"Bruce Lee Wayne" - 12/13/2008

”Bruce Lee Wayne”
12/13/2008

I was in a crowded arena or gymnasium, and I don’t remember why, but I soon became the target of a certain group of nefarious people. I saw them coming down the aisles, searching the audience for me. Since I was seated in the middle of the crowd, my pursuers seemed to have me in a position that would have made it impossible to get away on foot. I was completely calm, though, as they closed in, because I knew I had another method of escape. I reached down beside me and pulled out Batman’s grappling gun. (The Batman: The Animated Series version.) Aiming it at the convertible, stadium-type ceiling, I fired the grappling out of the muzzle and it launched up and out of the roof. Feeling the cable had been secured, I hit the 'retract' button and soared up into the air, leaving my would-be attackers behind.

Surprisingly enough, I wound up ascending into another large area, instead of onto the roof of the arena as I'd expected. I was now on a some sort of mid-way deck, near an Olympic-sized swimming pool filled with people. I checked to see what the grappling hook had attached to and saw that the cable was wrapped around an impossible array of pipes and pillars - having zig-zagged all across the room and connected to a countless number of points rather than having just hooking onto the first stable surface. After taking a moment to wind the cord back up into the gun, I quickly made my way outside of the building and tried to leave the parking lot as quickly as I could.

The parking lot was on an unpaved field, at night, and covered in fresh mud from a recent rain. I don’t know why, but there were now cops trying to stop me from leaving the place as well. (I know it wasn't cops who were chasing me, inside the arena, but now there were definitely cops trying to stop me.) I got into my car and tried to get away, but all the vehicle did was spin out in the mud that was caked around my tires. More and more red and blue lights converged on me from all sides, and I could see that I wasn't about to drive anywhere. Finally, I got out of the car and made a run for it, dodging and weaving passed all of the cars that were also slipping through the mud, trying to chase me down.

It was soon daytime, and I had now fully taken on the persona of Bruce Wayne (a logical progression, after having used Batman's grapple gun, I suppose. Lol). I was walking down the street of a large city which reminded me of Miami’s South Beach. I knew that I was still being tracked, both by the cops and those people back at the arena, so by this point, I had pretty much shed the whole Wayne lifestyle and opted to just wander for a while and lay low. Eventually, I'd happened upon a quaint Wing Chun dojo and decided to further my (Bruce Wayne’s) martial arts training. Inside, I met a really small, generous master and his wife. They were both upward of 60 years old and, at first glance, neither of them would have seemed the least bit threatening. Playing the role of a wanderer who didn’t have a penny to his name, I was able to stay in a back room of the dojo, and the master gave me an old, nearly broken down dirt bike to get around the city on, until I completed my training.

After some time, though, I had been hunted down. I vaguely remember a group of guys bursting into the dojo and my having to fight them off (but that part is more of a hunch than an actual detailed recollection). What I do remember in detail, though, is that I was soon outside of the dojo and running to use a payphone. When I got to the phone, a pickup truck swerved out of traffic and pulled right up onto the sidewalk behind me. Some cowboy-looking dude got out of the truck and started walking toward me, while I was on the phone. Casually, he pulled out a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun and began loading it in this arrogant, deliberately slow manner, as if he knew that he was about to kill me and there was nothing I could do about it. Obviously, he was a professional hit man, and he was very confident in his abilities. My mind began racing. I saw him nonchalantly load two shells and snap the barrel back together. The barrel began to swing up – again: nonchalantly – in my direction and, for a split second, I wondered what Bruce Lee would do in this situation (associating the Wing Chun from before).

Almost instinctively, I lunged in toward the man and grabbed the barrel of the gun before it was able to center itself upon me. Holding it in one hand, my other arm came up and my palm cracked the man in the face. We started struggling for the gun, but I wasn’t able to pull it from his hand. Instead, indirectly, I began to turn the gun away from myself and in his direction. Still unable to pull it from him – and knowing that it was either him or me – I pulled the trigger just as the barrel lodged itself in the man’s ribs during our scuffle. It went off, and I was forcefully sprayed with his blood. The body fell before me and, as if on cue, I heard sirens closing in from a distance.

Without wasting a moment, just as the police were pulling up, I hopped on the noisy, poorly-maintained dirt bike and sped off down the street with the cops giving chase.