She backed up against a brick wall. Tears sliding down her face, she moaned,

“Please, please don’t hurt me. I swear I won’t tell nobody what you done. I

swear to God. Please.” Rogers bent down and picked up the switchblade.

 

She started to sob. “Please, don’t. Please…He made me do it. He said he’d hurt

me.” Rogers walked over to the woman and studied her quaking features. None of

it had an effect on him, just like the knife biting into his arm.

 

Nothing because he was nothing.

 

Felt nothing.

 

She obviously wanted him to feel pity for her. He knew that. He understood that.

But there was a difference between understanding and actually feeling something.

 

In some ways, it was the greatest difference there was.

 

He felt nothing. Not for her. Not for him. He rubbed his head, probing the same

spot, as though his fingers could reach through bone and tissue and brain matter

and rip out what was there. It burned, but then it always burned when he did

what he did.

 

Rogers had not always been this way. Sometimes, when he thought long and hard

about it, he could dimly remember a different person.