For Ryan to look at

As promised - here is the piece I wanted you to have a look at. I've written this for a guy who lives in Las Vegas. maybe I picked on you because your online persona reminds me of his online persona. Anyway - this guy asked a question a month ago which was 'Why do girls dig Batman so much?' That got me thinking. Why do I like Batman? What makes me read him? So I set out to explain why. I've done four previous versions to this - all of them quite history-heavy - and on re-reading each one none of the seemed right. What was it that I was missing?

And then I realised. There's one thing that makes Batman stand out. The thing that hits us in the stomach and makes us stay for more. And that is how he began.

So - I decided to cut the bullshit and just write my version of his beginning. If the dude doesn't get 'Why Batman' after this, there's not point bothering to do more. Before sending to him, I shall also add in a reading list at the bottom for him to take it further if he wants to. It's up to him to discover the rest of Batman. I'm giving him the map.

I suppose that what I am trying to convey (and that i might explain in my covering email to him) is that I am a sober and ordinary person who - under the black arts of comic-bookery - have been drawn into this character. I love Batman. I would, quite happily and without hesitation, take a bullet for him if I had to. There must be some reason for that. He is a hero and comes from a good place. 

So, here it is. Tell me, as another Batman fan, if you enjoy it:

I am here to tell you story. This story is not mine yet I know it better than I know my own. It is part of me.

This story really happened. I say this but I have no proof of it. I cannot present you with its witnesses, nor its actors. But I believe that they existed, once. And though I am sceptical of so many other things – God, UFOs, Kim Kardashian – in this story my faith is absolute.

Everybody loves a beginning, so we tell this story again and again and again. We draw it in books, we project it onto movie screens and we animate it in cartoons. And with each telling, the teller changes it a little. One man might embellish the tale with borrowed decorations or those of his own making; another woman might strip the tale back to its bare and beautiful boards of November, 1939. It matters not. All that matters is that each teller keeps his or her story as their own private icon, glowing in the corner of their minds to whisper prayers to. It is the thing that makes Him. In His Genesis, we seek our own.

This story is about the most perfect night that has ever existed and that will ever exist. You may believe that you have lived through happier, greater nights than this one, but you are wrong. This night is the night that ends all previous nights and begins all remaining nights to come. It is the perfect story, told imperfectly by mere mortals.

Our story takes places in a city, a city that by some archaic spell or perhaps through sheer will alone appears to predate the young country which surrounds it, its bones cracking with the age of the medieval gothic. And because of this impossibility, this city – great, Gotham City - is the arena where the grand stories of humanity are told. For you see, Gotham is where people choose either to Be Good or to Be Evil. And once their side is chosen they do battle against one another. This is its mythical purpose and those who live in Gotham - regardless of wealth, race or age - are forced to fulfil the city’s will. Everyone must fight. Even an eight year-old boy must fight.

Our story happens on a cold and starless night. This is nothing exceptional – Gotham is often cold because it faces the stormy Atlantic coast, and it is always starless because heaven gave up competing with Gotham’s brilliance before the twentieth century had really began. So the perfection of this night is due, not so much to the misty atmospherics (though it plays its part), but with the family it involves; three wonderful individuals who no good person in their right mind would ever wish to harm. And their names are Thomas, Martha and Bruce Wayne.

The Wayne family are not special because they are wealthy. There are many wealthy families in Gotham. No – the Wayne’s are exceptional because they care. They do not believe that money is an indication of a person’s worth. Instead, the Wayne’s believe that the poor – of which there are also many in Gotham - have as much right to live in the city as any of its billionaires. Their faith in this is so great that they give most of their personal wealth away. The Wayne Foundation sets up schools, hospitals, orphanages and refuges. Wayne Industries employs many of Gotham’s citizens in good jobs with great benefits. Also, Thomas Wayne is a doctor, treating Gothamites with no medical insurance for free.

But the Wayne family can only save those who wish to be saved. For those who turn their backs on salvation, Gotham is the devil’s mud-hollow, somewhere to wallow in misery, filth and degeneracy till you turn pig-sick. Poverty is the food source of Gotham’s evil, out of which grows desperation, disease, crime, addiction and violence. The rich families of Gotham include many with the ‘black hands’ of organised crime. They prey on the vulnerable, making the cowardly and superstitious lot of Gotham’s petty criminals either work for them or aspire to work for them. At the time of our story, hope is fading in Gotham and it will for many more years to come. As a result, no one wants to live there any more, not even the Waynes – they moved way out of the city into a gated manor. So the once-lovely places which housed Gotham’s debutantes and professionals are now occupied by drug addicts, thieves and prostitutes. Places like Park Row, which was lined with trees and three storey brownstones when Thomas Wayne was a lad, but is now a slum so bad that Gothamites nickname it ‘Crime Alley’.

