Tracing Gould - oo8

"Chee, Tracy!"

Instantly Sam's face flips on its vertical axis, the ray of his vision switched 180°.  Peering down into the ink-limned paperspace with fondness verging on disdain.  The edges of the single panel hovering atop the hardwood honeyglow of the floor.  "These damned p.o.v. shots give me spins so hard you'd think I was lit."  Sam's face flicks back in my direction.  "Kid: I know you're the Kid, here, but there's a problem Back Home.  It's Dick Junior."

I know who he means.  Simultaneously, I don't.  There's Dick Grayson--  the Robin of my day, freshly exported to run a supergroup of JLA junior-leaguers  --but Dick Tracy, Junior, the o.g. kid sidekick, doesn't exist in my time.  The Dick Tracy comix I grew up with didn't feature Junior much, if ever.

"So you're gonna bail back?"

"Don't let me keep you from thinking of reasons I shouldn't!"  Sam's wry smile twinkles and his freckles dance.  "Pretty sure the only reason I exist is so our man Tracy can act like a proper dad.  Always racing headlong into danger... it's a miracle Dick Junior exists today.  I've rescued that runt's bowlcut nearly as often as I've saved his old man.  'Crimestopper' my doda Tante's fat damn fanny!"

My hand sets the slowing spin of the scissors propellering again at the edge of our sunbeam, casting glints around the room.  Tracers flying across and through the dark walnut china cabinet with its mirrored interior.  The figurines of Little Boy Blue and Miss Moffett on their top shelf giving one another the sideeye.  The dustless, bejeweled styrofoam fruit display in the center of the dining room table mocking the reality of the empty memories all around.

"Dick Grayson really was a problem, for me."  My voice suddenly strange in my throat, the words overlarge.  "Like, even when he graduated to Nightwing.  I always wondered how the hell anyone could not know who Batman was:  palling around with a tiny acrobat in a domino mask.  Batman at least had his cowl, makeup around his eyes, the advantage of shadow.  That damned kid blows the cover of Bruce Wayne, instantly!"  The proportions of the room swimming like a heat mirage at my ballooning volume.  "There's no secret identity when the partner is an adoptee.  And what kind of friend, or father figure, are we talking about here?  Placing Robin in harm's way day upon day upon day.  Batman's a menace!  And the cops of the GCPD are only worse, letting Batman do what Batman does, with a kiddy cosplayer riding his cape-tails."

Sam shrugs.  "Child endangerment laws were paperthin on the ground until, hell..."  Doffs his hat and ruffles his hair, favouring his escape hatch with a skeptical glance.  "Must be two years 'fore you were born.  CAPTA didn't exist until 1974.  And wouldn't get tightened up until after the Satanic Panic ran its course."  Repositioning himself, and his topper, the panel at his feet echoing, emptily, again:

"Satan?!?  Chee!!!"

With which the vacant scrap is scooped into hand and swiftly crumpled.  Cocking my thumb to flick the pellet of pulp.  It bounces to Sam, who lifts a foot to set it down, crimping the paperwad beneath the tip of his brogan.

"Let's stick to the present," I say, my baritone vanished.  "By '88 Paw-Paw is gone and this idyll..."

"Ain't idling much longer, seems to me."