My parents moved us to this city when I was still a junior in high school. What a crappy time to uproot a kid. They couldn’t have waited another two years until I was ready to go away to college? I was too old to easily transition into a new teenage social scene (it was just too late in the game; especially in a place like that) and too young to shrug off the isolation. I mean, it wasn’t like I was homecoming king at my last school, but I was comfortable where I fit in and had a great group of weirdos to call friends. Not that I wanted to, but if I had to choose a place I would’ve went with Opal; my best friend Marco went there on a band trip and said the art scene was really sweet, totally retro and the buildings had this whole early-century/art deco thing going for them. Even Metropolis, in it’s shiny futuristic glory, would have took the edge off the move, but not Gotham. Anything but Gotham. Gotham WAS the edge; the rusty, jagged edge.
I remember the drive in being an ominous indicator of things to come. Half-way over the Trigate bridge the smog digested our car like the London fog. Compared to this, NEW YORK was subtle. We must have heard at least ten separate gunshots from the river to our new apartment. “That’s why we’re here!”, my Dad said…every single time.
Now, I know that may be confusing. Let me be more clear. We didn’t leave the rural outskirts of Keystone to trade in crowing roosters for a 9mm wake up call every morning, my father was offered a job by an old pal in the force. Before he met my mom he trained in Chicago. His roommate was a guy named Gordon. Joe or John or Jim or something. At any rate, this guy called my Dad up and said he felt that they could both do some real good there…in Gotham. Now I know he just meant he couldn’t do it alone. The place would have spit a good man out like a bad pistachio. At least that’s the way good-ole Pops put it. I wouldn’t know, I’m allergic to nuts. But as we would soon find out, Gotham was anything but…

Continued

–ExSleepyInk

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