This Is My City
John Westcott
"Please God, just one more day without the pipe. Just let me get through one more day. If there's one thing you should know, Gotham City is enough to drive a man to drink, let alone smoke." For some reason, I can't believe I just said that aloud, as if I were praying. After all that's happened, after all I've seen, I thought I'd given up believing in a God of any kind. If anything would kill a man's faith, it's a lifetime spent in Gotham, the home of wickedness and evil. Here I stand, amidst all the chaos, the point man in a losing battle against evil. My name is Jim Gordon, and this is my city.
I've done a lot in my years on the force, I've fought against crimes other lawmen can't even bring themselves to speak of. I've never known precisely why this city breeds psychopaths like greed breeds politicians. Whatever the reason, Gotham has seen some of the worst the world has to offer. When I think of what coming to this retched city years ago has cost me at the hands of some of those madmen, I wonder if I'm cursed. First and foremost, there's that grinning ghoul, if I ever lay eyes on him again........ after what he did to Barbara, and to my precious Sarah. Why didn't I kill him when I had the chance? I should have been stronger, I should have aimed my gun right between his eyes and pulled the trigger, ending the menace he presents right then and there.
But I was too damn weak.
Damn my soul.
Even ‘HE' wouldn't stop me from shooting him, even with the way he feels about murder and guns. When I think I'm in danger of becoming too obsessed, I remind myself of him, and I find myself glad that I'm not him. Thank God I'm not Batman. For whatever reason Gotham creates it's homicidal maniacs, I can be grateful that fate balanced the scales and created him to battle them. When one person in this city bleeds, I think he actually feels it himself. I'm not sure what created him, but I have my suspicions. I'd be an idiot not to. He was obviously shaped by a tragic event, one he felt he should have prevented, and somehow did not. Now he spends the remainder of his life fighting to make sure it doesn't happen to others. The fact that he has forfeited his own life and his own happiness is the price he pays for his initial failure. Just when I think I'm cursed, I just have to think of him, and in comparison my life is coming up roses. At least I still have Barbara.
Barbara. The light of my life. Condemned to a wheelchair by a bullet from The Joker, a bullet meant for me. How I wish it had been me that the bullet found. It nearly killed me, the first time I saw her in that chair.
It should have been me.
In her own way, Barbara reminds me of him. She has that dogged determination to overcome her disability. In her own way, her disability has allowed her to find hidden wells of strength that I didn't know existed in her. I'm not sure even she knew that such strength lie inside her. Once again, when I feel like quitting, when I feel like giving up, I think of her, and I think of Batman. They won't give up, so neither will I. Just one day at a time. It sure would be easier if I could smoke that pipe, though.
Barbara isn't the only young person with strength, however. When I feel cursed, and ready to give up, I think of him, I think of Barbara, and I think of Robin. I'd have to be an idiot to not realize that there's been more than one Robin. I remember when I met the first one, so colourfully clad in comparison to his mentor. He wasn't quite as dark, that one, and in some ways, he was even more talented. I remember seeing him move, it was like he was on strings, always ready with quip of some kind. He too, was forged in the fires of sorrow and disaster, but he didn't let it scar him like Batman did. Batman always kept the pain close to his heart, unwilling and perhaps unable to let it go. Over the years, it seemed Robin allowed himself to heal, and he moved on to other things. I remember reading with pride of his exploits in The Titans. Without that young man by Batman's side, I'm positive he'd be dead by now. Robin made him think about what might happen. Robin kept his feet on the ground. Robin found the one remaining light in Batman's dark soul. I can't be one hundred percent positive, but I'd lay money he's the one who calls himself Nightwing. If that's the case, than Batman must be proud. Form what I've heard, Nightwing's in Bludhaven now. God help him, because the local authorities won't. But if anyone can turn that city around, It's that young man. When I think of giving up, I think of the hardships that young man must have endured, growing up with Batman as a father, and I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.
Then the second Robin showed up. He didn't last long, a few months maybe. He was different than the original, with more of a rebellious streak. That's probably what got him killed. I didn't know him long, but I liked that kid. I liked him a lot. He had spunk. Batman knew what it was like to lose a child, he lost Robin, and I think it nearly drove him insane. There was a time after Robin's death that he grew so dark, I didn't think I knew him any more. That's when I realized my theory was true, Robin did keep him sane. Rest in peace, kid. Rest in peace. You fought the good fight. He didn't give up, neither did Batman when he suffered such a tragic loss. If they keep going, so will I.
Then came this current Robin. He has traits of the two earlier ones, and yet he makes the identity all his own. With his arrival, Batman reverted back to the man I first knew. This Robin continued the tradition of keeping Batman's wits about him, making him think "what if?". For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude. Had this Robin not come along, and Batman continued down the road he was going, I would have eventually had to act against him. He is another child borne, not entirely of loss, but out of a desire to right wrongs. Sometimes I think he does it just to keep the tradition of Robin alive. If that's even partially the case, how can I give up the fight? When this boy, barely a teenager, does whatever he can to fight the insanity in this city, how can I do any less?
"Jim?"
His voice comes from behind me, of course. That's hardly a surprise. He has this way about him, he insists that I never see him come or go. I suppose I could never turn my back on him, insist that I see him leave, but I allow him the illusion. It's the way we work. Now that he has arrived, I turn off the power to the mighty signal that summoned him and pull my coat tighter around my chest, doing my best to keep the cold night out. If I had a nickel for every night I spent up here, with the signal blazing, waiting for his arrival, I could afford to retire.
Not that I ever would retire. As long as they keep going, so will I. This is my city, and in all their names, I will not give up the fight.