Hired by Mr. Smith – the ever-wise and vigilant local convenience store owner – The Kid unwittingly falls into an intricate ploy by his employer to not only clean up the West Side but also restore needed change to the entire city by ensuring victory to the Westie challenger, Taylor Fastbender, in a hotly contested mayoral race. Now an integral pawn in the shifting circumstances, The Kid becomes witness, victim, martyr, student, disciple, and inadvertent hero to the workings of Mr. Smith. But through the difficulties of murders and threats, losses and vulnerability, The Kid learns to understand and appreciate things otherwise deprived or forgotten in his life. At last, he heads toward his true ambitions, but not before learning the true cost of his lesson and growth, all due to a Sage (experience and knowledge) and a Watch (time).