Chapter 10: With Dick and James

Dear James,

This is a letter that I'd been meaning to write for years. I didn't want to lose touch with you, I didn't want to lose touch with anyone. But I couldn't help it, my life got complicated after my parents died, and I was in a dark place for a long time. By the time I came out, you were gone.

What happened to you, James?

-Richard "No one wants to see ya, Dick" Grayson

I best remember him with a trail of snot running down his nose. Looking back, it was obvious that he was allergic to the animals, but no one really said or did anything about it. Everyone figured that little boys had snot running down their nose all the time. Little boys often ran around laughing at nothing, too, and I James was typical in that regard as well. Sometimes, I'd find myself running with him. Not all the time, though, and I regret that. I played with James enough to be casual friends, but not long enough that our friendship lasted beyond Haly's Circus. 

James was always younger than me, and I liked that. It made playing with him easy. The things that fascinated him were far simpler than what fascinated me. He wasn't very demanding, either. He was so happy to have someone that wanted to engage with him that he was willing to do just about anything I recommended. I don't want to overstate how important he was in my life, because the fact is that I forgot about him for years after I left the circus. But still, on the days where I was bored or sad or disappointed with life, playing with James helped me feel better, and I'll always be grateful for that.

"No one wants to see ya, Dick," James would often comment whenever I made my way over to him. He never meant it, though, and he often flashed me the same, toothy grin to confirm that we were still friends. The joke always got a laugh from everyone that heard it, due in no small part to James's young age. None of us had to wonder where he'd picked up the language from, his father and some of the other adults only censored themselves when a paying audience was around.

When I think back to those moments when I'd go to see James, I often remember him handing something to me. I think that was because I often found him with the animals. He liked feeding the elephants, and on more than a few occasions the tamer had to kick the both of us out of the tent for playing too close to the lions.

"My mom liked animals. She wanted to be a zoologist," he would often tell me. He always said it in the past tense. I always wondered about his mother, but at that age I was smart enough not to ask about her directly, but not smart enough to ask indirectly. So I'd change he subject a little. 

"Is that what you want to be when you grow up?" I'd ask.

James would always shake his head and then correct me, "No, I want to be—" but he never continued the sentence the same way. The answers often differed, as if his soul weren't yet settled on what or who he was. I remember days where he said he wanted to be president, or a secret agent. Sometimes he'd say that he wanted to be an astronaut so he could see space, or a pilot so he could see the world. James didn't know what he wanted to do, but he knew that he wanted to be somebody.

"What do you want to be," he'd ask after telling me about whatever career was occupying his mind that week.

I'd always shrug my shoulders and look towards wherever my parents were.

"I think I'll just stay in the family business. I'm really good at it, after all."

To prove that point, I'd do a couple flips. And even though he'd seen me perform on a real trapeze dozens of times before, he always clapped and laughed.

I wish I could say that this was a regular experience. Though it was frequent, it was hardly ever regular. I liked James, but he was still four years younger than me. We both still lived in a circus, where we were encouraged to work, and eager to help our parents. We played together infrequently, and there were many days where neither of us even crossed paths. The moments we did have together, though, we cherished as best as we could.

When my mom and dad were murdered, I entered a cycle of obsession. First, I was obsessed with revenge, and later I was obsessed with justice. I let being Robin take over my life until there was little room for Dick Grayson to be his own, independent being. Seeing what that same thing did to Bruce has helped me stop that obsession from getting as bad as it could. I think I've gotten better at juggling these dual identities of mine, but for a long time, anything related to Dick Grayson was a second priority, and anything related to Dick Grayson's life before Batman was fourth.

I was 18 years old when I finally managed to reach a point in my life where I started thinking of catching up with James again. I don't really know what spurred those feelings, I guess the time just finally felt right to reestablish contact. I wrote a letter to C.C. Haly, catching him up on my life since we last talked some months before, and I asked if James and his dad were still around. Haly told me that James and his dad left the circus not long after I did, following a pay dispute during a difficult time for the circus. Despite their disagreement, they ended things on friendly terms, which is why Haly was surprised when Malcolm Byrd stopped calling and writing. According to Haly, two years after I left, James and Malcolm Byrd fell off the face of the earth. 

I wish I could say that I put all my hero training and resources to good use to track them down. The truth is that I shrugged and thought "Oh well", then forgot all about James. I wish I'd done more--I should have done more. Maybe if I had, things would have turned out differently. But I was an eighteen year old pessimist then, and figured that if James and Malcolm fell out of contact with Haly, they just didn't want to be bothered. I honestly felt a childish embarassment for even asking about them to begin with--of course they'd moved on with their lives. 

After Minstrel revealed he knew my identity, I decided it was time to find out what really happened to James. It didn't take Oracle long to find the whole story. He wasn't living on the streets, he hadn't been in jail, he didn't join the military, and he didn't even join another circus. James Byrd wasn't in some far away state or city, living an anonymous, secluded life. James Byrd was living right in Gotham City with me and Bruce, and he had been here for years.

*

"There's no evidence that your friend is Minstrel," Batman said.

"It's him, Bruce, I can feel it."

Oracle cleared her throat, "Nightwing, I have to agree with Batman here. There's just nothing in this profile to suggest he'd do something like this."

"What is the exact profile for someone that would turn into the Joker?" Signal countered.

Batman grumbled, "You may have a point there, but we can't ignore the patterns that have arisen before. Joker's emulators tend to be young, disenfranchised men, often with a history of mental illness, psychological trauma, and criminality."

"James lost both of his parents and grew up in foster care," I reminded everyone.

