America 1982

Author: A spoonful of the past

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: In life, one must face adversity

At five in the evening, Tommy Hawk took out his key, turned the lock, and walked into his rented old apartment. As soon as he pushed the door open, he saw his 27-year-old aunt Melanie sitting on the living room sofa with an ice pack on her cheek, watching television. Providence TV Station's perennial free program, an old documentary, was on.

Upon hearing the door open, Melanie turned around and saw Tommy Hawk standing at the doorway. She then turned her face away, put down the ice pack, and tried to act nonchalant. With a sharp and old-fashioned tone, she began:

"Weren't you supposed to be at the laundromat for your part-time job? You already owe me two weeks' rent."

Tommy Hawk closed the door behind him and walked up to Melanie, eyeing her somewhat swollen cheek:

"What happened?"

"Nothing, just getting a beauty treatment. Ice helps tighten the skin." Melanie got up from the sofa, as if she was reluctant to continue this topic with Tommy Hawk.

Tommy Hawk picked up a cheap Kimberley cigarette from Melanie's coffee table, lit one up, and looked at the television screen, which was playing "The Great American Cowboy," a documentary that had been shown hundreds of times: "Alright, I'm guessing your ex-boyfriend did some cowboy-style wild bull taming as part of the prep for your beauty treatment?"

"Hey! You can't smoke! At least not until your eighteenth birthday that's half a month away!" Melanie frowned when she saw Tommy lighting the cigarette.

Tommy Hawk replied, "If you report me to the school, I'll say that this underage guy got his cigarettes from you, the adult. Forget it, Aunt Melanie. No one in our high school really cares if minors smoke or drink."

"So, you skipped out on your job just to come back and have a smoke?" Melanie stared at Tommy Hawk: "What happened?"

"I heard that a bunch of white jerks smashed up the laundromat where I worked this afternoon. By the time I got there after school, poor Sunny, the Asian shop owner, had already been scared into fleeing to Boston with his family. Now I've got to find another part-time job," Tommy Hawk said, his tone tinged with irritation.

Melanie touched her slightly swollen left cheek, nodding after hearing this: "Alright, compared to Sunny, my troubles hardly seem worth mentioning."

Tommy sat down on the sofa: "Don't those bastards understand that Asians aren't Japanese! They think the Japanese are causing their unemployment, so why not have the United States military go drop a few more atom bombs on Japan."

"Knock, knock, knock~" Someone knocked on the door from outside.

Melanie made to answer it, but Tommy Hawk stood up: "If it's that damn ex-boyfriend of yours, let me handle him. Please, give me a chance to vent the frustrations in my heart."

"If you get into a fight, it will cause a lot of trouble, Tommy Hawk," Melanie warned with a cold expression upon hearing Tommy's words.

Tommy Hawk went to the door and opened it; outside stood his brother Tony, a year older than he was. Seeing Tommy open the door, Tony greeted him with a friendly smile:

"You don't look too welcoming for someone answering the door, Tommy. Hi, Aunt Melanie."

"Hi, Tony." Melanie, relieved to see it was Tommy's brother, managed a strained smile in response.

As Tony walked into the living room, he said:

"Long time no see."

"It's only been two weeks, and I'm guessing you didn't come all this way just to see me—especially since I've told you I don't want to see you again before my SAT exams," Tommy said, his expression sour.

"I know, I know you don't want to be distracted from becoming a great scholar, Einstein, but we're family, and the family needs you right now," Tony said, looking at Tommy with a half-smile, shrugging his shoulders.

Tommy looked at Tony: "Did you rent our home out to those jerks for an ethanol party again? Want me to moonlight as a waiter?"

"No, it's Dad, our dear Dad, who is now at the police station. Although a bail bond company can help with the guarantee, the down payment still needs two hundred bucks, and I only got a hundred and ten, so..." Tommy pursed his lips, reigned in his smile, and looked seriously at Tommy Hawk, "Ninety bucks."

"What did that idiot do?" Tommy Hawk exhaled in frustration, closed his eyes, turned around, and faced the wall, not wanting to deal with this problem.

