Inside the Mind of One James Byrd

At 6:30am, I wake up. I climb out of bed, I change out of my pajamas, and I put on a t-shirt and biking shorts. I tell myself that one day I’ll start riding an actual bike as I hop on my exercise bike for thirty minutes.

At 7:00am, I hop off the bike. I don’t bother to check my heart rate or other stats or anything. I exercised, I know I pushed myself—that’s enough for me. I go to the shower.

At 7:30am, I walk out of the shower. In my bathrobe, I walk to the kitchen and prepare my breakfast. It took me a while to crack the recipe. Pomegranate seeds, strawberries, blueberries, orange juice and peanut-butter powder, for protein. Blend it in the loudest blender known to man, hit the sides of the dinosaur appliance when the blades slow unexpectedly. Consistency varies, taste is always the same.

At 8am, I’m staring at myself in my bedroom mirror. I’m fully dressed now and ready for a day of work. I make sure that my collar is straight, my tie isn’t crooked, and there isn’t a single strand of lint speckled on my navy blue suit.

The sound of my alarm clock surprises me. I walk over to it and dismiss the alarm. I think to myself about setting it for 6:30am the next day, but I don’t. I tell myself that maybe I’ll sleep through the night this time.

By 8:30am, I leave my apartment. I take the number 52 bus for eleven stops before I arrive at the Gotham courthouse around 9am. A chill runs down my spine with every step I take of the front porch. The place feels heavy, and my soul sinks deeper into my body as I inch closer to the front door. When I touch the handle, I resist the urge to dart my head around and see who I feel watching me, because I know there’s no one there.

I take the elevator up to the seventh floor, where the public defender’s offices are. Julie at the front desk is always surprised to see me.

“You’re here early, James,” she says.

I nod, “Got a lot I need to do today.”

It’s the same dialogue we always have. I don’t have a desire to continue it. I know that if I’m near her long enough, my eyes will point straight at her chest and I’ll wind up in an HR seminar. I smile politely and continue walking on.

“Hold up!” She said, violating our routine in a surprising way.

I take a couple steps backwards and raise an eyebrow. What’s going on?

She looks around to make sure no one hears. But there’s no one around us. She pulls her glasses down lower to look me directly in my eyes, and I see that there’s a curious and suspicious concern in them.

“There’s a man waiting for you in your office.”

I feel a fire burning in my chest. I tighten my face not to intimidate or scare her, but to force the flames down before I start yelling. My more rational mind knows it’s a minor issue. But the other part of my mind? The part that I spent years talking with counsellors to try and control? That part of me can’t tolerate anything upsetting, and as I spoke I’m ashamed to say that some fragments of that part of me came out.

“You let someone go into my office without me there?!” I snap.

She looks at me apologetically, but doesn’t actually apologize.

“He’s the type of man you don’t say no to. Not in this town.” She explains.

Though still angry, I feel my face soften. I remember that I’m not living in Missouri anymore, I’m in Gotham. Scary, powerful men forcing their way into public defender’s offices is as routine as my morning insomnia. Getting mad at Julie would do nothing.

“Alright,” I say. I don’t tell her what’s on my mind—that while I’m still upset, I’m glad she was smart enough to protect herself and let the man pass. I don’t want to see her or anyone else hurt, even though I don’t necessarily want to deal with the stranger, either. We all had our parts to play if we wanted to survive meetings like this. The secretary is meant to let the mysterious strangers in the office, and the public defender listens to whatever threat or bribe they’ve come to deliver.

“Do you want me to call someone?” She asks. It’s a typical Gotham question. She didn’t ask me if I wanted to call security or the police, because she knew they’d be powerless. Guys like this only responded to two things—money and muscle. But I don’t have either, and I’m probably one of the few Gothamites that didn’t have a neighborhood gangster I could pay for protection.

“No, I’ll go meet with him. Thank you for letting me know,” I tell her.

I continue walking to my office. My heart is in my throat and my hands are shaking more than they ever have before. There’s a feeling in the back of my head that I can’t get rid of—a thought that it’s finally the end for me and the life I’ve built. I know that’s unreasonably paranoid—after all, suspicious callers in Gotham are a right of passage. Still, my anxiety’s through the roof. As I open the door to my office, all I can think is that I should have changed my alarm clock setting after all.

The man inside seems oddly familiar. The chin, the boyish smirk, the messy black hair—even his ass seems like one that I, as a straight man, had seen all too often. I raise an eyebrow as I search my brain, trying to tie a name to the person, but nothing’s coming to me.

“Sorry for just barging into your office like this,” he says with a friendly, embarrassed shrug.

“No real trouble, I assure you.” I say as I walked to my desk. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

I keep a pleasant, unassuming voice that makes me sick to my stomach. This man came to my office unannounced without me there, and here I am apologizing to him. It’s spineless and pathetic. And I can’t help but wonder why I’m reacting like this. Was it because he’d given my secretary crime lord vibes, or was this all just reflective of how I’d learned to treat white men over the years? I pray that the former is the case, because I don’t want to spend all afternoon feeling guilty and hating myself if it’s the latter.

