American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote-Chapter 49 - 46: The Only Way Out

Talk is just talk, but Li Wei had no intention of getting involved with them in anything beyond friendship.

Cheerleaders like Samantha and Daphne were clearly just trying to use his name to boost their own status, which was obvious from the way Daphne had dumped Evan.

After his morning AP Calculus class ended, Li Wei and Michael headed to different classrooms.

In the United States, high school AP courses are electives. Michael was off to AP History, while Li Wei had chosen AP Macroeconomics.

The macroeconomics teacher was Mrs. Mossley, a very stern-looking elderly black woman, and she was clearly not happy about Li Wei transferring into her class.

"Listen," she said, looking at Li Wei. "You probably didn’t study AP Economics at your high school back in your country. To get an A in one year—no, in most of a year—I seriously doubt you’ll be able to keep up."

"In that case, feel free to quiz me on anything from the book," Li Wei said. "I think I might just be able to keep up."

"Fine," Mrs. Mossley said, snapping shut the copy of *Mankiw’s Macroeconomics* in her hands. She stared at Li Wei. "Mr. Li Wei, could you please tell me about the period after the Great Depression in the United States of America..."

Five minutes later.

"..."

Mrs. Mossley was silent for a moment. Then, in disbelief, she picked up the thick copy of *Mankiw’s Macroeconomics* and flipped through it again and again.

Li Wei stood with his arms crossed, watching her calmly.

"Memorizing the textbook and understanding the logic of how an economy works are two different things, Mr. Li Wei," Mrs. Mossley said as she walked back to the lectern. She pointed to an empty seat at the back of the room. "Please find a seat. I hope you can also turn in a flawless assignment when it comes to case studies."

Li Wei shrugged and returned to his seat with his book.

At lunchtime, Li Wei had planned to eat with Michael or Travis, but Franklin High School was a massive New York City high school with as many as 3,500 students, so one could only imagine how crowded the cafeteria was during the lunch rush.

Students of different ethnic backgrounds all sat together in their own groups; only a few areas in the cafeteria were mixed.

The Black, Latino, and Asian students, as well as the school sports teams, each had their own cliques.

By the time Li Wei finished the lunch he had brought from home, he still hadn’t spotted either of them.

Around 2 p.m., the athletic building’s war room smelled like a sauna steeped in body odor.

A huge crowd of powerfully built high school athletes, bursting with restless hormones, crammed into the small lecture hall, shouting and shoving one another.

The moment Li Wei walked in, the entire war room fell silent.

"Well, well," Coach Miller said, walking in with his assistant coach. Seeing the scene, he clicked his tongue in amazement. "To think he can actually shut you lot up. Looks like I really didn’t make a mistake recruiting this backup Quarterback."

He walked to the lectern at the front of the war room and picked up a megaphone.

"Get your fat, disgusting asses off those benches! Every last one of you, get the fuck up here to the front!" he berated them. "You morons!"

"This is your last year of high school! It’s also the only chance you’ll ever have to climb out of this gutter!" he said. "Either you go all out, act like a beast in front of those college scouts, and get a D1 scholarship, or you can get the hell out of my locker room right now, go sell drugs on a street corner, and die like a stray dog in a filthy ditch during some gang shootout! Take your pick, geniuses!"

Travis, who was next to Li Wei, suddenly let out a roar, startling him.

"When did you get here?" He turned to look at Travis. "I didn’t see you."

"I was just at the gym, man," Travis said, his head covered in sweat. "The school gym has a decent amount of equipment. Don’t even need to go to an outside one."

"Next week, the PSAL (New York City Public School Athletic League) season begins!" Coach Miller continued to roar from the lectern. "We just need to win four out of six games to make the playoffs! What is our goal?"

"CHAMPIONSHIP! CHAMPIONSHIP! CHAMPIONSHIP!"

"That’s right!" Coach Miller roared. "Championship! Only by showing up in the playoffs, or even the championship game, will you get noticed by scouts and invited to training camps! Only then can you make it into the fucking NCAA! If you can’t win, you can all look forward to rotting behind iron bars in Brooklyn!"

"Also, I know some of you guys have it rough and your families can’t afford expensive steaks and personal trainers," he said. "If any student needs my help, come find me in my office later. I’ll give you some... ’targeted advice.’"

He said he was talking to students who needed his help, but Coach Miller’s gaze fell on Li Wei and Travis.

’What’s he looking at me for?’ Li Wei felt a bit confused. ’Do I need his help with something?’

"I know," Travis said, looking as if he understood completely. "Come with me."

After the rally, Travis led Li Wei to Coach Miller’s office door.

"I know you Asians are shy," he said, patting Li Wei’s shoulder. "I’ll go ask for you."

With that, he knocked and entered Coach Miller’s office, emerging a moment later with two bags, looking around furtively.

"What’s that?" Li Wei asked, hearing the CLANKING and RATTLING from inside the bags. "Workout supplements from Coach Miller?"

"Nope," Travis said. "This is all testosterone and anabolic steroids, plus growth hormone, and some stimulants and diuretics."

Li Wei was shocked. He whispered, "Why would the coach be giving this stuff out?"

"You’re... natural?" Travis scratched his scalp. "Damn. The coach and I saw how beastly you are, we thought you were juicing too."