But I digress. What you really need to know is that there is a movie theatre in Gotham, a special one. Most movie theatres in the city are much like the ones we all visit - huge multiplexes that project full-colour cynicism onto our lowing heads whilst we chew our popcorn over-and-over. The theatre in this story is very different. It is tiny – just one screen, seating maybe a hundred at most. All it plays are old films, black-and-white, melodramatic and hokey - the kind of unbelievable rubbish where the good guy always wins. In short, it is the movie theatre of the true romantic. On this night it is showing a prime example of its schlock-in-trade – a 1920 feature starring Douglas Fairbanks called ‘The Mark of Zorro’. This movie doesn’t even have sound. Watching a silent movie is no easy thing – you are forced to imagine what the actors are saying and listen to your own voice inside your head speak its occasional flash card of dialogue. It’s kind of like watching a moving comic book. That’s a lot of work - too much for most people. You need imagination and intelligence to enjoy a silent movie.

There is only one person under the age of forty in the whole of Gotham who wants to see ‘The Mark of Zorro’ that night – the Wayne’s son, Bruce. Now, I could tell you that Bruce is his parent’s pride-and-joy, but what person who tries to do the right thing doesn’t think that of their child? However, Thomas and Martha’s joy is a little different from your average mommy and daddy. The hopes and dreams of their family reside in their child so that means that what little hope and joy remains in Gotham resides in him also. Thomas even gave the boy a name to reflect hereditary purpose; a name taken from Scottish clansmen who fought to the death to protect their beautiful highland home against the English, and were so manly that they got away with wearing a skirt whilst doing so. Well - that’s how Thomas justified his choice to Martha. So Bruce it was and Bruce their son became.

Bruce brings joy but he brings his share of worry also (as all normal children do). Bruce is focussed - scarily so for a boy of eight. He is the most brilliant in his class, outstripping his schoolmates in all subjects - academic and physical - and whilst Martha is proud of this she notices that she never needs to make Bruce do his homework, practice the piano…The boy takes it all on himself to the detriment of play. Also, he doesn’t have many friends. In fact, Martha and Thomas rather suspect that Bruce doesn’t have any real friends at all. What his parents do not want to admit is that this is their fault. They have raised Bruce with certain values – honesty, charity, compassion – that few other families who send their sons to the top private school in Gotham share.

So when their quiet, beautiful and far-too serious little boy puts down his textbook to bring them an advertisement for a movie he wants to see starting at eight p.m., Martha and Thomas immediately say yes. It’s not like Bruce to ask for anything, let alone leave his studies. The boy must really want to see this film so they immediately get ready. Martha – however nice a lady she is – is still a woman with too much money and so she overdresses. She applies make up and pins her hair up in curls and clasps her favourite pearl necklace round her neck. Thomas laughs and tells her they aren’t going to the opera. It’s just a film, is all. She knows all this but Martha wants to look nice for her boys - her gorgeous boys whom she loves more than anything in the world. She wants to shine for them. And she does.

They arrive at the movie theatre. A silent movie – is Bruce sure about this? Of course he is – when was their boy ever anything else? And so they hand over their twenty dollars and get three little pink stubs in return. Popcorn? Yes please. Thomas and Martha laugh because the tub is almost bigger than Bruce. Isn’t it lovely there? So quaint, so clean – it must be like going to the movies during the 30s. They tell their son to slow down – he doesn’t have to run, it’s not going to start for twenty minutes yet. But Bruce wants the best seats in the house. He has studied the seating plans and knows the perfect spot - Row L, seats 10, 11 and 12. But Bruce needn’t have worried. The theatre is empty except for a few enthusiasts, dreamers all, just like him. They turn to watch a little dark-haired, blue eyed boy running down the aisle, dragging his daddy by the hand. And each of them of them smiles because that’s how they feel inside – excited, because they are about to watch the Greatest Movie Ever Made.

If you asked Thomas and Martha what the movie was about they couldn’t have told you. They didn’t watch one bit of it. Instead, they watched their boy, sitting In-between them in his grey sweater and short pants that he hadn’t even changed out of from school. God, how he laughed! Proper giggles that shook his little body all over, choking on his popcorn, Martha slapping his back to free his airway so he could laugh some more. Each time Zorro lunged forward with his sword, Bruce did too. Each time Zorro punched someone, Bruce did too. And each time Zorro kissed Lolita, Bruce pretended to vomit. No more homework, no more seriousness, Bruce was finally acting his age, wishing to be what every other eight year-old boy secretly wishes for – to become a fighter for justice with a secret identity and a mask and also a cape because the cape is the best bit, isn’t it daddy?

Of course it is, Bruce. A hero’s not a hero without a cape. Remember that.

