I only knew him as Batman. He was an overweight hairy homeless man with
a thick beard who wore a pair of blue jeans, with a rope for a belt, and an old
gray shirt with the Batman logo across the chest, the yellow shinning bright
despite the holes in the shirt.
He had a blue tarp that he used as
a blanket at night and as a cape during the day. He had a break from reality long before I met
him but that never stopped him from having an uplifting attitude.
Batman was a proud man. He never accepted money or food without
trying to do something to earn it. He
would walk up and down Main Street in downtown, saying hello to everyone he
passed.
“Hello citizen, I’m Batman,” he
would always say.
I would always give him my hand to
shake but he never took it. He was
afraid to touch another person for some reason.
I would see him every Saturday
morning and I always looked forward to seeing him. I thought he would always be there until one
day he wasn’t. After three weeks of not
seeing him I started to ask around if anyone knew what happened to him. It took another week before I got my answer.
During the week as people were
getting off work Batman was patrolling Main Street, as he always did. He saw someone was getting mugged at knife
point. Without thinking he sprang into
action, yelling at the man to stop as he ran toward him. The mugger stabbed Batman before running
away. He died the hero he always claimed
to be.
While Batman may be some actor in a
costume in a movie, to me, the real Batman was a large fat homeless man with a
thick beard and a huge heart.
I miss Batman.
