But … Butcher Clyde’s words are in my head and I can’t shake them out. What they offering me is power. Power to protect. Power to avenge. Power over the life and death of my people. When colored folk ever had anyone offer us so much? When we ever had the power not to be scared no more? Ain’t we been suffering and dying all this time, at the hands of monsters in human form? What difference then if we make a pact with some other monsters? What we owe this world that so despises and brutalizes us? Why lift a hand to save it when it ain’t never done a damn thing to save us?

