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artists in the history of the
sport, but deep down underneath it’s pretty clear to me that you’re nothin’ but a little sissy bitch.”
    Puwolsky came at McCutcheon with every hurtful arrow he could fire. And Stanzer just sat there letting M.D. take it. He didn’t intervene. He didn’t stand up for his man. He
didn’t once say the words, “All right, that’s enough.”
    Why? Because this was M.D.’s dragon and no one else could slay it for him.
    “You have my answer,” McCutcheon said in a polite and even tone. “May I be excused, sir?”
    His cheeks flushed, Puwolsky snorted, pissed that he’d gotten nowhere. What the hell is wrong with this kid? he wondered.
    “You may,” Stanzer said to McCutcheon. “I’ll be in touch.”
    M.D. exited the building and walked to the downtown bus station, knowing that two other agents had already scrubbed and ditched the rented white minivan. His mission done, it was time to head
home.
    If he could even call it that. Bellevue, Nebraska, was about as different from Detroit, Michigan, as orange juice was from a kangaroo.
    McCutcheon preferred taking the bus back to the Cornhusker State as opposed to an airplane because the long ride gave him a chance to sleep, think, and recover. As he settled into a window seat
and tossed his hoodie over his head, M.D. reflected on all the venomous things Puwolsky had said.
    None of it bothered him. Sure, the colonel’s words were harsh, but no one had harsher words for McCutcheon than McCutcheon had for himself. On the inside, M.D. understood something about
who he was, a truth so raw that it made Puwolsky’s words pack all the punch of cotton candy.
    McCutcheon owned secrets. Dark little dirty ones he kept hidden from the rest of the world. He found them so terrible he felt ashamed to even acknowledge their existence.
    Deep down, and I hate to admit it, I’m scared. I’m really, really scared.
    Beneath his chiseled surface, fear, hurt, sadness, and shame swam in a cesspool of putrid inner funk.
    I’m not as strong as everyone thinks. It’s just an illusion. I’m actually weak and worthless. A fraud.
    The Noble Warrior mask I wear is a lie. People think I am good and decent, but I know the real truth is I’m just a worthless piece of shit. Savage, violent, and guilty of having done
many horrible, hurtful things.
    The Greyhound made its way east on Interstate I-80 as the inner tape recorder playing inside McCutcheon’s head spun round and round on its negative loop.
    I suck, I’m scared, and in this cruel and brutal world I am all alone. But that’s what I deserve. Because I’m hideous, I’m a monster.
    The rain tapped against the window next to his head, soft plops playing a gentle lullaby, but Mother Nature’s peaceful music did nothing to calm McCutcheon’s storming soul. A map of
scars across M.D.’s flesh told the violent tale of a life lived at war, and provided all the evidence McCutcheon needed to prove to himself that any emotional pain he suffered was all much
deserved. He looked at his hands, large, scarred, and raw. Each lesion came from a different battle, each gash occurred during a different era, yet all of them were united by a common thread.
    Bam Bam Daniels destroyed people. This was his gift. Not music. Not poetry. Not photography, painting, or graphic design. McCutcheon’s talent came in the form of delivering pain. Deep in
his heart he wanted the opposite. M.D. hoped to help people. To heal them and protect them and make them feel safe and secure in a way that he never was.
    This is why he joined Stanzer’s unit. McCutcheon hungered to bring justice, light, freedom, and protection to the world because these things were always absent from his own life, and he
knew how much people who didn’t have these things starved for them.
    Yet now he was being asked to kill.
    Why did all of his good intentions end up in a sewer of piss and garbage? Only one answer made sense.
    Because I’m trash. A