Just Gimme A Reason

I think about getting outta this town all the time. I really think I should. What have I got here that I'm scared of losing?

The job? Fuck this job. I do it for money, and with Gordon breathing down my back, money's getting harder and harder to come by. It was hard enough making this badge work for me before, it's getting even harder to take the occasional kickback without going too far or getting on Gordon's radar.

Friends? I ain't got friends. Least, not any that I can't enjoy just as much through an exchange of letters. Course, the types of folks I befriend ain't much for writing, so we'd have to use our phones. Not texting, though, that's teenage girl shit. I'll happily keep my flip phone and voice calls.

Women? No such thing far as I'm concerned. I do alright, get laid every now and then. But I can't say that I'm drowning in girls out in Gotham. City life isn't too great on a lot of these ladies anyway, and I'm getting to the age where the only chicks I can pull are crackheads and old, dogfaces wearing more paint than Harley fucking Quinn.

I don't know why I stay in this town, I really don't. But I know I gotta get out of it, and each and every night I come across another reason to get out.

"Hey, Bullock!" I heard a voice call me. The game was on, so I not to hear. Sure, it was a recording from last night's game, but it was still on, and I was still watching it.

"Bullock!" I heard again as a hand slammed down on my desk. That pissed me off. I started to get hot under the collar and felt a burning in my lungs but none of the delicious tobacco flavor that usually came with that sensation.

"The fuck you think you are, Harrison?" I asked.

Brown haired bitch smirked. His pearly whites reflected the buzzing 40 watt lights overhead into my eye. I counted the patchy stubble that barely formed a beard and tried not to tighten my fist and throw it in his face.

He pointed to the back of the station, towards the cells and interrogation rooms. "You know Minstrel's in there, yeah?"

I knew where this was heading. I pulled out one of the cheap cigars, which had long since become my go-to cigar, and lit up. I eyed Harrison with the indignation of a hawk and let himself keep talking his way out of his cheap, warehouse-store suit and into a bright orange one with his name monogramed on the back.

"You think about my proposition?" He asked.

I shrugged, "It's crossed my mind."

His eyes narrowed, "And what do you think?"

I shrugged again, "Like I said, it's crossed my mind."

A clicking in my ear directed my eyes down. I noticed that the Brown-haired, brown-suited bitch was tightening his fist up. What he thought he was going to get to do with it, I don't know, because I was waiting for an opportunity to drop the little turd right onto the top of my desk, face first.

"This is a good offer, Harv," Harrison urged, "you oughtta take it."

"And what if I don't?" I asked. I leaned closer in his face, getting a better whiff of him and letting him catch the scent of my own natural musk. It was no question to me which of us had the bigger balls and the strongest testosterone flowing out of them, but clearly, he needed a reminder.

The cool-eyes, badass wannabe motherfucker pretended that I didn't phase him, "We're offering you protection, man. You're going to want it, because you're going to need it. It's not just IA and project babies you gotta worry about now, it's cats like Minstrel too. Or do you want to end up like Namzmiren?"

I tried to fight the thoughts away, but he really got to me. Cops are supposed to be invincible, and that's true for everywhere except Gotham. I'd seen countless men and women in blue having their spines broken or their entrails used for fucking sock puppets, I learned a long time ago that there was no meaningful protection or safety for a cop in Gotham. But Namzmiren's murder hit different. I won't lie, it was because he'd been killed by a black guy for plugging two other blacks. This was a common law city; we lived and died by precedent. If Minstrel could incite a race war, what would stop any other Joaquin or Joniqua from over in the Narrows doing the same?

Every cop in this precinct had put a bullet in one of these thugs once or twice, even the Black cops. But these days, it seemed people only wanted us to shoot the white guys. Minstrel was setting a dangerous precedent that could wind up getting everyone killed. As if being a cop wasn't already hard enough.

"How long have you said it to me, Bullock? How often have you told every cop here that the Bat needs to kill the clown?"

He had a point there, I couldn't disagree. I'd been dragging Batman through the mud for that for years, and I stood by every word of it. Give me a loaded gun and some time alone with the Joker, and I'd wind up with a dead clown on my ledger and Batgirl spinning on my dick in gratitude. Wasn't a real cop here that didn't feel the same way. Batman was brutal, don't get me wrong, but it was all for show as long as he didn't have the balls to actually follow through with it.