So on that night - that cold and starless night – the Wayne family finally leave the movie theatre to walk to their car. No one could possibly be as much in love as Thomas, Martha and Bruce are right at this moment. They are the perfect family – united, warm and strong. Everything is going right, you see. Thomas finally has some assistance in the practice so he can spend more time at home. Martha’s going to suggest to Thomas that they try again for another child - she knows she lost the last one but it’s no use being scared anymore. Family and love is a risk worth taking, isn’t it? And Bruce – well - there’s something special about that boy. He’s going to be a brilliant - a scientist, maybe. And he’ll have a family of his own one day. Can you imagine being a grandparent? Yes, yes they can. Because, as Thomas jokes, no woman could resist Bruce’s fencing with an imaginary sword as their son is demonstrating right now.

Yes - this was the perfect night; the night to define all others. But the real Gotham-type of perfection is yet to come.

There is an alleyway opposite, only a short one. It is late and it is cold - better to go through that than have to walk round the block. Take mommy and daddy’s hand Bruce. We’re all going to cross the road now.

Bruce is so, so excited still. He is doing what all excited children do – he gets loud. ‘Take that! And that!’ He is the noisiest thing in a very quiet neighbourhood. Perhaps so loud that he attracts attention – it is hard to say. It is a neighbourhood where you don’t want to attract attention because the kind you’ll get will be unwanted. It is a place where people exist on subsistence, where guns rule and where life means nothing to anyone; a place so bad that people call it ‘Crime Alley’.

There is a man in the alleyway. The Wayne family do not see him approach. Perhaps he was waiting for them – who knows? It matters not. All that matters is that this man has a gun and that he wants something the Waynes have - money, jewellery – that kind of thing is at the forefront of his mind. But the real truth is that this man has come to rob them of something else, the most important thing they possess. He has come to rob them of their family.

The man - this dishevelled, shaking man - shouts at them. Thomas and Martha hand over their wallet and their purse in terrified compliance - anything to make the bogeyman go away. But he is still shouting. It is impossible to make out what he wants because they do not want to listen. After all, who wants to be told that they are about to die?

Something glints. It is the distant street lights bouncing off Martha’s necklace as she reaches down to shield her eight year-old son who stands behind her, rigid with terror. The man with the gun goes for Martha’s neck. His fingers grab the necklace wrapped round her beautiful skin. Thomas instinctively holds his arm out – not a terrifying gesture, just a defensive, understandable one. There is a loud BANG!, and then another BANG! Bruce watches as his mommy’s pearls arc up into the air from the force of the man’s grasp. Up, up into that cold and starless night they fly, comet-like, breaking free of the madness until the awful gravity of Gotham brings them crashing down to earth once more. They land, dirty and worthless, upon the scum which scuds down the blocked drains of Crime Alley, to be forever lost amongst the dirt and the waste.

Bruce looks down. He sees the face of his mother, lips contorted in a crimson-painted grimace and her skin deathly white. That image will forever now be the face of death to him. He sees his father, slumped, left hand reaching out but never touching the woman he so loved, blood gushing from a hole bored into his temple. And Bruce drops to his knees and sobs.

The man – who will later have a name – leaves now. In some stories he is mournful, in others he is not. It matters not. All that matters is that he did it. He murdered Martha and Thomas even though he didn’t have to. It is a crime without sense, without reason and it happens to a family who should be immune to it. They have all the money in the world to prevent things like that happening to them. They have riches enough to find the name of the man who did it and bring him to justice. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, this crime goes unsolved for fifteen years or more. No one is safe. Not here in the place of Good vs. Evil.

So our eight year old boy who once someone’s son now raises his head, looks up to a cold and starless sky and says:

‘This is my fault. I let this happen.’

We, the readers, open our mouths to tell him that he mustn’t think that way; that there was nothing that he nor anyone else could have done. But before we have chance to tell him this, another voice speaks out. It is a terrible voice, old and filled with mythic purpose. Gotham City answers Bruce and it says:

‘Yes you did. This is all your fault. So tell us, what will happen now to all the other little boys and girls? Because you let that man get away, and he’s going to take their mommies and daddies away just like he did yours.’

We, the readers, could try to tell Bruce that this is a lie, a ruse to make him join the eternal battle, but it is too late. Bruce has made his mind up. He will become a martyr. Bruce is going to one day wear a cape and cowl so we don’t have to.

So, with the resolve to succeed and the will to imagine that only little children possess, Bruce promises to do just that. He vows to be a Wayne for those who seek the path of light and righteousness but be something else to those who choose to remain in the dark. Thus the night ends, a night of perfect good and perfect evil; a truly Gotham night.

It will be a long time before Bruce finds exactly what that ‘something else’ is. For now the screams of Gotham must continue, the killing never ends. And Gothamites will look to the skies when this happens and raise their hands and cry ‘God! God, do you hear me? Why? Why have you forsaken us?’ But it matters not. All that matters is that one day their prayers will change; to be answered by a God who exists below their feet, buried deep inside the city’s ancient ground.

‘Our Batman, who art in Gotham, cowl-ed be thy name…’