The news was a surprise to me when I first heard it. Malcolm had always seemed like such a strong and healthy man. When Barbara told me that he died of a heart attack, I could hardly believe it. It made me wonder about his life, the things that boys never noticed about the adults around them. Was he really so strong and powerful, or did he just appear that way to me?

Hearing about James' mother, though, was far worse. Barbara managed to find out that Jessica Byrd died from complications related to childbirth. She had to be operated on to safely birth James and wound up bleeding out faster than the doctors could treat her. An investigation and lengthy lawsuit later, James Byrd wound up with a trust fund worth $100,000 that would activate when he was 18. James would be able to go to college or buy a house, and it only cost him his mother. Learning this didn't surprise me too much, I figured that James's mom was dead, and his dad mentioned to mine that he had some money set aside for him. But it still felt odd to have the full details laid out for me.

In a way, James and Malcom were always invisible to me. I think we as people have a bad habit of trying to create other people; we take the people we know and choose to understand them in contexts that we relate and connect with. Learning the specifics of James' history destroyed the image of him I'd kept in the back of my mind. He couldn't just be what I interpreted anymore. I was reminded that he was a real person with a real story, and that story was sad. It left me to wonder how differently things might have gone if I had been around to help him deal with the loneliness and grief. Maybe my experience dealing with those same demons could have helped him.

"Yes, but then he went on to college, got decent grades, and found a job at the DA's office." Oracle pushed back.

"Harvey Dent was the DA," Signal said.

"Whose side are you on here, exactly?" Red Robin asked.

I assume that Signal shrugged, "I don't have any horses in this race, man. I'm just trying to get us all to be real here. We can't use a psych profile to guess who will or won't become a criminal like Joker. Copycats are one thing, but Arkham is full of criminals that break every established profile we've got to work with. "

"Signal's right," I said with a nod and a sigh, "James isn't disenfranchised in the same way a lot of other Joker copycats are, but that doesn't mean it's impossible that he's Minstrel, either. I'm going to continue my investigation."

"We're sitting on a powder keg here; we need you in the field." Batman pushed.

"I am in the field!" I said, defensively. Then I grimaced a bit, "I mean, I'm in the outfield at least."

"You're a mile away from all the protestors," Oracle mentioned.

"If my hunch is right, and James is Minstrel, then I'm at the perfect place. There's no way he's missing his chance to make a move on this protest, it's just too big."

"Still can't believe that cop got off," Signal muttered.

"This is Gotham, after all," Red Robin reminded him.

"All this gossiping is giving me a headache! Let's just get started already." Red Hood cried into his coms.

"If there's a fray, I can easily get to the protest and help. But so far, James Byrd is the best lead we have on Minstrel's identity. So I'm going to see this through." I hoped that reminding everyone of those simple facts would work in my favor.

"Fair enough." Batman finally said after a moment of anxious silence, "Everyone remain on guard. For those of you that are still on your way, report in once you've taken position."

"Okay but we're really not going to comment on the fact that Nightwing unironically used the word 'fray,'" Tim asked, stifling a laugh.

I ignored him and focused on the task at hand. I turned the volume down on my comms so they couldn't distract me. Raising my scopes back to my eyes, I continued my observation of James in the building across from me.

James Byrd was a diligent worker, the kind that preferred to stay behind after hours preparing for the next day. As he worked, there was a subtle fire of passion burning in his eyes, and a serious tightness to his otherwise round jaw, as if whatever he was working on were the most important thing in the world. I was happy to see that determination in him, it made me glad to see that James had found himself something to be passionate about.

I thought about what I'd read in Oracle's report; how James Byrd first attended a small college out in the Midwest before he transferred to Gotham University. I wondered what James was like in his college days. Was he more of a nerd, or a jock? His grades were good, but not extremely good, so I imagined that maybe he was just studious enough. I found myself imagining a world where we rekindled our friendship while he was in college. Would that even be possible? Putting aside my hectic life as Nightwing, I wondered if he would even want me as a friend. From his perspective, I left him and everyone in the circus for the life of a billionaire's heir, and I couldn't have even been bothered to contact him once I left.

I didn't know if James was Minstrel. Though I was territorial and made a big deal of being the one to investigate him, I secretly hoped my suspicions were wrong. Maybe Minstrel was another Black kid that grew up in a circus. Maybe the joke he made about my name was just a coincidence. Maybe it wasn't too late for me and James to reconnect after all. If James wasn't Minstrel, maybe I could finally right my wrongs.

Of course, I wouldn't blame myself for James becoming Minstrel. Ultimately, our choices are our own; and while I'm certain that someone, somewhere hurt him so much that he began to believe the only thing he could do was hurt others in return, I don't think that means he had any less of a choice to become Minstrel. Nor does that mean that I should feel responsible. Still, I wondered what kind of hurt he could have gone through, and what I could have possibly done to help him deal with it. Could I have helped James and stopped him from becoming Minstrel? Could I still help him and get him to turn his back on that life before it was too late?

I sighed, finally understanding why Bruce struggled so much with Joker. 

Batman's voice over my comm links violently dragged me out of my thoughts. I realized that I'd been watching James for 20 minutes, and in all that time he hadn't made a single suspicious move.

"Everyone converge on Signal's position!" Batman said, "We have confirmation that Minstrel was in the area."

"Don't tell me he's the one that caused this riot. I thought Dick was sitting on Minstrel!" Red Hood shouted.

I bit the inside of my cheek angrily. "I guess I was wrong. It's not James."

"I'm sorry everyone," Signal said, an unusual heaviness hanging in his voice.

"Why are you apologizing?" I asked. I didn't hear his answer, and I didn't care. I rushed to my bike and sped towards his location. I was done wasting time chasing ghosts.