LUDIC LOG

Hey, Ludic Log fans! Don't forget to e-mail me and tell me why I am better than Jesus Christ for my birthday August 7th. Also, in between your blaspheming, check out the excellent new arts & culture 'zine The High Hat, featuring a troika of articles by yours cruelly!

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Dearest Alfred,

Greetings from sunny Ibiza! The weather is delightful, as always; the people are friendly, the champagne cold and crisp, and the nightclubs filled with beautiful girls. Of course, it's hard to appreciate any of these things when both your legs and three of your ribs are broken, but that's the price one pays for spending one's evenings engaged in rooftop fisticuffs with a demented crocodile-man instead of going to charity banquets.

Which brings me to the point of this letter. You have always served me well, Alfred, as you served my father before me. If it had not been for your strength, your pity, and your love, it seems unlikely that I would have survived the heartbreak of my parents' deaths. You took a hysterical, shattered 9-year-old boy who had all the sense of his world shattered to bits by a pair of bullets, and you molded him into a man. For this I will be eternally grateful.

But your commitment to my service did not end there. When I had acheived my manhood and took it upon myself to take revenge on all the criminals of the world for the evil done by one of their number, it is to your credit that you didn't point out the insanity of such a quest. Some people might harbor recriminations; some might call you a facilitator, an enabler. Not me, Alfred. Neither you nor my father raised me to be an ingrate. It would say little about your abilities if I were to hold a grudge against you for letting me get so deep into this deranged obsession of mine.

After all, what could you have done to stop me? I was a man possessed. Certainly you tried to make my madness evident to me. Your endless sarcastic comments used to annoy me, but with the clarity brought about by time and distance, I realize that you were truly trying to help me. I remember as far back as when I was first trying to think of a way to strike fear and awe into the hearts of Gotham's criminals, and you suggested buying them a one-way ticket to Metropolis. Back then, I thought it was some kind of a slight against me. Later on, of course, after I spent six weeks in intensive care from fighting Clayface only to have Superman knock him into a coma with one punch, did I realize how right you had been. And when that bat flew through the window of the reading room, and I announced that I'd found my symbol, you told me that I should count myself lucky that I wouldn't be appearing as Finch-Man, or the Mosquito, or Dark Pigeon. What's truly lucky is that I had someone like you to tell me what a fool I was.

Not that I ever listened! I was, as I say, a man possessed. You were my closest contact with reality, and such was my purpose that I ignored you completely. Fortunately for all of us, there were plenty more harsh doses of reality yet to come. The 92% release rate of criminals that I captured was Harsh Dose #1; I had spent far too much time studying martial arts, chemistry and forensics, and not nearly enough studying basic legal principles. Such as the one that says if you're the only witness to a crime, and you capture the criminal and leave him tied up in front of the police station without even a note, and even if charges are brought you refuse to give the cops your real name, let alone appear at the trial and give evidence, what's going to happen is that they let him go and probably apologize while they're at it. Harsh Dose #2 was that while criminals are indeed a superstitious and cowardly lot, they are also a surprisingly litigious one. In my first two years alone in the tights and cowl, I was named in over three hundred lawsuits; the money I spent building the Batcave didn't make a dent in the Wayne fortune, but nearly a hundred out-of-court settlements almost wiped it out. Harsh Dose #3, as you're well aware, had to do with the fact that the Joker isn't the Joker because he just didn't want to get a 9-to-5 job, but rather because he is a fucking lunatic who would gas to death an entire busload of children just to distract me long enough to hit me in the head with a plastic hammer that honks. Dealing with people like that didn't so much satisfy my sense of justice so much as it made me wish I'd gone into public relations.

And that's why I'm writing you this letter, dear Alfred. After 29 months as the protector of Gotham city, I've realized a few things. I've realized that it was a shame about my father dying and all, but my trying to avenge his death by whaling on every petty criminal in the city is insane and suicidal. And, after all, what does it mean in the end, other than that I got my inheritance a little early? I've realized that fighting crazy people who can disintegrate solid objects by touch is all well and good for Wonder Woman, but it's maybe not so good for me. I can't even ski, Alfred; how many more guys with Spandex briefs are going to put me in traction before I start enjoying myself? And finally, I've realized that when I die, the choice is mine how I want to be remembered: as a billionaire playboy who pretended to enjoy life while he ponced around every night getting his face beaten in by Two-Face, or as a billionaire playboy who actually enjoyed life. As you can see from the postmark on this letter, I've made my choice.

Please see about giving the Batmobile a paint job and seeing if Oliver will take it off my hands. Give Jim Gordon my best and tell him good luck finding a replacement; I'm sure that Man-Bat will do a better job than I ever did. And please tell Dick that we'll sort out his severance package when I return.

Love,

Bruce