At five o'clock in the evening, Tommy Hawk took out the key and unscrewed the door lock, walked into the old-fashioned apartment he rented, and as soon as the door was opened, he saw that on the sofa in the living room, twenty-seven-year-old Aunt Melonie was watching TV with an ice pack on her cheek, Providence TV's free program, an old-fashioned documentary.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, Melonie turned around and saw Tommy Hawk standing at the door, then turned her face away, put down the ice pack in her hand, and wanted to pretend to be casual, and spoke in a mean and old-fashioned tone:

"Shouldn't you go to the laundry part-time? You already owe me two weeks' rent. ”

Tommy Hawk closed the door and walked up to Meloni, looking at her somewhat red and swollen cheeks:

"What happened?"

"It's nothing, it's a beauty, ice can make the skin firmer." Melonie got up from the couch, as if she was too lazy to continue talking to Tommy Hawke about the topic.

Tommy Hawke picked up Meloni's cheap Kimberly cigarette on the coffee table, lit one, and looked at the TV screen, where the "Great American Cowboy" documentary, which has been shown hundreds of times, was playing: "Okay, I guess your ex-boyfriend helped you with your pre-grooming preparations with the cowboy taming bison?" ”

"Hey! You can't smoke! At least you can't suck until your eighteenth birthday, which comes in half a month! Melonie frowned at Tommy's action of lighting a cigarette.

Tommy Hawk exhaled the smoke: "If you go to the school to report it, I will say that the cigarettes of my minor, are provided by you, an adult, forget it, Aunt Meloni, no one in our high school cares whether minors can smoke and drink at all." ”

"So, you didn't go part-time, just to come back and smoke a cigarette?" Melonie stared at Tommy Hawk: "What happened?" ”

"I heard that a group of white bastards smashed my part-time laundromat in the afternoon, and by the time I got over from school, the poor Chinese-American boss Sonny was so scared that he had run to Boston with his family, and I had to find a new part-time job." Tommy Hawk said in a somewhat irritated tone.

Melonie covered her slightly red and swollen left cheek, and nodded slightly after listening: "Well, compared to that Sonny, it seems that what happened to me is not worth mentioning." ”

Tommy sat on the couch with a cigarette in his mouth: "Don't those bastards understand that Asians are not the same as RB people!" They felt that the RB people had caused them to lose their jobs, so let the American army go to the RB and drop a few more atomic bombs. ”

"Knock knock~" There was a knock on the door from the outside.

Melonie tried to open the door, but Tommy Hawk stood up: "If it's your damn ex-boyfriend, I'll deal with it, Please, give me a chance to vent my frustration." ”

"If you fight, you're going to be in a lot of trouble, Tommy Hawk." Melonie didn't appreciate Tommy's words when she heard them, but warned with a cold face.

Tommy Hawk walked to the door and opened the door, and outside the door was his brother Tony, who was a year older than him, and when he saw Tommy who opened the door, Tony showed a kind smile:

"The look in your eyes wasn't very friendly when you opened the door, Tommy, hi, Aunt Meloni."

"Hi, Tony." Melonie was relieved to see that it was Tommy's brother, and reluctantly pulled the corners of her mouth in response to a smile.

Tony took the cigarette from Tommy's mouth and took a puff himself, then walked into the living room, saying as he walked:

"Long time no see."

"I haven't seen you for two weeks, and I guess you didn't come to visit me, after all, I said I didn't want to see you again before the SAT." Tommy said with an ugly face.

"I know, I know you don't want to be influenced to be a great scholar, Albert Einstein, but we're family, and we need you right now." Tony looked at Tommy and shrugged his shoulders with a smirk.

Tommy looked at Tony, "You're renting your home to those bastards for an ethanol party?" Want me to be a guest waiter? ”

"No, it's Dad, our dear Dad, now at the police station, although there is a bail bond company that can help guarantee it, but the down payment still needs two hundred yuan, and I only got one hundred and ten yuan, so ......" Tommy pursed his lips, withdrew his smile, and looked at Tommy Hawke seriously: "Ninety dollars." ”

"What did that idiot do?" Tommy Hawk exhaled in frustration, closed his eyes and turned to face the wall, not wanting to face the question.

