Sparrow (F)

My name is Tara Li.  I got my nickname when I was 13 from the captain of the varsity soccer team. Her name was Becky Carr and she was the biggest and meanest girl on the field and she liked how I was so fast and could dart in and out and bug the crap out of the other girls with my quick feet. So she called me Sparrow. Besides, she knew I could never hurt her.

My mother picked the name Tara for me after she asked some of my aunts for advice about naming me, me being the first American-born baby and all. They all loved Gone with the Wind, and even my grandmother approved. Turns out that my grandmother didn’t approve much.

I remember one night my 8^th grade composition teacher came into the family take-out and she saw me in bare feet, mopping the kitchen floor. I had bruises all over my shins from playing soccer on the weekends with mostly boys in the park down the street from our trailer. Monday at school Mrs. Tarsey asked me if my parents were beating me with a broom or something. I laughed and that made her mad. But she calmed down and told me to wear my shin guards. But the boys didn’t.

Mrs. Tarsey always came in on Sunday nights and got a quart of wonton soup. I never saw her husband with her.

My mother did chase me with a broom sometimes and she did yell when there were no customers. About doing my homework and staying away from boys. My father didn’t fuss at me. He was more relaxed about everything than my mother. He wanted me to do good in school, but he would let my mother be angry or upset, and then he would make her laugh and it would be okay for a while.

My mother would remind me that my father was not Han like her. I wanted to tell her that didn’t mean anything to me, but she was so serious about it and I didn’t want her to yell at me.

My geography teacher liked the fried rice, the house special one.  He talked to my father about how good the school was and how lucky I was to be in the district and how if I got good grades I might get a better soccer scholarship when I finished high school. Mr. Warmsett didn’t really like kids, but his wife was the assistant principal and he didn’t have anything better to do. 

That’s what we decided. He got all excited when he could take out an old globe and walk it around the class and lean it at us like he was acting out the seasons. He got a pint of fried rice just about every day after school. Not on Fridays.

I messed up my right knee the first day of practice in 9^th grade. When I was on the grass and holding my leg, I didn’t cry. All the other girls except for Becky went over and sat on the bench. Nobody was saying anything. The trainer told me I would have to go to the hospital in an ambulance. They used the siren coming out to the school, but they didn’t taking me to the hospital. I kind of hoped they would.

I broke my right ankle half way through the season my junior year. I missed the rest of the games. I went to the hospital in Coach D’s car. She told me not to worry about it, that I would be okay. Coach D was kind of cool even if she yelled a lot during the game. She never yelled in practice. She called us young ladies all the time. 

We all liked it when her husband would bring their two-year-old out to the home games because he was really cute. Her husband was pretty nice too. I got to babysit for them sometimes. I liked that because then I didn’t have to work in the kitchen that night.

Just before graduation I found out that most of the kids in my honors classes didn’t work at jobs. I did all my homework on a little table next to the coolers in the back of the restaurant. I washed hundreds of big pots, made broths, mopped the floor every hour. I really liked physics and math and how I could get the right answers once I knew what I was doing.

I didn’t play soccer my senior year. Coach D tried to talk me into it every day for weeks. I got a 1420 on my SAT and got good grades, so I decided to quit playing and just study and do some fun stuff.

I knew I would be called a quitter and I was. I was just tired. I was kind of tired of being tired. I was always sore too. I just didn’t want to hurt. I didn’t want to be tired anymore.

Going to college is pretty good. I only have to work on the weekends.

My grandmother said when sparrows are caught and put in cages they will starve themselves to death. Bet Becky didn’t know that.  Ladson 2014