He said, “The game’s almost over.” Viet chanted over and over in his mind, Strike first, strike first. With his knife pressed against his thigh, he thought, if I fail my girls will lose not just one but two.

Viet tightened his grip on the blade handle, slid his other hand on the door knob, inhaled, exhaled, and finally pounced. Once outside, he attacked the bulldog from behind and snapped his chin back. The knife met resistance at first. Viet plunged in the blade. He worked it through and twisted it. The cut was deep and swift. The blood came flooding out.

Finding courage in the professor’s bravery, the other men attacked the taller one. Fashion boy was so high he was practically defenseless despite his weapon.

Viet left the dead pirates on the deck, let the other men dispose of them, and went to retrieve Mai from the closet below deck.

Viet was the boat’s official hero, but he retreated into silence.

Huong said, “You did the right thing. Why are you sad, Father?”

“I did the weak thing,” he said. “It’s easy to inflict harm. It takes nothing.”

“You did it for us. Family,” she said. Huong kissed his forehead and held him. She rocked him in her arms, her husband, who at home refused to kill a spider no matter how she begged. It too deserves life, he’d say before setting it free from his toilet paper grasp into her gardenia bushes.

Viet sobbed for days over the fragility of life, for the life he had taken, and the one he was given. He cried for having witnessed the weakness of men, who preyed on the innocent and the poor. He held his head in stained hands, believing he’d failed himself because he’d done the unthinkable and killed a man. He was common, crude as the rest, unable to live up to the non-violence he preached, wasn’t the gentleman he always aspired to be.

Viet held his head in his hands. He had sweat stains under the armpits of his regulation short-sleeved postal shirt. His sack lunch was perched on his lap.

“She had her hair all braided up so you know she be liking the brothers,” Melvin said carrying on.

Viet’s heart had only had one desire and his body was moved to only one goal. He needed to shut this man up. He sat trembling with his entire arm hidden inside the brown grocery bag. Inside, he gripped the knife in his hand. David turned around, saw Viet, and signaled the others.

Melvin finally caught on. He said, “Damn Viet, why you be all eavesdropping and shit? Sitting there all quiet, man, I didn’t know. Shit.”

“You not a good man,” Viet said his chin up. “My daughter, she thirteen-years-old, she a nice girl.”

“I was only saying nice things about her, man. Real nice.”

A couple guys laughed under their breath, saying, Damn Melvin, you’re a nut.

Viet stood up and the folding chair squeaked across the floor. He cradled the paper bag with one hand while the other still clutched the knife inside. “You disrespect her,” he said. He felt the vein in the middle of his forehead pumping. It rushed blood to his ears. It brought him back to the emptiness of the seas, its violent waves. His vision swayed. But when he blinked and refocused, it was Melvin’s eyes that he tracked. The black man’s gaze stopped at Viet’s shirt. It was so wet it was now transparent and Viet’s ribbed undershirt showed through. Then the eyes moved to the brown paper bag and stayed there. They squinted, straining to understand what was inside. Viet tried to control his trembling and told himself; shut him up, strike first, strike first.