Tony blew out a puff of cigarette smoke, "Nothing much, he just gathered a dozen or so workers, all angry about being unemployed like him, and smashed a Japanese-owned laundry shop. Only after smashing the place did they find out, the owner wasn't Japanese."

"Bullsh!t! That's the best news I've heard today, a father smashing the shop where his son works part-time, and then needing his son, not yet eighteen, to scrape together the money to pay his bail. There's no better news than that," Tommy Hawk said with a wry smile.

"I left home a month ago to rent the small bedroom in Aunt Melanie's house, working four hours a day part-time, earning less than thirteen US dollars. My bedroom rent is thirty US dollars a week, I cut my weekly living expenses down to twenty US dollars, the registration fee for five AP exams is a hundred US dollars, the SAT registration fee is twenty US dollars, and I still want to save up, because I need to pay to attend some summer camps and complete some extracurricular activities when summer comes, making my applications look more impressive. You know how much money I've saved up this month? None, not a single cent."

After speaking, he went into his cramped bedroom, took out a wad of crumpled bills, and handed them to Tony, "No need to count it, exactly ninety-three US dollars. You take away the two weeks' rent that I should have paid Melanie and the registration fees I had saved up."

Tony took the money and said, puzzled, "Can't you just drop out of school like me? Find a real job. What will college teach you? Besides paying exorbitant tuition fees, besides accruing a debt that would take decades to repay? What else can you learn? Maybe a lesson not to be fooled by the United States government into accruing crippling college loans. I can introduce you to a well-paying job…"

"Getting into a sufficiently good college is a precondition for me to avoid ending up like a low-life trash, like my father and you. That's a precondition for changing my fate!" Tommy Hawk said with emphasis, lowly growling at Tony.

The ferocity in his voice made Melanie in the corner of the room involuntarily shrink her shoulders slightly.

"Sorry, brother," Tony said, nodding in understanding after seeing Tommy's angry expression, "No problem, of course no problem. Don't end up like us trash. I wish you achieve outstanding results at Lincoln High School in Rhode Island, ranked 7,431 out of 21,000 high schools nationwide."

Having said this, he shoved Tommy hard, his face instantly filling with anger, "You ought to show some respect for your father and me, boy!"

"If you two didn't only know how to take away the pitiful savings from a brother or a son, perhaps he might respect you a little bit more." Tommy said to Tony with a mocking smile.

With his facial muscles twitching slightly, Tony gave a slight nod, stepped back with his arms open, "OK, go ahead and mock me and Dad, but remember, if you fail one day, I will only console you, not mock you, because you are my brother, we're family. Also, smashing the Japanese laundry wasn't because Dad's a screw-up, though he is in your eyes, but the union is going to reward him five hundred bucks for it. When he gets it, I'll make him pay it back to you."

After finishing, Tony clutching the wad of bills, walked out the room and slammed the door shut from the outside.

The force was so great it knocked down the Protestant Bible calendar hanging on the door.

Tommy leaned against the wall and punched it hard, cursing under his breath, "Fu*k! Fu*k you, America!"

"If you need the exam registration fee, I... I might receive some substitute teaching money in a few days," Melanie stood in the corner of the living room, looking at Tommy Hawk with his eyes closed and an angry expression, speaking in a detached tone.

Before she could finish, Tommy opened his eyes, shook his head, "I can handle it, I can definitely sort out this shitty life."

He straightened up, looked at the calendar on the floor, picked it up, and hung it back on the door, staring silently at the page for today.

"What are you thinking about?" Melanie, noticing Tommy's lengthy silence, asked from behind.

Tommy averted his gaze, showing a gentle smile towards Melanie, "Nothing, could you please call the school tomorrow and ask for a day off for me? I want to make sure I have food and shelter sorted out before I put my all into preparing for college."

Melanie stepped forward curiously, looking where Tommy's gaze had just been.

The calendar page showed the date for today, May 6, 1982, along with a biblical proverb:

"Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward."

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