart. So I do a very disobedient thing. When I leave for school the next day, I slip my cleats and shin guards into my backpack along with my books.

After school I go to the field and wait for everyone else to show up. Coach says, “Well Miss Song, I see you’ve finally decided to make a commitment to the team.”

“Yes,” I say. There’s a note of that American sarcasm in his voice, but I pretend I don’t hear it.

I practice hard. It is a hot day, the air sticky like fresh steamed rice. Sweat clings to my face. We practice drills for over an hour—foot skill drills, sprinting drills, give-and-go passing drills. Coach announces one last drill. I pass the ball, wipe the hot, salty sweat from my eyes and see my mother at the edge of the field, umbrella held high to keep the sun off her face. Even from this distance, I can’t miss the scowl etched deep into the corners of her mouth. I run up the field to receive a pass, kick with the inside of my foot, but my timing is off. The ball boomerangs off my cleat and lands out of bounds.

Coach calls us off the field and divides us into two groups for a scrimmage. He nods his head toward where my mother stands. I don’t look like my mother, but I am the only Korean girl on the team. It is easy for Coach to figure out whose mother she is.

Coach says, “She here to pick you up?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Okay, fifteen more minutes and you can go.”

But after the scrimmage, Coach decides we need to run. He tells us to do four laps around the field. I run hard as I can, pumping my legs so fast and hard they hurt, breathing even faster and harder until my lungs seem to gasp for air all on their own and my chest doesn’t seem big enough to hold them. I run through all that pain. In a game it will be hot and tiring too, and I don’t want to let my team down. I don’t want to let my mother down either, but it is too late. I already have. I see the disappointment in her face each time I run past where she is standing behind the goal line.

When I finish the last lap, I see Coach walking toward my mother. I run over and beat him to her, still breathing hard, the sweat wet on my skin. My mother gives me a hard look, her lips held in a tight line, but then her face grows softer, eyes appearing again, as the Coach catches up to us.

Coach says, “So you’re Tina’s mom. It’s good to meet you.” He offers his hand.

My mother knows this American custom. She places her hand in his and shakes.

“Hello,” she says, the big, toothy smile fixed on her mouth like it was painted on. I welcome a slight breeze, feel it dry the sweat on me, cooling my skin.

Coach says, “I’m glad to have Tina on my team. She’s strong and fast and not afraid of the ball. And can she ever kick!”

My mother nods her head, teeth still showing. She is all white, like a soccer ball, with her pale skin the sun never shines on and her light teeth. “Thank you, thank you very much.”

“Now we have to see about getting her to practice more,” Coach says.

My mother nods again. The smile on her face stretches until the corners of her lips rise to the bottom of her ears, and her eyes look like two skinny caterpillars drawn in black crayon across the middle of her face. “Yes, please,” she finally says.

Coach stands there for a long awkward silence. I know this silence.

“My mother doesn’t understand,” I say. He looks at me with his own frown of not understanding.

“She doesn’t speak English,” I add.

“Tell her I’m very glad to meet her and I think you are a good soccer player,” he says, speaking very slowly and much too loud. I know this custom too. People always talk in this manner when they need me to translate. Like I can’t hear if they don’t raise their voices. Like I can’t remember the words if they don’t string them together with big empty spaces in between. I feel my face turn hot, even hotter than it felt running around the field.

My mother looks at me, waiting to hear what Coach has said. Very soft and fast, I tell her. My mother nods at Coach and says, “Thank you. Thank you very much.” Her face is red and getting redder, but not from the sun. Not from the heat of running. Red like I have never seen on my mother’s face.

Like she doesn’t know anything just because she doesn’t know English.

I turn and say something to her in Korean, not so softly this time. She says something back. Coach looks like he is waiting for me to translate again, but these words are only for my mother and me. I say something else to her and she smiles, but it is not painted-on smile.

What did I say? I said, “I’d like to see him try and speak Korean.”

And she said, “It is not so easy to learn a language when you are old.”

And I said, “You are not old. It just takes work and time, like to make kim chi. And you have me to teach you English. How lucky is that?”

Pretty lucky, from the smile on her face.

On the way to the car, she says, “Coach is not so nice. You really want to play soccer with him?”

“I love to play soccer,” I say. “And this is the only chance I have to make the high school team one day.”

She nods her head like maybe she understands. Then I think, this is America. Here you can fall in love and get your heart broken, but there is always hope. So I say, “Next week I have a game on Saturday.”

She doesn’t go to church on Saturday.

“Maybe,” she says, “Maybe I come to game on Saturday.

“Thank you, thank you very much,” I say, in that way Americans call sincere.