Batman and Robin: The re-Novelization
part 32
In which we finally get to the big day-glo motorcycle action sequence that was just confusing on so many levels.
The crazy roaring of a hundred motorcycle engines echoed through the street and split the Gotham night. The noise was almost enough to make most of the riders forget the terrible financial decisions that resulted in them riding pricey motorcycles in a crowded American city where you’d spend almost all of your time with one foot on the ground, sweltering in leathers, and your motorcycle riding days would either end because you had a baby and decided to value your life some or because you got rear-ended by a car, an accident that would normally just cause some minor cosmetic damage to your vehicle, but in your case, was a debilitating, life-altering crash.
The gangs were gathering at the races. There were at least a dozen different biker gangs, from the all-black Midnites [Pete is sweating already. Will people believe him that this gang and their name was in the original novelization, and not only in there, but as the FIRST listed gang!?] to the drug-dealing Street Demonz, who were not all-black, but maybe some-black, and who did share a common bond with the Midnites because both felt it made them tough to misspell their gang names. They also had some productive conversations about how it’s useful to misspell things for the purposes of having a unique name to an LLC and so on.
There was the stone-cold-killer Gotham Ghosts. There was the hot hot heat of the Hot Hot Heat, not so much a biker gang as a band that happened to be on the scene because, eh, why the fuck not, Coolio is about to show up, why not Hot Hot Heat?
We had, let’s see, The Bikerz and The Bikurz and the Bykrzz. We had the, uh, Baseball Furies? And the Jets. No, wait: Jetz. There was The ZZZZZZZ, who were thought of as a sleepy gang, but really they picked the name because everyone had Zs in their name, and they figured that ALL Zs, was the toughest spelling of all.
Clad in leather, or denim, or rags, or other clothes, basically clad in clothes of some kind. Hair swept back, or shaved off, or dyed spikes—so, again, hair in various styles. Tattoos or pierced faces, which, okay, pierced faces is still a little weird, but less “biker gang” weird, more “I bought these crystals for our house which will help my emotions” weird.
Could someone pitch the idea that video game discs be made with healing crystals, so I could buy a video game AND tell my wife it’s a healing crystal as well? We could have both of our stupid purchases in a mash-up!
The gangs would’ve carved each other into oblivion long ago if someone hadn’t come up with the idea of the bike races. Gang rider against gang rider, playing for cash and not for blood, side bets accepted. It soon became a regular event. What a shame it would’ve been if the bikers had focused their violence on each other instead of Gotham as a whole. Can you imagine? No loud-ass motorcycles ripping up the night? Very little biker meth? Pool halls could set up a pool table without fear that someone would be immediately breaking pool cues across someone’s back and then throwing them through the window and then…I guess shooting pool balls out of some kind of billiard ball gun? That HAS to be something a Batman villain tried, right? Billiard Man? Bill Iard was a mild-mannered pool hustler until his accident (some dick put out a cigarette in his eye for almost no reason), so then he used his background in engineering to make a gun that shoots pool balls at incredible speeds. Which is, you know, basically what a cannon does, but let’s not get bogged down in the non-novelty details here.
Straddling the competition racer, which was thankfully tough because her thighs could easily crush a less sturdy bike, a fact that Barbara was well aware of and made quite a bit of money off of weirdos who—Barbara weaved her way through the milling crowd and approached The Banker, the man in charge, who’s is played by Coolio.
How do we do cameos in books? Can we just say, “Imagine a guy who looks, sounds, and acts EXACTLY like Coolio?”
Is it legal to do that? Could I be like, “Ryan Reynolds stars in this book as Jim?” Would the Ryan Reynolds star power bring readers to the book? Would anyone understand what the hell was going on, and would that be to my advantage? I feel that one weakness of my books is that people are able to accurately assess how stupid and ill-thought-out they are, and therefore do not buy them. Maybe some smoke and mirrors in the form of a celebrity cameo would help?
[brief aside]
Anyway, I discovered that Coolio supposedly played this role because he was promised the role of Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow, in the next Batman movie, which didn’t materialize because Joel Schumacher made his last Batman flick with Batman and Robin.
It’s another, “What the fuck were they thinking?” moment.
Why would Dr. Jonathan Crane be The Banker, running illegal motorcycle street races? Why wouldn’t you put him in Arkham, where Mr. Freeze currently sits, or give him a brief cameo in a Freeze flashback, Dr. Crane doing science stuff?
What the fuck were they thinking? Did they just want a Coolio song super badly? “Riddler’s Paradise?” “Watching mom’s pearls fallin’ / in the pistol smoke / fool!”
[end aside]
“How much to play?” Barbara asked Coolio, world-renowned rapper whose “Gangsta’s Paradise” was a smash that got even more recognition thanks to the Weird Al parody “Amish Paradise,” which Coolio DID NOT like, but, whatever, among the two artists, we know who the real legend is. I mean, Al not only got to play a part in a movie, he got his own entire movie.
