America 1982

"Are you sure this thing can drive to Stanford, California? That's nearly 5,000 kilometers across the entire United States." Tommy stood on the car and painted various graffiti on it. The original color of the Chevrolet Corvette could no longer be seen. In front of the C2 sports car, he asked Tony, who was doing final inspections at the front of the car, with a somewhat uncertain tone.

Tony put the machine cover down and looked at Tommy: "You can trust my skills. Mr. Anderson said I'm ready."

"I'm not questioning you, I'm questioning this car. The Stingray was manufactured in 1963 and is older than the two of us. I did dream of driving across the United States alone before, but I never thought about driving like this. A car." Tommy circled the car twice and said hesitantly.

This car was a gift prepared by his family for him to attend college. According to Tony and his father, a man should drive a high-powered sports car across the United States to his dream university to complete his reporting.

The idea is wild, but the problem is that this car was just an empty shell a month ago, and most of the parts were disassembled by Tony from other cars of the same model and slowly pieced together.

Dad helped Tommy put the suitcase into the trunk, and put an old-fashioned shotgun inside. He told Tommy: "Don't play with it until you get into trouble. If you are questioned by the police, just say it's mine." Forget the gun, if you encounter an asshole, pick it up, point it two feet above the guy's head and pull the trigger, trust me, 80 percent of the assholes will wet their pants and walk away with their heads in their hands."

"What about the other twenty percent?" Tommy asked.

"Not only do you wet your pants, but you also lose your back door." Dad said with certainty: "Every time you go to a city, remember to call home and let us know where you are."

"I will." Tommy patted the car and turned to look at his family.

Bethea rushed over and hugged Tommy: "Tommy, I will miss you."

"Me too, I will come back to see you during the holidays and help you buy gifts from California." Tommy picked up Bethea and said with a smile: "Didn't you always say you'd wait for me to buy you a gift from California? Then I have to get to California first."

At this time, Tony, Dad, Melonie, and Ashley also gathered around, preparing to hug Tommy goodbye. The neighbors also slowly came over, preparing to say goodbye to the number one guy on the block who bravely entered California. Young people say goodbye.

The Hawke family has changed a lot this year. With the money Tommy earned, Dad brought Bethea back and opened a small shipbreaking yard. Shipbreaking is actually manual labor and the largest investment cost. It was the cost of buying a scrapped ship. Before he lost his job, my father worked odd jobs in a ship-breaking yard. He was no stranger to this industry. The only way to make money was to completely dismantle old ships that seemed to have no repair value, and remove the ship planks from the hull. , steel, machine parts, cables, etc. are resold to scrap dealers, and other spare parts such as radio stations, light bulbs, etc. are sold in the second-hand market. Anyway, as the boss, dad can barely return to the income level before unemployment. .

Tony has also started working in the auto repair shop, but he is not planning to continue working in the auto repair shop. Now that Bethea has gone home and his father has a stable job, he no longer needs to rush to get money home, so he wants to Get a job at Thompson Speedway Hot Rods in Connecticut and try to learn to repair hot rods.

As for Aunt Melonie, who is now a teaching teacher at Sinclair Elementary School, she hugged Tommy with some reluctance: "Remember to call us and tell us whether you are happy in California, and if you are not, Just remember to go home, your family will always be waiting here."

"I will, Auntie." Tommy comforted Melonie by patting her back.

Ashley smiled and said to Tommy: "There must be a lot of beautiful girls in California, let them see the charm of the handsome guys from the East Coast."

"Don't worry, although Tony asked me to take some photos of California girls and send them to him, I refused. You can always trust me, Ashley." Tommy hugged Ashley and said.

"F*ck You! Tommy." Tony raised his middle finger next to him.

Dad took out a piece of paper and said to Tommy: "Son, before I say goodbye to you, I want to read this piece of paper. The people on it have given you gifts."

With that, Dad opened the paper and read: "Maureen, two dozen beers and one box of Trojan, Green, one dozen beers and two boxes of Trojan, Hull, two boxes of milk and two boxes of Trojan, Dafei, ten Gallons of gas and two boxes of Trojan, Rogers... What the hell is Rogers? Only two tires? No Trojan? Doesn't he know that that stuff consumes college students faster than food? What if I become a grandfather before I'm fifty? , it’s all Rogers’ fault!”

