I know it.

  I'm a sidekick in someone's story. I know better than anyone that effort doesn't mean much. That the world doesn't reward hard work.

  Still.

  I want to try.

  Henry ran in the morning. His sweat pouring from his head.

  Richmond was flat and gray in the fog, row houses shoulder to shoulder down the numbered avenues, stucco walls and pastel paint. The ocean was ten blocks west and you could smell it when the wind came in, salt and cold and wet sand mixing with whatever the restaurants were cooking this early.

  He ran down Clement past the Russian grocery with the handwritten signs in the window, past the locksmith that had been closed for two months, past the produce stand where a woman was already setting out boxes of oranges and carrots on the sidewalk, yelling at her husband to bring more from the van. The husband was sitting on a milk crate smoking and didn't move.

  A bus crawled up Geary with its headlights on even though it was past seven, the driver hunched forward and squinting through the fog.

  People looked at him. A couple in matching jackets. An old guy walking his dog who stepped aside. They looked at him like they were wondering what Henry was doing running. Like it was effort that didn't make sense. Fair enough. He was wondering what he was doing out here too.

  Back to his mom's restaurant.

  The kitchen smelled like pork fat and the sweet sticky char of bao filling. His mom was behind the counter doing something violent to a piece of ginger with the flat side of a cleaver.

  "Hey! Don't forget the deliveries today!"

  "Yeah," said Henry, pulling on his helmet. The motorbike was parked out front, a red Honda with electrical tape over a crack in the left mirror and a seat that had been restitched twice. The engine took three kicks to turn over.

  "Don't forget the change this time."

  "I won't."

  "Last time you forgot."

  "I know."

  "And don't eat the bao."

  He was already eating one. He shoved the rest in his mouth before she came around the corner and kicked the bike to life.

  On the way down the street, he took a corner off of Sixth Avenue.

  A group of kids were playing on the sidewalk, six and seven years old. One had a cardboard box on his head. Another held a stick like a sword.

  "Henry come play with us!"

  "Yeah, Henry!"

  Henry parked the bike. Pulled off his helmet and hung it on the handlebar.

  "Hey, sure. Let's go! I'm an evil alien!" said Henry, making a pose. "I have my super laser! Bang! Bang!"

  "Nuh-uh, I'm Red Warrior! I'm immune to lasers. You can't shoot me!"

  "I'm Pink Warrior!" said a girl with ponytails. She wore a dress.

  "Well Pink Warrior! I've come to destroy earth! Watch out!"

  Henry made a pose and attacked, swinging the little girl around by her ankle.

  "Ahh help, he got me!"

  "Don't worry. My fire sword will get him!"

  Red Warrior, swung his stick, but Henry caught it. He gently pulled it out of the kid's hand.

  "Absorbing fire. Take this!"

  And bonked him on the head with it.

  "Ow!"

  "Alien powers!" Henry stomped after him. The kid ran screaming behind a parked car. Pink Warrior picked herself up and tried to tackle Henry's leg and bounced off.

  "He's too strong!"

  She grabbed his leg. Henry swung her around.

  "Red Warrior, help!"

  The Red Warrior threw a pinecone at him. Henry grabbed his chest and went down on one knee.

  "You got me! No! My only weakness!"

  "Get him again!"

  He stayed down until they both piled on him. He let them win for a while, then stood up slow with two of them still clinging to his shoulders, and they screamed and dropped off one by one.

  "Ahh, he's too powerful!"

  Henry laughed.

  "Okay, okay. I gotta go. Deliveries."

  "Boooo!"

  "See you later Henry! Don't get hit by evil aliens!"

  They waved at him and continued back playing.

  He put his helmet back on and kicked the bike to life.

  The deliveries took him across the Richmond and into the Sunset and back again.

  At the corner of Balboa and Twenty-Third he stopped at Mrs. Fong's place and she came out in her slippers and took the bag and told him he looked thinner and he told her she looked younger and they both smiled about it.

  On and on, every stop, hello and goodbye. The fog thinning out by noon.

