Morning began with the sound of a door slamming.
“Man, you’re not living alone. Could you be a little quieter?”
Lin Wansheng’s complaint nearly burst out of his mouth.
But with wakefulness came a sliver of reason.
Especially when he thought of Ms. Lin’s brand of “loving education.”
He forced the words back down.
Even so, an irrepressible irritation welled up in his chest.
When he groped under his pillow and pulled out his phone.
He looked, and the screen showed the glaring time: 6:00 AM.
“F**k!”
When he came downstairs with his hair a mess and his face full of morning rage.
Father Lin was leisurely lighting a cigarette, lying on the recliner in front of the door as he waited for the delivery truck to arrive.
Hearing movement behind him, Father Lin struggled up from the recliner and craned his neck to look inside the store.
“Jimmy, you’re up?” Father Lin was a little surprised to see him.
“Aren’t you not training lately? Why not sleep a little longer?”
“Oh right, I’ve got good news for you.”
“These two weeks before school starts, you don’t have to help out in the store anymore.”
“That thing you said, quantitative change leading to qualitative change, turns out it was really accurate.”
“Your mom spent all yesterday afternoon talking to people on the street. From what I saw, she was communicating smooth as anything.”
Then he jerked his chin toward the depths of the store.
Qian Dawei was huffing and puffing as he moved boxes of drinks onto the shelves.
“From now on, your second uncle can handle the stock.”
“So, do you want to go back and rest a bit more?”
Although receiving such joyful news first thing in the morning was certainly worth celebrating—after all, it meant the greatest burden of his life had been lifted—
Lin Wansheng said nothing. He merely waved a hand, grabbed a steamed bun,
and walked out the door with a bellyful of resentment.
—
Even in midsummer, Xinxiang’s early morning carried a trace of chill.
Lin Wansheng headed toward the main street, and only when he passed Bloody Angle did the anger in his heart begin to dissipate.
He had just stepped onto Bowery Road.
Even though it was only six-thirty, the avenue was already awake.
Delivery trucks crowded the street, and the rolling shutters of the shops along the road made grating screeches.
Before he even reached the ATM, Lin Wansheng’s gaze was caught by the display window of a real estate agency on the corner.
Through several homeless men sleeping on cardboard,
he looked at the rental listings pasted on the glass.
Lower East Side, studio apartment, 6,600.
Lower East Side, studio apartment (basement), 4,700.
……
……
He had always known that rent near Chinatown was expensive, but he really had not expected it to be this expensive.
Just yesterday, he had heard Qian Dawei mention that the tiny room he lived in in Flushing was only forty-five dollars a day, utilities and internet included.
But it was far too unrealistic for him to live in Flushing.
From Flushing to school, if everything went smoothly, a round trip would take nearly three hours.
Just as he was about to give up,
a number suddenly made his eyes light up.
Only 900!
So he tried hard to lean closer and carefully made out the small line of text half-covered by other advertisements.
“Bed space for rent. Sixteen beds per room. Mixed-gender occupancy.”
Lin Wansheng straightened up and shook his head self-mockingly.
Forget it. Time to deposit money!
……
Listening to the ATM’s inner workings making printer-like clacking sounds,
Lin Wansheng’s mood completely improved.
Only then did he suddenly remember.
After coming back from Yellowstone National Park,
he had been busy exploring the system.
It had already been several days since he had gone to the gym.
Before this, he had thought that although he could not attend the team’s summer training camp, he at least needed to maintain his muscle condition.
And when it came to anything that could help him obtain a college scholarship, the Lin family was extremely supportive.
So they had gotten him a gym membership near home.
—
The position Lin Wansheng played was running back—the sharpest dagger in a ground battle.
The moment the quarterback handed the ball to him, he would be facing eleven burly men who wanted to tear him to pieces.
For precisely that reason, the demands placed on a running back were extremely harsh.
Because he was quick-witted and agile, he had always handled playing as an elusive running back with ease, and had even been given the nickname “Lightning Lin.”
Before eighth grade, he had always been the starting running back his coach valued highly.
After all, the routes drawn in the playbook were only theory.
When one was truly on the field, the path to the end zone sometimes had to be “seen” by the running back himself in the blink of an eye.
For an elusive running back like him, everything depended on speed and the ability to change direction, searching for opportunities on the outside and tearing open the opponent’s defense.
This style of play placed extremely high demands on lower-body explosiveness and physical flexibility.
So although training at the gym was only a drop in the bucket,
for him, having it was still better than having nothing.
The gym was on Bowery Road.
A few minutes later, Lin Wansheng pushed open the gym’s glass door.
This counted as one of the few large gyms in Chinatown.
When Linda at the front desk saw him walk in,
her eyes immediately lit up, and she subconsciously tucked a lock of long brown-dyed hair behind her ear.
She leaned forward slightly, her elbows propped on the counter. “Jimmy, you haven’t been here for days. That’s not like you.”
Lin Wansheng smiled. “I’ve been a little too busy these past few days. Couldn’t help it. Could I trouble you to get the clothes I left here before?”
“Of course,” Linda said, straightening up and winking at him.
“Don’t always be so polite.” She turned and walked toward the staff lounge at the back.
As she walked, she spoke in a tone that was intimate with a hint of complaint.
“Oh right, your clothes—I saw you hadn’t come for several days, and leaving them at the front desk didn’t seem right, so I washed them for you while I was at it. Wait a moment, okay?”
Unlike the old shops on the inner streets that had remained unchanged for decades,
this gym located on Bourne Street was clearly more willing to embrace change.
The equipment here was always the newest, and even among the coaching staff, one could occasionally see a few professional Black trainers.
That was not common in a traditional Chinatown community.
However, the Chinese tradition of wanting one’s own children to grow up right under one’s nose still remained unchanged.
So after hearing what Linda Chen said,
Boss Chen of the gym, who was wiping down equipment not far away,
could not help but roll his eyes so hard they were practically about to land on Lin Wansheng.
Lin Wansheng took the clothes Linda handed over, still carrying a floral fragrance.
After thanking her, he walked into the locker room.
There were actually quite a few people at the gym early in the morning.
At a glance, there were at least a dozen.
Lin Wansheng put on his earphones and began a slow jogging warm-up on the treadmill.
But his mind uncontrollably began calculating.
If he wanted to obtain a college football scholarship, there were two hard thresholds.
The first was academics. He had to complete the sixteen core courses required by the NCAA and keep his GPA from falling below the standard.
On this point, he had no problem at all.
But the other threshold, and the more crucial one, was the highlight reel.
College coaches would not only look at your stats on paper. They needed to see your performance on the field with their own eyes.
In other words, an impressive highlight reel was the only calling card that could knock open the door to a college team.
And this was precisely Lin Wansheng’s fatal weakness.
Throughout his entire eleventh-grade year, he had not obtained even a single minute of playing time.
That meant his highlight reel was completely blank.
And in high school sports, eleventh grade was the most critical year for a player’s exposure.
The core players on the team, like Mark and Kevin, had probably already sent their eleventh-grade highlight reels to scouts at dozens of colleges.
As for him, he was already a full year behind everyone else.
Thinking about how he could not even attend training camp, Lin Wansheng could only smile bitterly.
“Right now, I can only take the academic route.”