I sit at my desk, and invite the stranger to take the seat across from it.

“So, what can I do for you today, sir?” I ask.

The man pauses for a moment and laughs, “Okay, okay. I guess I deserved that one.”

“Pardon?” I ask. My eyes blink in polite confusion, inviting him to further explain any part of his being there.

The stranger’s eyes narrow. His mouth moves slightly, as if he’s saying to himself something that isn’t for me to hear. I really begin to search my brain then, because it’s clear that the stranger fully expects me to know exactly why he’s there. But save for a vague sense of recognition that I still can’t place, I have nothing to go on.

“I know it’s been years, but…I guess it was dumb of me to think you’d recognize me. Sorry, James, that’s my fault, I should have done better about keeping in touch.”

I nod my head, still unsure of how I know him. An old college friend, perhaps? I hope that isn’t the case—I especially don’t want to explain why I failed to recognize him if it is.

“I should be the one apologizing to you, Mr….” I trail off.

He points to himself and beams, “It’s me! No one wants to see ya, Dick!”

I blink even faster, but this time it’s less out of confusion and more out of frustration that I try to stuff down. What the fuck did this white boy just call me?

I want to say “I beg your pardon” but it comes out as, “What did you say?”

He keeps grinning like a child and says it again, “Dick! No one wants to see ya, Dick Grayson! You remember from—”

“Mr. Grayson!” I shout, completely surprised and embarrassed. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten him of all people! I look around my office to ensure it looked clean and professional before I give him an apologetic shake of my head.

“I am so, so sorry that I didn’t recognize you before!”

He looks at me, puzzled. As if I was the billionaire’s heir that just magically appeared in his office, “It’s fine, James, no need to worry about it.”

Any other day, I’d be annoyed that this white boy would call me James after I’d just extended the professional courtesy of calling him Mister Grayson. But even feeling annoyed feels like too great a social faux pas towards the son of Bruce Wayne.

“Did Julie offer you anything?” I ask. I pick up my office phone and prepare to page her. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”

He shakes his head, “I don’t want to trouble her, it’s totally fine.”

I lower the phone, “If you’re certain. Well then, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Mr. Grayson?”

He scoffs, but in a kind way. “‘Pleasure of this visit’, you’re so formal, James! Really, I heard you were working here, so I thought I’d pop on in and say hello. You know, catch up on missed time. If you aren’t too busy, of course.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. I was afraid he’d say something like that.

“Oh, well—” I begin. I f eel the last word stretch out, then fall flat. I can’t think of an excuse. I’d planned for possible run-ins with acquaintances before, but I never thought one of those acquaintances would be Dick fucking Grayson!

“You are busy, and I’m an asshole.” He surmises as he flashes an apologetic look.

“Yes. I am rather busy. Perhaps another time we could meet up?”

I pray that he says yes. If he does, then maybe I can get out of this. I could stall for time as I tried to figure out what Dick Grayson’s connection to me was and try to get through our next meeting without raising his suspicions. Even better, perhaps I could give him the run-around with a long, confusing schedule that he couldn’t fit into. Eventually, he’d give up on trying to meet, either because he’d take the hint or he’d decide it was too much trouble.

“That’s fine with me, I understand.” He says with a nod. It seems solemn. And if I wasn’t scared out of my mind, I might have empathized with him. But I don’t have time to think about why the rich white boy’s sad, I had to get him out of my office!

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry about all this,” I say as I rise from my chair. “I’m just really swamped right now. I’ve got work I need to handle, a girlfriend breathing down my neck, and not to mention my mom constantly calling me over to help her with something or another around the house. You understand, right?”

The second that I stopped talking, I could feel everything come crashing down. From the look he’s giving me, it’s clear that Mr. Grayson doesn’t understand. He’s giving me a face so twisted in confusion that it’s almost like he’s been disfigured. The silence that hangs in the air burns and scratches my skin with anticipation. I feel as though I'm watching sparks go down a fuse, inching ever closer to a stick of dynamite in front of me.

Grayson’s face softens and he looked at me for a time. Then he closes his eyes, shakes his head, and sighs. “Your mom’s dead.”

I don’t know how to respond. I knew for a fact that my mom isn’t dead. Though I lied about her needing help around the house, I really do hear from her almost every day, and had briefly texted her on my bus ride here. If she were dead, I’d know about it. The problem is I can’t correct him or challenge him on it. Then everything I’d built will come crashing down. So I don’t respond at all, I just stare back at him with my best poker face, trying not to volunteer any more information for him.

But it’s not enough, Grayson’s already figured out the truth.

“You aren’t James Byrd,” he says through gritted teeth. “Who the hell are you and why are you using my friend’s name?”