Knight of Gotham: Prologue

CHAPTER I

I still remember that night in vivid detail. I was nine. Men in Black had been out a couple weeks, and a young Bruce Wayne had pleaded with his somewhat laid back father, Thomas, and his far more uptight mother, Martha, to see it incessantly. They finally caved in. We went to the old Gotham Cineplex to catch the 5:45 showing. It was all right, I guess. I don't remember much from the movie itself.

We got up as soon as the credits began crawling up the screen. My dad thought it was cool and my mom thought it was dumb, and that was that. No use arguing, especially on their boy's birthday. Besides, it was only eight o' clock. Bedtime wasn't for another two hours. The night was still young, as far as the Waynes were concerned.

Instead of exiting the auditorium and going out the front door, my parents opted for the door leading out into a near-hidden alley. We were parked closer.

As we stepped out just beyond the night lights of Gotham City, New Jersey, my dad, his right hand in my left, looked eagerly out across the street, toward the glow of an old-fashioned ice cream shop's neon lights. He turned to my mom and gave her a suggestive smirk and raised his eyebrows. She returned the expression and asked me, "Bruce, how does some ice cream sound?" I was so excited by the question that I didn't properly reply. I stuttered happily, eventually abandoning my sentence and grinning widely.

"I think that means 'It sounds good', Martha," my dad chuckled.

My mom, her left hand in my right, tittered and lovingly lifted her hand, freeing it from my grip and running it over my hair. It was jet black, "Just like your old man," my dad would gleefully say. My mom took my hand again, and it was then we heard a grunt a little farther off and to the left.

We came to a quick halt, and my dad stepped in front of us, letting go of my hand and squinting in the dark. He took his keys from his pocket. On the ring was the car key and the house key. He put the sharper-toothed house key in his left hand, closing it into a fist so the blade stuck out between his middle and ring finger.

"Hello?" He called out. A mass against the left wall moved and emerged.

It was a guy dressed in old, shambled clothes, his blond hair grown long and scraggly. His eyes were sunken with rings of fatigue around them, and his face looked like it hung from his skull. Even in the dusk, it was plain to see that he was shaking all over; probably DTs.

My dad gently pushed my mom and I further behind him and asked the stranger, "Do you need help, sir?"

The stranger saw the key in my dad's fist. He responded by reaching into one of the pockets of his ratty coat and withdrawing a snub nosed handgun. He raised it shakily, taking aim at my dad. My dad's eyes widened in alarm as he raised his hands.

"Look," the stranger said, nearly choking on the word, "I don't want to hurt either of you...or your little boy. I just need some money."

"Don't you threaten my boy," my dad seethed.

"Thomas, just give him some money," my mom's voice trembled. By now she was shielding me with her body, her back to my dad and the stranger, pressing me to her so I couldn't see.

Seeing his wife and child in such a state seemed to soften something in my dad. He took his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it to the stranger. The shaking, weary stranger didn't have any trigger discipline. So when my dad tossed him his wallet so suddenly, he reflexively squeezed with his index finger. The sound echoed off the close walls of the alley and out into the night. Up to that point it was the loudest sound I'd ever heard. I found out later that first bullet hit my dad's shoulder. "AAOW!" he roared. He probably realized then that the stranger was an even greater danger than he'd thought, if not by virtue of malicious intent then by the lowered function of his mind. He rushed the stranger, struggling for the gun. My mom was screaming, clutching me even tighter. Two more shots rang out. My mother's screams were cut off by a gasp. I heard my dad crumple to the ground.

"Close your eyes, Brucie," my mom whispered. I obeyed, and felt her bring herself to her knees and press me even closer still. After one last squeeze, she let me go, falling to my left side. I kept my eyes closed. I could hear the stranger was still there.

"Oh, f&$%...oh s#^!...I didn't me-...I di-..." A choking gulp, the shuffling of feet, and then...silence. I kept my eyes closed.

I didn't open my eyes until I heard another pair of feet approach. I heard a woman gasp and run toward me. She stopped right in front of me, kneeling and taking my face in her hands. "Honey?" she asked, "All you all right?" I kept my eyes shut. "Honey, open your eyes," she said. I reluctantly obeyed. She was just a stranger. She quickly placed her hands like blinders on either side of my eyes. "Don't look, honey...don't look." She glanced over her shoulder. When she looked back at me, she said, "Okay, honey, I'm gonna need you to close your eyes again. Take my hand and follow me. Don't open your eyes."

The next time she told me to open my eyes, I found myself in her car. She was outside on the phone...with the police. "...heard gunshots. I went to go see, and I found..." She looked up at the sky and moved her jaw up and down like a fish, searching for words. She looked at me, and then continued, "Look, just please get down here. Right by the Cineplex. Hurry, their boy is still here. Thank you." She hung up and got in the driver's seat. She put her hand on my arm and locked eyes with me, nodding, "You're going to be okay. The police will be here soon." I only found it in me to nod back.

Fifteen minutes later, and the Cineplex was surrounded by flashing lights and yellow tape. Officers walked into the pitch dark of the alley, and when they walked out, they often hung their heads. One in particular, not in blues, but a trench coat, simply stood at the mouth of the alley and looked in. His shoulders heaved up and back down with a slow sigh. When he tore his eyes away, they locked on me. He ducked under the tape and jogged over, telling the woman, "You did right calling this in, ma'am. Thank you. We'll take it from here."

The woman opened the passenger door and beckoned to me, "Come on out, honey." I slowly stepped out, looking the policeman in the eye. He lowered himself to my height and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Hi, Bruce. I'm detective James Gordon. You can call me Jim. I'm going to take you home. Are you ready to go home?"

I nodded, breaking my silence, "Y-yes...yes, I'm ready."

The familiar creak of the front door of Wayne Manor was followed by the appearance of Alfred Pennyworth, the family butler. He was visibly confused upon seeing Jim with his hand on my shoulder. His lips drew slightly apart. What had happened had registered. He looked into Jim's sympathetic eyes and then down at me. "Ah...Master Bruce, go inside. I think I need to have a talk with the policeman." I knew what about. I stepped inside and walked the halls till I reached my room, hearing the front door shut behind me, not looking to my right or left. I just sat on my bed.

I didn't move until my bedroom door opened. Alfred gingerly stepped in, his eyes tinged red. He kneeled in front of me, placing a hand on my knee. He swallowed, barely able to hold eye contact, "Master Bruce, I...I...oh, my dear boy..."

He rose up and hugged me, letting out those blasting breaths that let you know someone is trying to keep from sobbing. As I felt the embrace, it was as though I suddenly remembered I was a little boy, and one that had lost his parents. I had no reservations about wailing aloud, and so that's what I did.

It was ten thirty by then, far past my bedtime.