BRAND OF BODHI (BOYXBOY)

ONE

It's a filthy world we live in.

People are willing to kill each other over the simplest of things: murdering men, women and children because of their faith, their views, or the color of their skin. Drugs are passed around like candy; a body is just another item to be bought, sold or traded; and even our children suffer in this tainted world as punching bags made of flesh.

Respect is a foreign concept, and the American dream is a joke.

I became a cop because I wanted to change the world -- to make a difference in this wasteland of filth. I graduated from the academy at the top of my class, ready to don the uniform and make the world a safer place for my future children.

It was a foolish dream, I realize now, but it was the only one I had.

My parents and my grandparents had been cops.

All three of my older brothers are cops.

The Nixon family came from a long line of Police officers.

So when it came time to pick a career, there was no need to think about it. My blood ran blue.

In the beginning, there had been a sense of pride when I walked the streets. There was a thrill when I solved a case. And joy when I could tell a family member I caught the bad guy and justice would ensue.

I used to go to sleep knowing that I did my best: believing I had rightened a few wrongs, and protected the citizens of this world.

Now, when I close my eyes, I see a sea of faces, and endless bodies stretching out in front of me.

Yes, their killers might be rotting behind bars, but it didn't give the family any real peace.

It didn't bring the victims back to life. The dead were still dead at the end of the day.

My faith in humanity had been lost.

I gave up caring, and with that, I gave up the one thing that made me . . . me.

If being a cop was all that I had, who had I become when I had lost sight of that dream?

I let the world inside of me.

It twisted me. Tainted me. Took a boy and made him into a man I didn't recognize.

Four years into my career as a homicide detective, and I had seen so many dead bodies they had all started to look the same.

There was always a mother that cried; always a father that wanted to know why.

Why was it his baby girl? Why was it their prodigal son?

. . . Why?

. . . Why?

Why?

When I was going to give up on everything, hang up my badge and quit being a cop, I received a new case. Remembering The Sandman case, it had been the one to change me. Before him I had been so numb to the world.

There was no such thing as innocence -- everyone was guilty of something.

At some point I had come to believe maybe murderers weren't bad people after all. . . Perhaps they were cleaning up the swine that infested the world. If that was the case it couldn't be called homicide; they call it justice.

The Sandman had been a killer known for targeting children. He was just another dick wanting his fifteen minutes. In this putrid universe he was no sicker than any of the others in the past. I can recall standing in front of a weeping mother and telling her that her eleven year old daughter had probably enticed the freak.