One-on-One, Hell's Kitchen Rules

One-on-One, Hell's Kitchen Rules

At the entrance to the school building, Frank stood ramrod straight. Over the past few days, Frank had completely taken over Alvin's duties and was now responsible for "scaring the little brats."

Seeing the way those children looked at Frank as if he were some prehistoric beast, Alvin felt that compared to Frank, everything he had done at school in the past was hardly worth mentioning! Maybe the school should be renamed the Hell's Kitchen "West Point" Community School in the future.

Nick sat in a wheelchair pushed by his neighbor Jiawen. Listening to the people around him complain about Frank—"He's a devil! No, even Hell's Kitchen's worst thugs aren't as bad as him."—Nick pretended not to know Frank, nodding along as he joined in criticizing the man who had drastically lowered their happiness at school.

Nick's suicidal act of treating his own father like a stranger made Jiawen, who was pushing his wheelchair and knew about his relationship with Frank, widen his eyes.

Alvin walked over to the entrance with a smile, punched Frank lightly in the chest, and said, "Nice work, buddy. I knew Director of Discipline was a position where you could really shine. But we need to talk later. I found you an assistant."

Frank held his head high without even looking at Alvin. His cold gaze swept over every student approaching the building, and he waved Alvin away, clearly telling him to get lost because he was busy. Those punks had been especially restless these past two days. They had actually started betting on who could bring contraband into school, putting a lot of pressure on him. After all, he wasn't Thor and the others—he couldn't sniff out contraband just by catching its scent.

Alvin had no idea what was going on, but he still didn't interrupt Frank at work. His employee was working so hard; as the boss, he was too embarrassed to make trouble for him at a time like this.

Professor Cage's supercomputer had arrived and was being installed and configured. Alvin went over to see what all the fuss was about.

Though the supercomputer was secondhand, setting it up took up several classrooms in the school building. Alvin had no idea how well it worked—he didn't know much about computers—but the dense rows of machines in the computer room, blinking with tiny lights, looked impressive. Very high-tech, and massive too. It was worthy of the two million dollars they had spent. Still, when they powered it on for testing and the electric meter started racing, Alvin's heart ached. He told Cage that they were only allowed to run one-third of the machines from now on.

Professor Cage sprayed him with saliva until he fled with his head in his hands.

The school was short-staffed, so Professor Cage had brought in several old friends along with a few graduate students working under them to help configure the equipment.

The old man was dragging around a girl who looked a lot like little Matilda, fiddling with this and that. Judging by how enthusiastic he was, the old man had fallen for her. Alvin would have Olivia report it to his wife later.

In the principal's office, Alvin folded his arms and coldly watched the several gang bosses before him, all men of considerable standing in Hell's Kitchen.

Alvin didn't take in a single word they said. He merely stared at them coldly. You bunch of parents of underachievers, coming to raise hell in my principal's office? If I gave you the time of day, where would my dignity be?

Seeing Alvin's dark expression, the men grew a little nervous. After discussing it among themselves, they chose the Russian, Alexei, to negotiate with Alvin as their representative.

The arms dealer, built like a great white bear, stood somewhat stiffly before Alvin and said, "Alvin, my friend, you have to help me. My son Anton." He pointed to a bald young man standing outside the door, with no eyebrows and a face full of thick beard that made him look older than Alvin. "He's been having nightmares every day lately. Buddy, you need to deal with your Director of Discipline. If this keeps up, my son is going to lose his mind."

Still with his arms folded, Alvin asked curiously, "What did Frank do? I ought to give him an award banner. I never knew Anton could become this well-behaved."

Alexei said angrily, "That piece of shit Frank put my son in solitary."

Alvin looked at Alexei as though he were an idiot. "Your son is afraid of solitary? During the first half of the semester, he spent more time in the isolation room than he did in class. Buddy, your son fooled you."

Alexei glanced at his unlucky son and said irritably, "But that bastard Frank used a harpoon to shave all the hair off my son's body. Except for his beard."

Alvin could imagine how terrifying it would be to have someone like an executioner shave every hair off your body with a foot-long blade. Just thinking about it gave him chills. No wonder this former school bully now looked like a plucked chicken. Still, using a harpoon just to shave someone was a bit excessive.

Alvin looked at Alexei awkwardly and said, "Buddy, Frank did go a little overboard, but I'm sure Anton must have done something bad. I heard he's been doing pretty well on the football team lately?"

Alexei said with some pride, "That's right. Anton's been doing well lately. His grades have improved, and he's now the starting tight end on the football team." Then his face darkened again. "But he hasn't wanted to come to school these past two days. He's afraid people will laugh at him."

Listening to Alexei talk about his son's grades and his starting position on the team made Alvin feel especially awkward. You were an arms dealer—this didn't fit your image at all! Shouldn't you be taking some gunmen to find Frank and shooting him at the first disagreement? Now that you were talking to him about this, Alvin almost felt too embarrassed to lose his temper.

Alvin said helplessly, "So what exactly did Anton do to make Frank treat him like that?"

After thinking for a moment, Alexei hesitated before saying, "I heard he shaved one of his teammates bald. But it was just a joke between kids."

Alvin sneered at Alexei, not believing a word of it. Frank would never have gone that far over nothing more than a shaved head. "A joke? You call that a joke? Buddy, we can be vicious and cruel, but we have to be reasonable. Right now, I think Anton got what he deserved. Or you could treat this as one of Frank's jokes. Hmm... Frank the Deadpan Comedian. What do you think of that nickname?"

Alexei said somewhat awkwardly, "Buddy, we all know what happened. Honestly, I think the school is pretty good now, but Frank is too strict. Before he came, I could see hope that Anton might go to college. But now he doesn't even want to come to school. What are we supposed to do?"

When Alexei put it that way, Alvin felt a little embarrassed. The community school believed in "punishing past mistakes to prevent future ones, and curing the sickness to save the patient." It wasn't good if Frank scared the children so badly that they no longer dared to attend school. At the end of the day, they were still a school, not a prison.

Alvin felt that his decision that morning to have old Parker assist Frank had been exceptionally wise.

After thinking it over, Alvin said, "You think school is somewhere you can just choose not to come? Has the kid your son shaved bald been coming to school?

Tell Anton to get his ass to class. Graduation is only a few months away. Our football team has good results. If Anton can get a ten or twenty on the ATC, he'll be able to get into a decent college.

If you want trouble with Frank, no problem. I'm a fair man. Three this afternoon, in the gymnasium. Just you guys. If you want to get revenge on Frank for your children, come over. One-on-one, using Hell's Kitchen rules."

Another character from Marvel showed up. Go find him! (*＞)