Being the boss is a horrible job.
It's not like I'm not grateful for the million dollar paycheck and the prestige.
But I've got to make decisions that affect thousands all over the world, calculate the reactions and plots of hundreds of investors, keep Powers and the Board of Directors appeased, fire, hire, and fire again.
The worst thing about it is that you're constantly under a microscope. I feel that all too well when I'm alone with Paxton Powers.
"Mr. McGinnis, I see some serious flaws in this proposal." Powers murmurs from his chair, glancing up at me with that scrutinizing gaze of a hunter trying to decide whether to let the deer go or to slaughter it before it runs.
"First year flaws." He adds. I play with the paperweight on his desk.
"Hmm?" I heard him perfectly, but it's more fun to keep acting like that infuriating 17-year-old who stole the company from him so long ago. Powers sighs, exasperated.
"I don't have time for this." I stand up, juggling the paperweight.
"You don't have to have time for it. The purchase is going through. You're just being notified." Powers takes the paperweight out of my hands and tosses it on the desk.
"The investors may respect your decisions, but they won't for long."
"And why not?" Powers opens up the portfolio again.
"This is a big gamble. You're spending a hell of a lot of money on the off chance that you'll make all of it back." He almost sounds concerned. How touching.
He can't understand why anyone who's been fighting to keep this for so long would so carelessly risk it.
He doesn't know that I'm not fighting to keep it anymore. I'll do my best to make it stay legitimate, powerful, and alive, but I've got no interest in keeping it.
"You mess this up, and they'll never trust you again." Powers says, barely containing his excitement at the thought.
I watch him for a moment.
Powers and I have a slight respect for each other. I respect his devotion to his father, despite the fact that his father was the devil incarnate. I'm also very grateful that he's never going to be his father. He respects the fact that I won't let him walk all over me and that I've been a more than worthy opponent.
But we still hate each other.
And I don't give a damn if the investors trust me or not. I get up and exit the room.
I feel like I'm an actor in a play that I just can't get into.
I wander past the offices, picking up pieces of conversation as I do. Hundreds, thousands of employees, all with their own lives, own concerns, seeing me as just the faceless deity they're forced to pay homage to.
Mr. McGinnis is the greatest boss. Mr. McGinnis has come a long way since his high school days. Mr. McGinnis reminds us of the Bruce Wayne era. Mr. McGinnis has a knack for business decisions.
Mr. McGinnis is slowly having every piece of him chewed up and spit out.
*************************************************************
I walk into Lydia's bedroom. A couple of weeks ago she was forced to take an indefinite leave from the archaeology she loves, shoved into bed, and forced to sit and think of nothing but her impending death.
Needless to say I spend as much time with her as possible.
Lydia lies in bed, looking angrily down at her thinning body.
I watch her for a minute, feeling the pity and depression you only get when you see the greatest minds in the world reduced to nothing but babbling idiots simply because of their age.
"Stop looking at me like that." Lydia mutters darkly.
"How am I supposed to look at someone who's dying?" I realize how cold and insensitive it sounds after I've already said it.
"I'm not going to die."
They say there are five stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. But Lydia is going through them backwards like she does everything else.
"Course not. You've never done what anyone told you to do. Why start now?" My joke is lost on Lyd, who just glares at the floor. I sigh and walk over to her.
"I can barely see you." She says, squinting to emphasize.
Lost her sense of smell, lost her sense of taste, and now her sight's going too. What kind of hellish death would this be for someone who lived alone?
"You always said things aren't ever what they appear. Isn't sight a better thing to lose than hearing?" Lydia rolls her eyes.
"Since when did you become such an optimist?" Since Lydia started dying and it became my responsibility to keep her from going insane from becoming weak.
But I say nothing.
She sighs and gives me a small smile.
"You are the most patient person I've ever met, Terry McGinnis." She says softly, with maybe a bit of shame at her own frustration.
Patient? Me? Doesn't she know that I'm wishing she'd just die so my heart would be put out of its misery and I can follow her into death? That the only reason I go out as Batman any more is to get pounded by a couple of thugs, get knocked senseless to see if I can get the sense back into my life?
"You're being completely cheated and screwed over and it isn't fair." Any normal person would think Lydia was delirious. But I've learned to read between the lines, to hear the sentences she expects you to detect with completely different ones.
I know I've been cheated. I've lost my father, my mother, Wayne, my son, and I'm probably slowly but surely losing my grip on reality.
But you never tell someone who's dying that their death will just be the icing on the cake, the final blow that will knock me out for good.
"I'm glad to have had everything I've had; no matter how short I've had it." Wayne would have been proud of how effortlessly I've learned to lie, especially to the ones I love. Lydia smiles again.
"I'm still sorry. I've lived my whole life trying to be stronger than you, and I'm just now realizing that no one can ever pass you in that." This, coming from Lydia, who was disowned by her family, misunderstood by her husband for years, buried a son, and is now forced to watch her herself waste away into nothing.
I don't know the meaning of the world compared to her.
