Batman: A Maroon in Midnight Blue (Wattpad Edition)

CH 18.1: Black Bastard

The thing about these weird criminals is that they're a dime a dozen here in Gotham City. A new high-tech or highly deranged criminal appears every other day, and it's impossible to keep track of them all. Some guy in a weaponized tutu claiming to be sent by God could blow up an entire building and kill everyone inside, but two months later, no one would be able to tell you his name or what he looked like. I'd tried for years to figure out what it was that makes some of these guys so infamous, but I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Now, Minstrel? That was a different story. Or at least, it was for me. The minute I saw his first video, I knew the exact word for him: fake. He put on his makeup and talked like Steppin Fetchit so he could shock everybody, but then he'd switch. The jokes would fall away, and he'd hold himself and speak like he was some kind of high, refined scholar. First time I saw Minstrel, only one thought went through my head.

"Calvin," I commented to my wife.

She looked away from the television and raised an eyebrow, "What you bringing up him for?"

I pointed at the screen, "He don't remind you of Calvin? Really?"

My wife looked at the screen, then shook her head disapprovingly. Side from side it swung until it found it's way back to me, with a disapproving frown on it's face. "Why you gotta make my ex be the crazy, psycho man on the news?"

"That is Calvin! He has that exact same, arrogant, pretentious look in his eye!"

My wife still didn't believe me, so I grabbed the remote out of her hands and rewound the broadcast. I took some steps towards the screen and felt the heat of four thousand pixels hitting the back of my corneas. I struggled not to blink as the television slowly crawled along. In an instant, I saw it, and in a quicker instant, I slammed my thumb down on the pause button, then pointed at the screen in triumphant validation.

"Look at that! Right there! Tell me I'm lying!"

Minstrel's frozen face filled the center of the screen. I'd stopped him right at the end of his banjo solo, just before he got into the more blatant parts of his monologue. I'd captured him right in the middle of a micro-expression—a slight, quick positioning of his face that revealed the thoughts he was keeping locked up in the back of his head, hoping none of us would notice. In that frozen window of time, his head was cocked slightly back and to the side. His grin was crooked, with the right corner of his mouth stretching higher and building a larger dimple than his left. His eyebrows weren't furrowed, and his lids were slightly drooped. Minstrel didn't look at the camera as if he were looking at the dumbest person in the world, Minstrel looked at the camera as if he himself were the smartest person in the world, and he was amused at the idea that us regular people could ever compare to him. It was the exact type of bullshit that Calvin used to pull.

My wife shook her head and chastised me between fits of laughter, "You leave Calvin alone! He's a perfectly nice man!"

I rolled my eyes, "He's an asshole and you're the only person that refuses to see it. I was in undergrad with you both, remember? No one liked Calvin once his mouth started running, but once he finally did shut up, it was even worse. Cuz he looked at everyone the same way that this asshole is looking at our whole city!"

My wife laughed again, "You're wrong for that! You know Calvin is—he just—he doesn't try to be like that!"

I shook my head, "Girl, I told that nigga 'what's up?' last week, and he looked back at me and said 'the pollen count', with a wide ass, Eddie Murphy grin like he'd just said the funniest shit in the world!"

"He's awkward!" She defended again.

"No, Steve Urkel is awkward. Calvin is just a jackass, and you know it. Why you always dating jackasses, Reina?"

She rolled her eyes and ignored me.

I shook my head and went back to watching the television. But as I looked at Minstrel, I only shook my head more. I found myself wondering what kind of narcissist someone would have to be to do something like that. Why would someone debase themself—and in so doing, debase their whole people—while speaking on the horrors that we experienced in the past? And how could anyone do something so hypocritical while smiling at a damn camera like they were a genius for it?

I didn't like Minstrel. I didn't fuck with Minstrel. I didn't even fuck with the people that did fuck with Minstrel. And believe me, there was a lot of them...

Continued in 18.2