"You’ve been taking this stuff since high school just to play football?"

Li Wei looked at the contents of the bag Travis opened: testosterone enanthate, metenolone, methyltestosterone, insulin, ostarine, and even ephedrine for stimulation.

"High school?" Travis shook his head. "I started with orals in middle school, then moved on to injections once I got to high school."

Li Wei now understood why Travis’s cognitive abilities were so low, almost like he had an intellectual disability, yet he seemed to have a certain athletic talent (Chapter 36).

Seeing the horrified look on Li Wei’s face, Travis gave a self-deprecating laugh and skillfully stuffed the colorful assortment of drugs back into the black drawstring bag.

"Don’t look at me like that, man. This is commonplace all over the United States of America," Travis said. He and Li Wei moved to a blind spot in the security camera’s view. Travis pulled a joint from his pocket, but after a moment’s thought, he didn’t light it. "How do you think I made a name for myself in the amateur youth leagues and got to be a starter in the PSAL right away?"

"Can you even understand what all these drugs are?" Li Wei couldn’t help but ask. "Do you even know what this stuff is?"

"To be honest, I don’t. The names on them make my head spin just looking at them," Travis said, shaking his head. "But the coach told me how to take them, so I just do what he says."

Li Wei suddenly remembered his first time at the gym. While changing, he had overheard two people talking about juicing. One of them, a muscular black man, had looked about his age from the side.

Now, it seemed that face was gradually overlapping with Manu’s (Chapter 5).

"But this will ruin your endocrine system! Your balls will shrink, you’ll lose control of your emotions, and your heart could even become enlarged..."

"My heart? I could die in a gang fight tomorrow," Travis said with a laugh. "You know what, Li Wei? My grandpa died at 45. My dad had gout so bad by 35 he could barely walk. You think I’m worried about my heart getting bigger at this point?"

"I don’t have money, and I don’t have the brains for school. The only thing you could say I have any talent for is this body," he said, holding out an arm covered in bulging, varicose veins from the drugs and training. "But I’m not so talented that I can just waltz into the NCAA and make a name for myself."

"You know why high school leagues don’t drug test?" he asked. "As long as I can get a full-ride scholarship, even if I get into the NCAA but don’t perform well, even if I never make it to the pros, at least I can get out of this hellhole. At least I can afford to go to college. Then I can become a fitness trainer, or even come back here and be a gym teacher. That’s a respectable life, man."

"Stay here, and kids like me either become enforcers for a gang—and you’re damn lucky if you live past 30—or we flip burgers at a fast-food joint for the rest of our lives." He shrugged. "My old man has tophi on his knee joints from gout. He pops painkillers every day to flip burgers at a hamburger joint for 15 US dollars an hour. I know if I don’t make it big, that’s the rest of my life."

A kid from the streets has street smarts. He might not excel academically, but he wasn’t a complete idiot, either.

"But this stuff can’t be cheap, right?" Li Wei couldn’t help asking. "Can you afford it?"

"This stuff..." Travis shook the bag. "I don’t know, but my other coaches in middle school and high school never charged me for it."

Li Wei couldn’t resist taking the bag to examine the boxes inside. Finally, he couldn’t help but whisper:

"Damn it, these are unmarketed, semi-finished drugs. They haven’t been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration!"

"That explains it," Travis said cheerfully. "Coach said he got these from a friend at a pharmaceutical company, an inside connect. He doesn’t charge me, just hopes it’ll help me out. The coaches are great guys."

"Honestly, I was worried the coach spent a lot of money to get these," he said. "I wouldn’t have the money to pay him back otherwise."

Li Wei had a much crueler explanation in mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it to his classmate—a minor who already had over six years of experience with illegal drugs.

"As long as we can win the PSAL championship," Travis said, full of hope, "forget about D1 universities, even getting a scholarship to a D2 or D3 school would be possible."

As he spoke, he clutched the bag in his hand as if it were his last lifeline.

With a strange, complicated feeling in his heart, Li Wei said goodbye to Travis and took the school bus home.

Don Quixote was at home lying on the couch watching TV. When he saw Li Wei walk in the door alone, he clicked his tongue in amazement.

"Well, this is a surprise," he said. "I really thought you’d be bringing a girl home on your first night. What, is Franklin High School some kind of Catholic school?"

"Not at all," Li Wei replied casually. "In fact, three girls got into a big fight over me. I just haven’t decided whose invitation to accept yet."

"Bullshit. Keep dreaming," Don Quixote said dismissively. "Three girls fighting over you? Why don’t you just say the head cheerleader invited you over to her place to teach her how to stretch?"

"How did you know?" Li Wei whipped his head around. "Who told you?"

"Funny joke, but stop dreaming and come look at this news story," Don Quixote said, pointing at the TV. "You remember that construction site I used to work at?"

"Yeah," Li Wei said, walking over. "What about it? What happened?"

The news was on WNYW TV Station, a channel that primarily broadcast local New York news.

A story was on about an attack on a Brooklyn construction site that had left several people injured. Two anchors were commenting on the event:

"...You’re absolutely right, Brian. This attack is being blamed on the Russian Mafia, who are active in the Brighton Beach area. The construction company also believes that a previous hacking of their financial systems was the work of the same criminal organization..."