"Tony said the car needed two newer tires." Wilson added from the side: "So I went... I mean Rogers gave Tommy two tires without his knowledge. , he may have forgotten to prepare Trojan.”

"Anyway, you heard me, I have enough Trojan in the trunk to last you four years, so don't do anything stupid. I don't want you to become a father without thinking about it first, but I also don't want you to go to college for four years. , I didn’t even get a girl to go to bed, you know what I mean, right?” After the father finished reading, he put the paper away, walked to Tommy and warned him.

Tommy shrugged, "I'll try to be sparing, Dad."

"Very good, I'm... very happy, Tommy, and your mother is also very happy. The first college student in the Hawk family is going to California. That's your father, your grandfather, and your grandfather's grandfather. Wherever you have been, you are like the pioneer of this family, go and conquer the West, son!" Colin Hawke said with a strong arm around his son's shoulders.

Tommy also hugged his father: "I will."

There was a roar in the distance, and then a new black and red Dodge muscle sports car appeared on the side of the road. Dennis and Pam stuck their heads out of the car window and looked at Tommy.

This new car was bought by Dennis with the money he earned. It is now the most popular car among young people in Warwick, and countless girls are willing to sit in the passenger seat of that car.

"I heard that you are going to hit the road today and head to California." Dennis, wearing a pair of sunglasses, said to Tommy: "Pam and I are going to accompany you on the last stretch of road in Rhode Island, man."

Tommy looked at his father, brother, sister, aunt and others, then tilted his head towards Dennis and Pam: "Get ready to follow my car and smell the exhaust."

After saying that, Tommy turned around and got into the car, started the car, and the stingray roared and rushed forward.

Dennis roared and hit the accelerator. The Dodge quickly caught up with Tommy's Stingray, and the two cars were neck and neck on the highway.

Just as Dennis said, after exiting the Rhode Island section, Dennis and Pam lowered the car windows and looked at Tommy. Tommy also turned his head and smiled at the two of them.

"Happy college life! Silly*!" Dennis and Pam raised their two middle fingers and yelled at Tommy, then slowly slowed down the car.

Tommy held the steering wheel, looked at his companion who disappeared in the rearview mirror, and gently turned on the car audio.

"Knocking on the Door of Heaven" recorded by Dennis immediately sounded in the car: "Come and wipe away those tears for me, I won't cry anymore. The sun sets in the western sky, and I feel like I am knocking on the door of heaven..."

Under the sun, singing accompanied Tommy as he drove towards California.

(End of Volume 2: Knocking on Heaven’s Door)

Words at the end of the volume: This is probably the most uncomfortable period for me. I am miserable, and my family is miserable. I wanted to use the second volume to write an absurd comedy, but the sudden high fever completely affected my state, and it changed directly from absurd to absurd. Damn it, and it’s a lasting effect. How should I put it? From the time I had a fever, I felt like my brain was broken. I sat in front of the computer every day and didn’t know what to write.

The outline is there. Normally, I can finish writing things according to the outline, but when I was sick, I couldn't even do such a simple thing. I don't know if my brain was burned out.

Even my wife advised me to stop writing for a while and wait until my body recovers before writing. I said no, I don’t want to stop coding now. I just want to keep updating. If the quality of a book is poor, I can start slowly after finishing it. But I know my own situation. If I stop, I will probably stop forever. I have to force myself to finish writing a book, starting from the first one. I don’t know how many words this book will have. Maybe more than a million, maybe two million, but no matter what, it should at least be a complete story.

That's it for the second volume. When I feel more relaxed, I'll overhaul it again, but I don't have the mentality to touch this style in the short term.

The third volume is about college life and the entrepreneurial story of the protagonist. It is my first time to write about campus and my first time to write about serious entrepreneurship. I was chatting with my wife today. She was shocked. She thought that a person with a junior high school degree could not even pass the threshold of a Chinese university. People actually want to write about American college life. This creation is more difficult than Pu Songling's writing about Liaozhai.

Thank you all for your tolerance during this period of time. I will try my best to adjust my mentality and write new stories.

Welcome to Volume Three: My Days in a College Fraternity.