"You want to know a secret, McGinnis?" She murmurs. I lean forward conspiratorially.
"I've needed and depended on you for nearly all of my life." I'd laugh if Lydia didn't sound so damnably sincere, so incredibly convincing. But you can't take Lydia expressing emotion so nakedly in a light-hearted manner. It so rarely ever happens.
I sit there, quietly digesting this one very well kept secret Lydia's finally decided to share with me.
"Are you going to go out tonight?" She finally asks, almost timidly.
"I have to. It's the annual 10 year crime wave. It's barely safe to walk around at night." Lydia picks out me from the dark shadows that her vision is filled with and fixes her eyes on me for a minute.
"How long will you be gone?"
"God only knows." Another moment of silence.
"Terry," Lydia begins, "Don't go out tonight."
"I have to." The answer is an automaton, something I've learned to say against births, deaths, important situations, anything. Nothing can go against the inexorable duty of being Batman.
"But you yourself said you're starting to question it." Lydia's voice goes into a whining mode, pleading with me although she has a weak argument.
I'm questioning it, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing it.
"I have to." There's no other justification. I just have to. Lydia sighs.
"Then go." I get up, kissing her on the forehead.
"I love you, Lyd." She closes her eyes. There's no point in looking around when you can't see.
"I love you too, Terry."
So I head down to the cave. I think nothing of it. It's another part of my day, like Wayne-Powers, like coming home, like anyone's normal day. The suit feels more like a uniform now, some bland cotton thing that is sweat- laden and discarded by the end of the day.
I go through the motions. I fight, I win, I get tired and I head back home. For some strange reason I wander around the cave, stare into the same old cases even though I know what's in them and I know most of the stories surrounding them. I wander back upstairs, feeling more and more every minute like this is not my life.
I wander back into Lydia's room.
Lydia's lies sleeping in bed, looking both younger and more fragile both at the same time.
"Lyd? Lydia?" I murmur, shaking her. Lyd doesn't move.
Throat goes dry. Frighteningly similar memories play over and over in head.
"Lydia." I say it one last time, even though I know it's pointless. Lydia can't hear me.
Similar memories blend into the present until both are the same thing and I'm back at point A, in the gigantic circle I've been going through my entire life.
And I don't cry, I don't scream or plead or continue futilely to shake Lydia or say her name. I don't feel like ripping my own heart out or throwing myself off a building. I don't feel anything, despite the fact that I'm sitting right next to Lydia's dead body.
I only take off the mask, stare down at her weakened and completely empty body and think:
How utterly fitting.
It's not like I'm not grateful for the million dollar paycheck and the prestige.
But I've got to make decisions that affect thousands all over the world, calculate the reactions and plots of hundreds of investors, keep Powers and the Board of Directors appeased, fire, hire, and fire again.
The worst thing about it is that you're constantly under a microscope. I feel that all too well when I'm alone with Paxton Powers.
"Mr. McGinnis, I see some serious flaws in this proposal." Powers murmurs from his chair, glancing up at me with that scrutinizing gaze of a hunter trying to decide whether to let the deer go or to slaughter it before it runs.
"First year flaws." He adds. I play with the paperweight on his desk.
"Hmm?" I heard him perfectly, but it's more fun to keep acting like that infuriating 17-year-old who stole the company from him so long ago. Powers sighs, exasperated.
"I don't have time for this." I stand up, juggling the paperweight.
"You don't have to have time for it. The purchase is going through. You're just being notified." Powers takes the paperweight out of my hands and tosses it on the desk.
"The investors may respect your decisions, but they won't for long."
"And why not?" Powers opens up the portfolio again.
"This is a big gamble. You're spending a hell of a lot of money on the off chance that you'll make all of it back." He almost sounds concerned. How touching.
He can't understand why anyone who's been fighting to keep this for so long would so carelessly risk it.
He doesn't know that I'm not fighting to keep it anymore. I'll do my best to make it stay legitimate, powerful, and alive, but I've got no interest in keeping it.
"You mess this up, and they'll never trust you again." Powers says, barely containing his excitement at the thought.
I watch him for a moment.
Powers and I have a slight respect for each other. I respect his devotion to his father, despite the fact that his father was the devil incarnate. I'm also very grateful that he's never going to be his father. He respects the fact that I won't let him walk all over me and that I've been a more than worthy opponent.
But we still hate each other.
And I don't give a damn if the investors trust me or not. I get up and exit the room.
I feel like I'm an actor in a play that I just can't get into.
I wander past the offices, picking up pieces of conversation as I do. Hundreds, thousands of employees, all with their own lives, own concerns, seeing me as just the faceless deity they're forced to pay homage to.
Mr. McGinnis is the greatest boss. Mr. McGinnis has come a long way since his high school days. Mr. McGinnis reminds us of the Bruce Wayne era. Mr. McGinnis has a knack for business decisions.
Mr. McGinnis is slowly having every piece of him chewed up and spit out.
