America 1982-Chapter 450 - 74: Substitute for the Dove

At the Manuel Vacation Resort, a beautiful Cuban lady was busy arranging the massage bed, preparing for the upcoming SPA massage, while her guest was making a disgruntled phone call with a look of displeasure on his face.

"You’re lying, Jason! You can’t make that much money, can you? You’re just jealous that you didn’t come up with the genius idea of feeding laxatives to pigeons, so you lie," Tommy said, clutching the phone in his hotel room and challenging Jason, who was far away in the remote little town of Sacramento, California.

"Come on, just admit you’re lying! You couldn’t make over seven hundred bucks unless you took a side job acting in a little film to make a quick buck."

When Tommy called Jason, he wanted to brag about making over six hundred dollars on his first day and offer some consolation to Jason and Susy who, in his imagination, were now in Sacramento, queueing for food aid and sleeping in tents according to the script. He had no ill intentions; he simply wanted to comfort them.

But now, the situation was that this pair of fickle lovers didn’t need his comfort at all. They’d made even more money than him, a good seven hundred dollars or more, and were currently living happily in the most expensive hotel in the small city of Sacramento. Jason even bragged to Tommy that Susy had bought herself a new lingerie set with the money she’d earned to show him.

Hearing Tommy’s disbelief about the money he’d made, Jason boasted, "I admit I didn’t come up with the genius idea, but Susy did. We’re in Sacramento, where there are a lot of Korean men working, and Susy thought she could make money off them."

"So, you let your pretty girlfriend seduce Korean men? That’s not the American Dream at all! You’re cheating! But, I feel much better after hearing this; I still think I’m the best..." Tommy immediately responded. But before he could finish his newfound sense of relief, Jason cut him off and dampened his improving mood, adding,

"On the contrary, Susy’s idea was to help Korean men realize the American Dream. She had hosted Koreans in Los Angeles before and knew what compliments they wanted to hear from American women. So she hired a silver-tongued Korean man for twenty bucks to play the salesman and pretend to be her husband. Can you imagine the look on those Korean guys’ faces when they see a fellow countryman with a beautiful blonde American wife and a green card? They almost took him to an interrogation room, torturing him to reveal the secret to his success."

"So what’s the secret to his success?" asked Tommy, already harboring ill thoughts upon hearing Susy’s idea. Who would have thought that Jason, just going on a vacation, would bring along his mentally unstable but sharp girlfriend? It should be considered cheating and disqualify Jason from the show.

Jason said, "Deception. The man told those Koreans that he’d deceived Susy before they got married with a fake photo, successfully tricking her into marrying him, and that it was all my doing. I’m the founder of the ’pull-a-chicken camera’."

"What the hell is that camera?" Tommy was stunned for a moment before asking.

"The ’pull-a-chicken camera’; Susy came up with the name," Jason repeated.

"It’s basically tricking those Koreans into thinking that if they use my camera for their pictures, the camera can automatically identify the club and extend it by a bit. Those Korean guys were thrilled because Susy had her hired Korean man take a picture of his club. They then visited a computer store under the guise of trying out software, and deliberately stretched the picture with computer software. When those Korean paupers saw the length of the club on the picture, comparable to Mandingo, they were ecstatic. And with a beauty like Susy continuously provoking them, it made them believe that just by taking a picture with the club, they could deceive women of her caliber into marriage and staying in the United States. They completely abandoned the idea of thinking with their brain and started queuing up for me to take pictures for them to deceive American women with. I said the film was specially made and very expensive, charging ten dollars per photo, and made a killing, brother."

"The ’pull-a-chicken camera’, damn, that’s a genius idea..." Tommy vigorously rubbed his face and said, "Remember this ’pull-a-chicken camera’; when the software industry develops further, and the technology in hardware and software really matures to achieve the ’pull-a-chicken’ effect, we’ll actually develop such an app and sell it in Korean and Japanese markets."

Tommy sighed, "Although I don’t want to admit it, my pigeon and laxative idea is slightly inferior to your chicken camera and the Korean guy."

"Remember, Tommy, a bet’s a bet, and you’re definitely going to lose," Jason said smugly.

Stubbornly, Tommy retorted, "I’m only losing because I brought Martin along. If it had been Dennis or Pam, any one of them by my side, you would have definitely lost to me. They are the partners that really let me use 100% of my fight power with their wild ideas."

"Actually, hearing about your whole day dealing with bird poop has made me feel a lot better." Jason suddenly lowered his voice and slowly said:

"You know, Susy is just in charge of coming up with ideas and showing off her beauty, while I, on the other hand, was in a sweaty Korean guy’s apartment taking pictures of probably more than seventy Korean dicks. I bore a burden that a straight man should not have to bear, even trying to hypnotize myself into thinking I was gay and should be happy seeing so many dicks. What sucks even more is that I have to go to the computer store tomorrow to borrow a computer to help with photoshopping those seventy-plus dick pics to elongate them."

"Hearing you say that makes me feel a lot better too, after all, I didn’t have to deal with bird poop, nor did I encounter a situation surrounded by more than seventy dicks." Imagining the scene Jason might have gone through, Tommy instantly felt happier, "Koreans think they can achieve the American Dream with an elongated dick pic? This joke will get me through all the boring times this year. By the way, did the production crew try to stop you from helping the Koreans achieve the American Dream?"