"He's not going to kill Joker and he ain't gonna kill Minstrel. You've seen the Joker copycats, Bullock, imagine the Minstrel copycats."

He had a point. I nodded. Sue me. And while you're filing the paperwork, fuck yourself.

At that moment, I heard a voice call my name again. Yet again, it wasn't a blonde.

"Bullock! I need to see you," Gordon called from the door to the roof.

I picked up my hat and put it on my head, tipping it in an exaggerated "Fuck off" to Harrison.

"You think about my offer, Harv. You think on it." He said as he finally walked away.

When Gordon and I got to the roof, I sighed and cracked my neck. Thing no one ever realizes about the Bat Signal is how heavy it is, or that Princess Gordon can't be bothered to position and light it himself.

"Not tonight, Harvey. He's already on his way." Gordon said. He pulled out a cigar of his own.

"What makes you so certain?" I asked.

"He was the one that brought Minstrel in. He'll be back once our guys get nothing out of Minstrel."

I chuckled, "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Comish. You sure know how to make our boys feel appreciated."

Gordon shrugged the comment off and changed the subject, "What was Detective Harrison talking to you about? You two don't typically run in the same circles."

And there we go! The real reason Gordon wanted to talk to me; he wanted to make sure Crooked Harvey wasn't getting into trouble again. I didn't need nor want a goddamn babysitter, and I wasn't interested in hearing any of Gordon's shit about what I should or shouldn't do. But he was still my boss and—like it or not—the only person I trusted in the whole precinct. So, I told him the truth.

"Harrison's asking me to join this new circle jerk he's part of. Calls themselves the Overwatchmen, and they claim they're trying to stop Minstrel or anyone trying to become like him or the Panthers or any other race-baiting thugs. It's all Hollywood's idea, as far as I can tell."

Gordon placed his fingers to his temples and sighed, "Dammit! I knew Fredrico would be trouble ever since he came here from L.A. County. I will not plague gotham with the same cop gangs they have out there, Bullock!"

I shrugged, "I can't say I disagree with the idea. Minstrel's causing trouble, bringing up shit that Gotham hasn't had to deal with before. I'd love nothing more than to form a posse and string him and his uncle up by a lamppost, seeing as we ain't got trees."

I'll say one thing about Jim Gordon: He may act like a bitch, but sometimes he isn't. The second I said that, he grabbed me by my collar and pushed me into the stair-well door. His face was red in fury, eyes popped out of his skull, and his wide, open mouth showed carnivorous teeth as he shouted at me.

"Bullock, if I even hear a whisper of you joining up with something like that, you won't have to worry about the Joker or Minstrel or anyone else! Do I make myself clear?"

I pushed him off me then dusted off my collar, "Get off, Jim! I didn't even say yes. But I'm thinking about it, and you should too. This pacifist shit will get you killed, Jim. Like it or not, we gotta start going at these bozos harder than they come at us."

Gordon shook his head, "We're not murderers, Harvey. We will NEVER be murderers!"

I pointed out to the city below, "There's millions of people down there that think different. Doesn't matter if the perp has a knife or a gun or comes at you, if you defend yourself and your colors don't match, then you're a murderer and a racist. These liberal, antifa sons of bitches are going to bed at night thanking God for Minstrel killing Namzmiren and hoping that he comes after you next. You, Jim! Your daughter! Your family could be next, and they'll fucking cheer. Murder's a subjective word, Gordon. Kill the wrong person and it's murder, kill the right person, and it's self-defense."

I lost my cigar when Gordon threw me, so I pulled another from my pocket and lit it.

"If you think that we're all safe just because Minsrel's in a cell, you're wrong. Now it's official, Gordon. Now this story will end like it always does. Minstrel's going to get out; maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now, but he's going to get out. And he'll kill another cop. And he'll do it again and again and again, and each time he does it, he'll drive some other psycho out there even further to the edge until we've got a thousand of him running around."

"We're not the goddamn Klan, Bullock. You can't just become a—" He didn't finish the thought, but I didn't need him to.

I chuckled, "Go on, say it, Jimbo. Say that we can't take the law into our own hands. Say that we can't defend our own sense of justice. Say that we can't become vigilantes."

He didn't say it. Of course he didn't. Poor, old Jim. He was a good guy, but good guys tend to lack in the testicular area. I didn't tell him that, though, cuz I'd already told him enough. All that was left to do was smoke on the rooftop and wait for Batman to come down and instruct us on the proper way to deal with Minstrel.