Chapter 1It was autumn in Shanghai. Through the dusty grey drizzle, high up in his 35th floor hotel room at the Mandarin Oriental, Brandon took in the spectacle; progress in motion. The cranes snarled, growled and clattered as they wielded the building blocks of the world’s newest emerging super-power. He couldn’t help but be impressed by the Chinese defiant march towards dominance. “Look at those motherfuckers!” He gestured toward workers balancing nonchalantly on scaffolding high above the ground. “They got balls those motherfuckers. They don’t give a shit! That one looks like Pacquiao!”
He was far from home where he had always been comfortable and never thought once of leaving. The sun-baked Californian tarmac, the bleached shop fronts replete with friends and well-wishers. As he cast his mind back to Oxnard he couldn’t recall a single meal where the server hadn’t smiled and called him champ. But in this thriving, pulsating metropolis he was gripped with an electric thirst for adventure that was foreign and exciting. “Let’s get the fuck outta here and tear some shit up, motherfuckers. There’s a chicken house downstairs with my fucking name on it. Robert, let’s posse up. Shit!”. Robert, Brandon’s world-weary trainer looked up from the pile of equipment he was arranging for the evening’s workout: “Champ, your weight. We have to watch your weight.” Brandon scoffed and wrung his hands, turned away and then smiled. “I was just testing you, coach, you know. Fuck that making weight the day of the weigh-in shit.” Robert looked over his shoulder and admired his young charge. His zest for life, his impudent disregard of adversity, his energy. “This kid has what is takes” he whispered to himself. “Huh?” Squawked Brandon “Can’t barely fucking hear you esse”. “Nothing” grinned Robert. "Let’s get some lunch."
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