The Further Adventures of Batman (50 page)

Open window. Autumn. Smell of leaves burning. In the distance a marching band practicing on the edge of campus. Smell of leaves rich as marijuana smoke.

He lies in his white undershorts on bed in this tiny off-campus apartment. Next to him girl sits stroking his chest. She is naked except for pink bikini panties.

“It’s all right. Really.”

“Sure,” he says.

“It’s happened to me a lot. You’re probably just tired.”

“Just shut up.”

“Please,” she says. “I really like you. Isn’t that all that really matters?”

He slaps her, startling her as much as hurting her. Startling her.

i am beginning to understand my problem, i don’t cause the headaches, he does. the impostor,

the impostor

1987

“So how do you feel about this man?”

“You know how I feel, doctor.”

“Angry? Resentful?”

“Of course. Wouldn’t you?”

Pause. “Tell me about the headaches.”

“What time is it?”

“Pardon me?”

“The time, doctor. The time. I forgot my watch.”

Sigh. “Two-ten. Why?”

“I’m in sort of a hurry today.”

“We’re not through till three.”

“You, maybe. I’m in a hurry.”

“You know your mother wants you to stay here for the entire session.”

“Screw my mother.”

“Please. Tell me about the headaches.”

“What about them?”

“Do you know what triggers them?”

“No.”

“Think about it a moment. Please.”

Sigh. “Him.”

“Him?”

“The impostor.”

“Ah.”

“Whenever I see him on tv or in the paper, the headaches start.”

Writes quickly in his notebook. “What do you feel when you see him?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Literally, nothing. People think he’s me. It’s as if I don’t exist.”

He thinks: how seriously can you take a shrink who has three big warts on his face and who wears falling-down socks with battered old Hush-Puppies?

Anyway, he is beginning to suspect that the shrink may well be a friend of the impostor’s.

Yes. Of course.

My God, why didn’t he think of that before?

He stands up.

“It’s only two-fifteen. It’s only—”

But he’s already going out the door. “Goodbye, doctor.”

1988

He sits in his room with the white kitten his mother bought him to cheer him up after he quit college a few months ago. He lazes warm and drifting in the soft May sunlight the same way the white kitten with the damp black nose and the quick pink tongue lazes.

“Kitty,” he says, stroking her, You’re my only friend. My only friend.”

He starts crying then—sobbing really. He doesn’t know why.

i saw him on TV last night, waving, accepting their applause, he’s convinced them now. everybody, they really think he’s me. they really believe it.

1989

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“I’m in a hurry.”

“I’m serious about this.”

He’s never seen his mother like this. No “hon.” No backing down. Almost angry.

“All right.”

“Upstairs.”

“Why?”

“Your room, come on.”

What is going on here? She seems almost . . . crazed.

So up the stairs.

So past where the white kitty with the damp black nose and quick pink tongue lies on the landing in the sunlight.

Into his room.

Throwing open the closet door.

Pointing.

Voice half-hysterical.

“I thought you told me you were getting rid of all this stuff.”

Feeling himself flush. “This is none of your business. You have no right—”

“I have every right. I’ve put up with this since you were eight years old and I can’t handle it any more. You’re a man now, or supposed to be. Get rid of this silly junk and get rid of it now!”

Instead of becoming angry, he just stands there, allowing himself to understand the truth of this moment. The
real
truth.

So the impostor has gotten to her, too.

His own mother.

Sensing this shift in his mood, she seems less certain of herself. Backs away from the closet.

“What’s wrong with you?” she says.

“Did you let him touch you?”

“Who? What are you
talking
about?”

“You know, mother. You know very well what I’m talking about.” Pause. Stares at her. For a forty-two-year old woman she is quite attractive. All those aerobic shows on daytime tv. All that eating of fruit and lean meat and almost never any bread. Certainly no desserts. “You did let him touch you, didn’t you?”

“My God, are you—”

But then she stops herself, obviously realizing that would be the wrong thing to say. The very wrongest thing to say. (Are . . . you . . . crazy?)