*************************************************************
I walk into Lydia's bedroom. A couple of weeks ago she was forced to take an indefinite leave from the archaeology she loves, shoved into bed, and forced to sit and think of nothing but her impending death.
Needless to say I spend as much time with her as possible.
Lydia lies in bed, looking angrily down at her thinning body.
I watch her for a minute, feeling the pity and depression you only get when you see the greatest minds in the world reduced to nothing but babbling idiots simply because of their age.
"Stop looking at me like that." Lydia mutters darkly.
"How am I supposed to look at someone who's dying?" I realize how cold and insensitive it sounds after I've already said it.
"I'm not going to die."
They say there are five stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. But Lydia is going through them backwards like she does everything else.
"Course not. You've never done what anyone told you to do. Why start now?" My joke is lost on Lyd, who just glares at the floor. I sigh and walk over to her.
"I can barely see you." She says, squinting to emphasize.
Lost her sense of smell, lost her sense of taste, and now her sight's going too. What kind of hellish death would this be for someone who lived alone?
"You always said things aren't ever what they appear. Isn't sight a better thing to lose than hearing?" Lydia rolls her eyes.
"Since when did you become such an optimist?" Since Lydia started dying and it became my responsibility to keep her from going insane from becoming weak.
But I say nothing.
She sighs and gives me a small smile.
"You are the most patient person I've ever met, Terry McGinnis." She says softly, with maybe a bit of shame at her own frustration.
Patient? Me? Doesn't she know that I'm wishing she'd just die so my heart would be put out of its misery and I can follow her into death? That the only reason I go out as Batman any more is to get pounded by a couple of thugs, get knocked senseless to see if I can get the sense back into my life?
"You're being completely cheated and screwed over and it isn't fair." Any normal person would think Lydia was delirious. But I've learned to read between the lines, to hear the sentences she expects you to detect with completely different ones.
I know I've been cheated. I've lost my father, my mother, Wayne, my son, and I'm probably slowly but surely losing my grip on reality.
But you never tell someone who's dying that their death will just be the icing on the cake, the final blow that will knock me out for good.
"I'm glad to have had everything I've had; no matter how short I've had it." Wayne would have been proud of how effortlessly I've learned to lie, especially to the ones I love. Lydia smiles again.
"I'm still sorry. I've lived my whole life trying to be stronger than you, and I'm just now realizing that no one can ever pass you in that." This, coming from Lydia, who was disowned by her family, misunderstood by her husband for years, buried a son, and is now forced to watch her herself waste away into nothing.
I don't know the meaning of the world compared to her.
"You want to know a secret, McGinnis?" She murmurs. I lean forward conspiratorially.
"I've needed and depended on you for nearly all of my life." I'd laugh if Lydia didn't sound so damnably sincere, so incredibly convincing. But you can't take Lydia expressing emotion so nakedly in a light-hearted manner. It so rarely ever happens.
I sit there, quietly digesting this one very well kept secret Lydia's finally decided to share with me.
"Are you going to go out tonight?" She finally asks, almost timidly.
"I have to. It's the annual 10 year crime wave. It's barely safe to walk around at night." Lydia picks out me from the dark shadows that her vision is filled with and fixes her eyes on me for a minute.
"How long will you be gone?"
"God only knows." Another moment of silence.
"Terry," Lydia begins, "Don't go out tonight."
"I have to." The answer is an automaton, something I've learned to say against births, deaths, important situations, anything. Nothing can go against the inexorable duty of being Batman.
"But you yourself said you're starting to question it." Lydia's voice goes into a whining mode, pleading with me although she has a weak argument.
I'm questioning it, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing it.
"I have to." There's no other justification. I just have to. Lydia sighs.
"Then go." I get up, kissing her on the forehead.
"I love you, Lyd." She closes her eyes. There's no point in looking around when you can't see.
"I love you too, Terry."
So I head down to the cave. I think nothing of it. It's another part of my day, like Wayne-Powers, like coming home, like anyone's normal day. The suit feels more like a uniform now, some bland cotton thing that is sweat- laden and discarded by the end of the day.
I go through the motions. I fight, I win, I get tired and I head back home. For some strange reason I wander around the cave, stare into the same old cases even though I know what's in them and I know most of the stories surrounding them. I wander back upstairs, feeling more and more every minute like this is not my life.
I wander back into Lydia's room.
Lydia's lies sleeping in bed, looking both younger and more fragile both at the same time.
"Lyd? Lydia?" I murmur, shaking her. Lyd doesn't move.
Throat goes dry. Frighteningly similar memories play over and over in head.
"Lydia." I say it one last time, even though I know it's pointless. Lydia can't hear me.
Similar memories blend into the present until both are the same thing and I'm back at point A, in the gigantic circle I've been going through my entire life.
And I don't cry, I don't scream or plead or continue futilely to shake Lydia or say her name. I don't feel like ripping my own heart out or throwing myself off a building. I don't feel anything, despite the fact that I'm sitting right next to Lydia's dead body.
I only take off the mask, stare down at her weakened and completely empty body and think:
How utterly fitting.