Jason admitted honestly, "Uh... seems like they tried to dissuade us, but we didn’t care, there’s still you and another team, right? So we didn’t pay attention to the film crew’s advice."

"So, what you’re saying is, that idiot Stephen hired three groups of us for the show, and the material from two of the groups might not even be usable." Tommy said, laughing.

Jason also laughed, "Be optimistic, maybe the material from all three groups will be unusable. What are you planning to do tomorrow?"

"I’m going to continue feeding pigeons; I think I could do it for at least three days. What about you?"

"Susy says she’s planning to try setting up a prostitute training class to teach local women the high-end services from Los Angeles, to increase their market competitiveness. I’m going to the computer store to freeload some computer time, helping the Koreans elongate their dicks."

"You’re the white supremacist of the SSD Fraternity, and your entrepreneurial method is to elongate dicks for Koreans?"

"And you, mister former chairman of Stanford’s SSD, has Stanford University’s four-year education only taught you how to feed pigeons laxatives? Admit it, you’re just jealous of me, Tommy. I’ll send you one of my dick pics as a Christmas card, you’re welcome, good night, I’m going to enjoy some intimate time with Susy."

Tommy swore, "F*ck," and hung up the phone with an unhappy face. Grinding his teeth, he looked at the masseuse preparing for his full body SPA, then got up and walked out to the balcony, yelling loudly into the neighboring guest room, "Martin! Martin!"

Martin walked out onto the next balcony, "What’s up, boss... I’m not about to assassinate you, am I? Mr. Page, why would you appear from the balcony of the room behind the boss’s?"

Tommy turned around and saw old Page leaning on the balcony of another guest room, holding a can of beer and sizing up the two men.

"OK, Mr. Page can also be a judge," Tommy lit a cigarette and told the two people about the recent news he had learned that Jason was considering a pigeon-drawing app:

"What do you think is cooler, our way of making money or Jason and Susy’s pigeon camera?"

"That woman is as cool as you," Martin honestly said, "Maybe... just a bit cooler than you, boss."

Tommy turned his head to look at Page, who also nodded, speaking succinctly, "Pigeon."

"Why are you so fixated on this question, boss?" Martin asked Tommy.

Tommy rubbed his face, "Because we had made a bet earlier, and the stakes were high, high enough that the loser would have a hard time accepting the outcome."

"Lost a lot of money?"

"No, much worse than losing money."

At that moment, the Cuban girl walked up to the balcony coquettishly and smiled at Tommy, "Sir, I’m ready, you can enjoy your massage now."

Tommy flicked away his cigarette butt and followed the Cuban girl out of sight above the balcony.

Martin, seeing Tommy leave, was also ready to go back to his room, but before he could turn around, he saw a heart-wrenching scene: a massage girl had miraculously appeared on old Page’s balcony, beckoning Page to go back to the room with her.

"Boss, why don’t I have employee benefits?" he couldn’t help but shout from the balcony in the direction of Tommy’s room.

Tommy’s head popped out from above the balcony, "I’m afraid you’d get too tired. Get to bed early, Martin. Mr. Page doesn’t have to deliver cleaned clothes at six in the morning."

The next day, Tommy got up feeling refreshed and headed to the square with Martin, prepared to continue their dull money-making method from the day before. As expected, the bird droppings from the day before had been cleaned up, and the tourists and vendors were welcoming another beautiful day.

The problem was, all the damn pigeons had vanished.

Martin shed tears of joy on the spot; this meant he didn’t have to run all over the world collecting dirty, bird-droppings-covered clothes today.

After inquiring with the square management, Tommy found out that a kind-hearted tourist had called to report that they witnessed someone maliciously poisoning the pigeons; out of animal protection, the management had taken the pigeons and wouldn’t release them, at least not for the next few days.

Having only made money for one day, they were cut off from their source of income, and those pigeons couldn’t continue to enjoy their free weight loss service with his help.

Tommy turned his head to look at the filming crew not far away, strolled up to Nick, and asked, "Kind-hearted tourist, was it you?"

"Sir, that sight was simply too disgusting. We... we just hoped you would switch to a more normal way of making money," Nick did not feign ignorance; he admitted guiltily but candidly, "Give us some material that can be aired normally, please."

"No worries, no worries, I understand how you feel, it’s just that... those pigeons could bring me wealth, but now that you’ve let them go, I have to treat you as pigeons," Tommy said as he saw how openly the other admitted it. He didn’t get mad but instead showed an understanding expression, patted Nick on the shoulder to comfort him:

"Don’t worry, I won’t force you to take laxatives, but your asses might need Stephen to help wipe them. Come on, let’s switch to a more normal business as you suggested."

"What business?" Nick felt vaguely worried.

"Even the most barren land always has a business opportunity," Tommy said without looking back, "What is it?"

Nick, puzzled, looked to Page who was preparing to leave with Tommy, "Mr. Page, what does he mean by that?"

"I don’t know." Page shook his head and imitated Tommy’s gesture by patting Nick on the shoulder:

"Considering the drink you bought me, all I can say is that you’d better catch up to him and tell him that you guys would rather take laxatives and act like pigeons in the square than witness those businesses."