Tony spat out a puff of cigarette: "It's nothing, he took a dozen poor workers who were just as angry as him because of their unemployment, smashed a laundry owned by RB people, and was told that the boss was not RB people." ”

“Bullsh!t！ This is the best news I have heard today, there is no better news than the father who smashed the shop where his son worked part-time, and then needed his son who was not yet eighteen years old, and took the money out to pay bail for him. Tommy Hawk laughed and said:

"I left home a month ago to rent a small bedroom at Aunt Meloni's house, and I had to work part-time for four hours a day to earn less than thirteen dollars, my bedroom rent was thirty dollars a week, my living expenses were compressed to twenty dollars a week, the registration fee for five AP exams was $100, and the SAT registration fee was twenty dollars, and I still wanted to work hard to save money, because I need to wait for the summer vacation to pay to attend some summer camps and complete some extracurricular activities, so that when I apply to college, the materials will look better, do you know how much money I have saved this month? No, not a penny. ”

He walked into his small bedroom, took out a stack of loose bills, and handed it to Tony: "You don't need to count it, it's just ninety-three dollars, and you took the two weeks' rent that I should have paid Aunt Meloni, as well as the registration fee I saved." ”

Tony took the money and said to Tommy puzzled, "Can't you just drop out of school like me?" What can you learn from college if you get a serious job? In addition to paying high tuition fees, in addition to taking out loans that take decades to pay off? What can you learn? I can learn a lesson, and teach my children not to be deceived by the U.S. government, to take on high college loans, and I can introduce a job with a good weekly salary......"

"Being admitted to a good enough university will allow me to avoid becoming a low-level trash like my father and you, which is a prerequisite for me to change my fate!" Tommy Hawk accentuated his tone and whispered to Tony.

The fierceness of the voice made Melonie in the far corner couldn't help but shrink her shoulders slightly.

"Sorry, brother." Tony saw Tommy's angry expression and nodded understandingly: "No problem, of course no problem, don't be a garbage like us, I wish you excellent grades at Rhode Island State Lincoln High School, which ranks 7,431st out of 21,000 high schools in the United States." ”

After he finished speaking, he shoved Tommy violently, and his face was instantly filled with anger: "You should show some respect to your father and me!" Brat! ”

"If you two don't just know how to take his pitiful savings from your brother or son, he might have a little more respect for you." Tommy smiled mockingly at Tony.

Tony's facial muscles trembled slightly, he nodded slightly, opened his arms and stepped back: "OK, although you laugh at me and my father, you have to remember that if you fail one day, I will only comfort you, not laugh at you, because you are my brother, we are family, and also, smashing the laundry of the RB people is not because Dad is a bastard, of course he is a bastard in your eyes, but the union will reward him with five hundred yuan for this, and when he gets it, I will ask him to return the money to you." ”

With that, Tony walked out of the room with the wad of change in his hand, slamming the door slamming it shut.

The force shook down the Protestant Bible calendar hanging on the door.

Tommy leaned against the wall, slammed his fist against the wall, and scolded in frustration, "Fu*k! Fu*k you America!”

"If you need an exam registration fee, I ...... I may receive a substitute fee in a few days. Melonie stood in the corner of the living room, looking at Tommy Hawk with her eyes closed and her face full of sinister face, and spoke in a cold voice.

Before she could finish speaking, Tommy opened his eyes and shook his head: "I can handle it, I can definitely sort out this shit-like life." ”

He straightened up, looked at the calendar that had fallen on the floor, picked it up, hung it back on the door, and stared at today's page in silence.

"What are you thinking?" Melonie noticed that Tommy had been silent for a long time, and asked behind her.

Tommy retracted his gaze and smiled gently at Meloni, "It's nothing, help me call the school tomorrow and take a day off, is it okay?" I think I need to solve the problem of food and clothing before I go all out to prepare for university. ”

Melonie took a few curious steps forward, following Tommy's gaze.

On the calendar page is written today's date of May 6, 1982, along with a Bible proverb:

"Life will encounter tribulation in this world, like Mars soaring."