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  Sometimes, people ask why go with a normal life? If you're smart. Make something out of yourselves, live out your dreams, or conquer the world.

  But then again, was that even the best choice?

  How many conquerors, emperors, and kings are there in the world? And how many regular people are there in comparison?

  Who really inherits the earth?

  If people were really smart, they would never get involved. They'd stick their head down low, bow when they needed to, apologize when they met someone bigger.

  And even if you won. Say you were the strongest, the smartest, the best in the room.

  Does that last forever? Or when you get too old, too complacent, too weak does the next best guy come to kick you over.

  Yeah, it isn't the smart thing to do to make yourself important.

  It's the regular guy who was never a part of the schemes that gets to live another day. That's the smart one. A person who goes through motions and never gets into trouble.

  Back to his room.

  He dropped onto his bed and the springs complained under him and he stared at the ceiling where a crack had been splitting out from the light fixture since he was twelve, running crooked toward the window, wider every year.

  His skateboard leaned against the wall by the door, grip tape peeling at the nose.

  He's been told all his life on what to do. If you live your whole life following someone else's plan, what happens to the part of you that's actually you? You become a number on a checklist. A warm body filling a spot in a room.

  That isn't a person. That's something less, a wheel that just keeps turning.

  Be smart, his mom would say. But what she was really saying was this: I don't care what you think. Stop being a person. Start being useful.

  When he got bored. He ate. When he got sad. He ate. Shrimp chips on his bed with the crumbs falling into the sheets, cold chow mien from downstairs eaten standing in the kitchen after his mom went to sleep, banh mi from the Vietnamese place three blocks down when he had three dollars and nothing else to do with them.

  At least food never told him what to do. It just sat there, warm in his stomach, till the next bite.

  Why don't you stop eating?

  Cause life doesn't have much other than eating.

  It was the same in high school. Everyone found where they belonged but him. Not smart enough for the AP kids, not athletic enough for the jocks, not funny enough for the class clowns, not weird enough for the weird kids who at least had each other. He was just him. Lunch was at the end of a table outside by himself, picking at whatever his mom packed, watching other people be part of things.

  And it was worse when people came to him first, because for a second he'd think it meant something.

  "Hey, can you help me out with something?"

  He'd look up and his whole face would open, thinking hey, sure, what do you need?

  "Thanks! I just needed someone to grab that off the high shelf. See you later."

  "Yeah..."

  He'd stand there afterwards wondering what the point was. Everyone has their own reasons, their own math on who they want to be around. Check 'x' and 'o's. The practical thing. Make friends on who is most helpful to you.

  Someone like him. Well. He was just an extra body in someone else's equation.

  Didn't change in middle school. Didn't change in elementary school.

  Sure. Yeah. No problem. I got it.

  That's just how things worked.

  But if there was a time it was different.

  He closed his eyes and went back, back past the high school lunches and the middle school hallways and the elementary school classrooms, all the way to a blacktop in kindergarten where the sun was warm and the painted lines were faded and somebody's mom had brought lemonade to share with the class at lunch.

  "Hey!" A kid smaller than him, skinnier than him, with that look on his face like he'd already decided something and the rest of the world could deal with it. There was a dodge ball in his hand and he was team captain and he was pointing straight at Henry.

  "I want him."

  "Huh?" Henry looked around. The rest of the kids were staring at the skinny kid like he'd made a mistake.

  "But why would you pick him? He's too fat and slow. And he can't even play."

  "I don't know." The kid bounced the ball once. "I just felt like it."

  And then they played. He didn't remember if they won, but for the first time the numbers didn't matter. People could just be people.

  He asked that kid about it later, back in class, sitting at the same table while they were supposed to be coloring. Was there a reason? Some law he wasn't seeing, some angle he'd missed?

  "You're still asking about that?" The kid looked at him sideways, crayon in his fist. "I just felt like it. Do I need a reason for everything I do?"

  "Yeah," smiled Henry. "You don't..."

  I want to be like that too.

  He found that kid after class, out by the pickup line where the parents' cars were pulling up one by one.

  "Hey. What's your name?"

