It probably was the day when that cop came in to the shop to buy some freaking bubble gums and two cans of coke that Wei realized he was going to jail someday sooner than he’d thought.
The policeman was very friendly and chatty to him, he gave no attitude when putting the gums and drinks on the counter.
“Hey kid, how’s your day.” The officer had white hair and dark wrinkles on his face, like those that had experiences on field, who had seen fire fight and coordinated something big. He leaned close to the Wei and gave a chuckle.
Wei calculated the price and said. “That will be three ninety nine.”
The officer produced his wallet from his pocket and his big tummy kind of swayed in a slow motion in real time. He handed him the money and took the stuff he just bought and left the shop.
Cops like these were trouble at the house, Wei was put into the holding cell a few times when one of these came to him and offer him a helping hand, which turned out to be false hope. He couldn’t understand how they maintained that kind of ingenious smile and enthusiasm throughout the conversation, how they faked that face, perfected that twitch of a smile to get him to talk like a parrot.
Wei didn’t blame anyone, he knew his life wasn’t a choice, he could not control where he grew up, who he befriended with. He learned to accept it at some point of his life, when he done feeling fed up to everything.
His parents was smuggled to the states and his mother raised him up all by her own because his father left her when he was born, and so was told by her mother. He hadn’t seen a picture of him or heard his mother talked much about him, and sure as anything he didn’t want to meet with a guy that abandoned the two of them.
Wei grew up living in a small room, they had little food and not much to spend, life was dreadful and seemed meaningless, there wasn’t any fond memories to be found, there was only sorrow and despair.
The kids in school didn’t like him, they picked on him, the skinny Asian dude that always got bruises on him from nowhere. So he begged his mother to let him learn from an martial artist, she wasn’t sure at first about the idea, but soon a master contacted her and gave a very generous allowance to them.
With years of training and a heart of fire, his effort combusted into flame, and what came out of it, was a phoenix reborn, a fairly-build, strong and firm young man that could take on almost anyone with his bare fists.
It wasn’t exactly like the legendary Bruce Lee, or the modern Jet Li, he was a nobody, just an average asian-american living in the western dream that faded away with age.
There was this small convenience shop clerk job, and prior to that, he’d been a waiter, a delivery man, a dishwasher, all the tiny but essential jobs that dig people labour.
And these jobs paid like nothing, his life was still miserable. Through his street connection, he’d know of a place, an underground fighting game that paid heavy.
He won most of the time, taking in a large sum of money but didn’t show off his wealth casually. Some of the cash went to his mom and some he saved to a bank account that was managed by his schoolmate that worked there.
Naturally, people around him started to suspect something was going on in his life. He would show up at work with bruises like he’d been through a tough fight. The customers sometimes screamed at him for his appearance, once an old lady even fainted and had to be sent to the hospital for care.
Wei doubted himself countless time if that was worth it, would all these stuff paid off and led him to a happier life.
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