There’s this little saloon you’ll find up and running and packed with patrons before most of us are ready for our morning coffee.
The joint’s two subway levels beneath the streets of Metropolis.
Step out at the Schuster stop on the south-bound side, take two lefts, walk maybe fifteen feet and you’re right on top of it.
But you could just as easily walk right past it and never know it was there.
There’s no sign up. Not even a door. Just a dark hallway that looks like a good place for a murder.
Take a breath. Follow the cigarette stink and the bluesy jukebox sounds inside.
It’s a tolerable little gin mill. Get there before the morning rush, and you’re likely to find a stool.
Your first clue that there’s something wrong about the place is the bartender. You’ll never forget his face. He’s a hulk of a guy who’s seen way too much. A broken man with laser-red eyes. His forehead’s a fractured cantilever, an avalanche waiting to happen. His skin’s gone a little gray from its natural chartreuse.
He’s got a voice like Coke bottles getting ground up under a door.
His name is Jones.
He says he’s from Mars.
And nobody tells him he’s nuts, not one of these sad old barflies. It’s not that they’re scared of him, either.
They’ve seen and done things that are supposed to be impossible.
They’re not the kind to out-and-out brag about being able to bench-press cars or run faster than a speeding bullet or jump up into the air and stay there. Nah. Not these guys. These guys, they’ve got nothing to prove. Been there. Done that.
Except for old “Snapper” always at the same stool at the end, living up to his nickname, snapping his fingers in time to the music and rattling on and on and on about mighty powers, globe-spanning adventures, nefarious world conquerors, you name it.
He never stops snapping his damn fingers. And he never stops sucking back the sauce and jabbering about the old days. The glory days.
The “Golden Age” he calls it.
The age of heroes.
And all the other old farts, they grunt and nod and grumble at each other, swapping old jokes they’ve swapped a thousand times. Even fat, beet-red old “Penguin” chirps out a curse or two before bursting into tears.
Then they get talking. And if you’ve got half a brain, you listen.
They talk about amazing adventures, sounding like a bunch of retired car mechanics the whole time.
They talk about a Man of Steel. An Amazon Princess.
But they never talk about the mean one. The cruel one. The one who couldn’t fly or bend steel in his bare hands. The one who scared the crap out of everybody and laughed at all the rest of us for being the envious cowards we were.
No, they never talk about him. Say his name and watch Dibny’s face sag so bad his jaw hits the bar.
Not a man among them wants to hear about Batman.
Was he quietly assassinated? Or did he just decide we weren’t worth the grief?
The question hangs in the air for a moment or two, then Jones springs for a round for everybody and himself.
They get talking again. About the old days. The glory days.
They remember.
They were right there. In the thick of it.
Back then.
It wasn’t so long ago.
We had heroes.
- From The Dark Knight Returns; James Olsen, "Truth To Power"
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