  "Daniel. What's yours?"

  "Henry. Do you want to be friends?"

  Daniel stood there and looked up, thinking. And then turned to look at him with a smile.

  "Yeah. Let's be friends."

  Since then. The years passed. That skinny little kid got angrier, more closed off. He stopped smiling. Started to care about what other people thought or said. Stayed quiet, at least till he couldn't bear it. And got into fights all the time.

  Do the smart thing.

  And Henry did.

  He did nothing.

  He always regretted that.

  People said do the smart thing.

  The smart thing was one thing.

  Abandon your friends.

  He didn't see Daniel after that till he had already got through the emancipation process and came back a year later with Moreno.

  Then the wheels spun forward in time. To a sidewalk right after he had bought more pork buns.

  Henry spat blood. Li Mei was standing over him, in the alleyway.

  "Stay down or I'll put you down. We're only keeping you for a week or two, and then we'll send you back."

  "You...you won't...take me down like...ack!"

  It just took a single punch, and then he was down.

  Weak...he was weak...

  Even now can he even catch up? Can he even help out? Worse than being weak. He was...useless.

  Why am I even here? Just to get beat up and used?

  Did he even matter? Daniel wouldn't come get him right. He wasn't that stupid to totally walk into a trap, with like a hundred armed men by himself, right?

  Daniel smiled. "Hang tight. I'll get you out of here."

  Guess he was a super idiot…

  Henry had always heard of people yelling at the hero in the movies, why is he so stupid, why does he keep doing dumb things, why not be smart, go through another way, don't go through the front door like an idiot.

  Do the smart thing.

  After all, why would you put yourself in danger when you had no chance? It's a room full of bad guys. Call the police, and wait for them to handle it.

  But Henry got the feeling.

  If someone asked who you'd rather have. A guy who'd think things through. Or someone who would go through a burning building if he thought you were in it.

  If he had to compare what kind of friend he'd rather have.

  He'd choose the dumb one each time.

  The smart thing.

  Isn't always the right thing.

  If mothers just dropped their kids at the first sign of trouble. If fathers just left when the going got tough. If you give up before you started. If you weren't willing to go all the way.

  What kind of world would that be?

  It'd be a smart world.

  It'd be a cruel world.

  I don't want to be that person.

  I don't want to live in that world.

  It won't mean much, but I want to change.

  "I have to admit I really underestimated you..."

  Li Wentao was standing over Daniel. Gun in his hand. Daniel was on the ground, bleeding from the side.

  "But we live in a time where talent means nothing."

  He aimed for Daniel's head.

  So while I got courage. While I am still me. I can change too.

  He brought his hands up and did a horse stance.

  I worked hard too.

  His mind cleared. His body felt light.

  The body sinks, the spirit rises, the self remains unmoved.

  I can be something more. This is my story too.

  Henry broke free of the man holding him and ran.

  "Stop!"

  Li Wentao turned. Henry grabbed his arm, both hands on the wrist, shoving the gun away.

  "You? You can't even use qi. You think you can stop me? You fat idiot."

  Henry didn't let go. Li Wentao's fist caught him in the ribs. He spat blood. His sneakers squeaked against the tile as he dug in.

  "I didn't run around for nothing..."

  Li Wentao looked at him and for the first time, seemed to feel something.

  "I won't give in, bitch. You think I'll go down that easily..."

  Li Wentao kicked him again and he flew back and hit a table and didn't get up.

  "Useless. Even if you had a hundred years, you would never amount to anything."

  Well that all seemed like a while ago.

  He had gotten to the hospital in a big mess. And his mom kept shaking him like he was a crazy person.

  But...did I at least move the needle a little?

  Did I...mean something?

  Henry opened his eyes.

  The courtyard under the sunlight. The wind chime above the back door turning slow, making no sound.

  Daniel and Rachel were arguing about something. He was showing her another move and then moving with her.

  I don't know what's there in the future. Or if you'd go so far ahead that I won't be able to catch up.

  But just know, at one time, I was a part of your story.

  That once upon a time, I was your friend.