He grabs her, then.

By the throat.

Choking her before she has time to scream and alert the neighbors.

It is so easy.

His thumbs press down on her trachea.

Her eyes roll white.

Spittle silver and useless runs down the sides of her mouth as she tries to form useless words.

He watches the way her breasts move so gracefully inside the cotton of her housedress.

Harder harder.

“Please,” she manages to say.

Then drops to the floor.

He has no doubt she is dead.

the impostor has taken over every aspect of my life, i have no friends (sometimes i even suspect that it was really he who put the white kitty here) i have no prospects for a career because nobody believes me when i tell them who i am i have no—

he leaves me no choice

no choice whatsoever

Same Day (Afternoon)

He has never flown before. He is frightened at takeoff, having heard that the two most dangerous times aboard a plane are takeoff and landing.

Once in the air—except for those brief terrifying moments of turbulence, anyway—he starts to enjoy himself,

He had never realized before what a burden she’d been, his mother.

His thinks of her back there in his room, crumpled and dead in a corner. He wonders how many days it will be before they find her. Will she be black? Will maggots be crawling all over her? He hopes so. That will teach the I impostor to mess with him.

He spends the rest of the flight watching a dark-haired stewardess open a very red and exciting mouth as she I smiles at various passengers.

Very red.

Very exciting.

Same Day (Evening)

The city terrifies him. He has checked into a good hotel. Thirty-sixth floor. People below so many ants. Stench and darkness of city.

All those people in the thrall of the impostor. Terrifying.

He has come here without an exact plan, but as he lies on the firm hotel bed eating donuts and drinking milk the late news comes on and the very first story gives him a beautiful plan. A wonderful plan.

Tomorrow the impostor will receive an award from the mayor.

So easy to—

so easy

tomorrow the world will know, my long struggle will be over and i will be able to assume my rightful place, tomorrow.

Next Day (Morning)

Warm spring day. The rear of the city jail where the impostor often brings the criminals he apprehends.

Smell of city—gasoline and smoke and filth and loneliness—sight of city: the helpless, the arrogant, the predatory.

His room, he wants to be back in his room . . . (the gun sweatily in his hand as he hides behind a parked car) but suddenly now the impostor is here—

—leading a prisoner into the rear metal door—

—the impostor; so confident-looking—

—in full costume—

—going into the door as—

—the gunfire starts

Two quick cracks on the soft still air

Two quick cracks

(you bastard—father-of-mine—you’ve been fooling people too long; I exist now and you do not)

crack of pistol
. . .

(and you do not . . .)

Same Day (Afternoon)

Around noon the story was on all the news media, bulletins on the networks, even.

And the would-be assassin (shot to death by police) was identified.

So a neighbor came over to see how his mother was doing after hearing such horrible news

and knocked and knocked

and went and called police

and

They find the body with no problem. Good-looking fortyish woman strangled to death, stuffed into a corner of the bedroom.

One cop, the mournful sort, shakes his head.

What a waste.

He sees the closet door partially open and, being a cop, curious and all, edges it open with a pencil (you’ve got to be extra careful at a crime scene; evidence can be destroyed so easily).

He looks inside.

“What the hell,” he says.

His partner, who has been directing the lab man and the man from the coroner’s office and the ambulance attendants, walks over next to him. “What?”

“Look inside.”

So the second cop looks inside. And whistles. “All these costumes. They’re just like—”

“Just like the guy he tried to kill.”

“But if he had all these costumes you’d think he would have respected the guy, not wanted to kill him.”

The first cop shakes his head. “It’s a strange old world. A strange old world.”

Same Afternoon (Later)

“Hey. Look at this,” the first cop says.

“What?”

“Some kind of diary.”

“Let’s see.”

They flip through pages. Open at a spot and read.

“it is no longer tolerable, the impostor must be killed because there can’t be two of us. one is real, one is false, and after today, the real one will assume the throne of power.”

“Now what the hell could he have meant by that?”

The second cop shrugs. “You got me, partner. You sure got me.”