So, yeah, this is Coolio, who was taking a brief break from touring to collect money at street races. Weirdly, none of the bikers recognized him, but, whatever, it’s not like he had a distinct hairstyle or something.
See, I figured out how to make it Coolio AND not make it Coolio. I cracked the code for celebrity cameos in books!
“Two and a half,” Coolio said.
Barbara pulled $250 out of her pocket, not an easy task because her pants were VERY tight, and getting her hand into her pocket wasn’t the simplest thing in the world, far less simple than casting Coolio in your Batman and Robin novelization. Beautifully. Seamlessly.
Another biker, the name Spike tattooed across his knuckles, stepped forward.
I guess we’re assuming the tattoo is a name and not just a word. “Spike” is a noun, after all. I don’t know that a lot of people are tattooing their own names on their knuckles, but on the other hand, I just saw a kid who got his birthday, in Roman numerals, tattooed on his own face. Normally I would say there’s not much purpose to that, but I guess if you’re stupid enough to get that tattoo done, you may be stupid enough to not know your own birthday. But, then again, you’re DEFINITELY too stupid for Roman numerals.
See, this tattoo is quite an enigma. Really made me think about a lot of things. Important things. This is what body art is all about. Kudos to that moron.
“You got a tag?”
“Call me Three-Jump,” Barbara replied.
Coolio and Spike looked at each other, confirming that neither of them had any fucking idea what this name meant, but at they same time, they were named “Coolio” and “Spike,” so getting all uptight about a stupid name wasn’t something they were prepared to be on the prosecutorial side of.
“You’re the chick who won the run a couple nights ago.” It was a statement, not a question. I mean, realistically, it’s not going to go unnoticed when the most enormous lady you’ve ever seen, so sturdy that her motorcycle virtually disappears under her aprons of flesh, wins an illegal street race.
Comments at the time varied:
The Street Demonz: That is a wholelottalady!
The Simpsonz (heretofore unmentioned gang that dressed in all yellow and communicated in Simpsons quotes): Woo-hoo, look at that blubber fly! Season 4, Episode 11.
The Midnites: [putting words in the mouth of black bikers commenting on a very large white woman is dangerous territory, so I’m going to cheat and say they didn’t actually see her because they were very busy rolling dice in an alley next to a check cashing place while creating a marijuana smoking vessel by carving the tobacco out of a small cigar. Whew, dodged THAT bullet!]
The Azian Dragonz: [oh, c’mon, I narrowly avoided stereotyping one race, and now you give me another one!”
Spike went on, “That was tricycle racing. This is the real stuff. Maybe you want to ride my hog instead?”
Barbara smiled slowly and looked at Spike’s crotch. Spike was also looking at his crotch. Coolio figured when in Rome and also took a peek. Then they all looked at each other and shrugged, agreeing that Spike’s crotch was pretty normal, so nothing special, at least on initial visual inspection, but nothing repellant, which is really the best you can hope for when it comes to the place on your body where your balls are and urine is ejected multiple times a day. Not being gross is basically magazine-cover quality stuff when it comes to a man’s crotch.
Barbara smiled slowly. “How about a side bet?”
As they moved into line next to the other racers, another figure emerged from the throng (that’s “throng,” not “Throngz,” the Florida-based biker gang who were affectionately known for their whale tails and significantly less affectionately known for sexual assault) to pay his entry fee. This man’s face was obscured by his helmet. Barbara had no idea it was Dick Grayson, even though he was on a motorcycle she had seen several times at Wayne Manor, from which she stole the bike she was riding, and even though he wore a helmet with a red robin airbrushed onto it, which she also surely would’ve seen in the garage, and even though he looked and sounded a lot like Dick Grayson, one of only 3 people she knew in the entire city, and even though his bike featured the vanity plate “Bruce’s Dick,” which is too long to fit on a plate, but when you’re a billionaire, a good donation to the Gotham DMV can get you whatever you want, license-plate-wise.
Look, she didn’t notice Dick was there, okay? She’s going to become Batgirl, but she doesn’t get the job because of her detective skills, okay? Let’s just say it helps that her average test score and her bra size were very similar, FFF having been invented at her all girl’s school as a shortening for “Fffffffuck you blew that one big time!”
Barbara might not know she’s riding right next to Robin, but we know, reader. We know all the filthy secrets of this tawdry tale.
A dozen engines revved and raged as the players strained impatiently for the signal. Coolio, also known for the hit “Fantastic Voyage,” his pockets swollen with the three thousand dollars he’d collected, raised a pistol in the air. This would result in an unfortunate court case as he was a felon and not allowed to possess a firearm, but Coolio pointed out that a starter’s pistol isn’t really a gun. However, the ATF guidelines do say a starter’s pistol falls under the definition of a firearm, and boy did he need to be careful in the future. There was some back and forth about this, and ultimately, the court and Coolio agreed that he didn’t really need to use a pistol to start illegal motorcycle races because there was really no reason for him to be at illegal motorcycle races. What with his doctorate and groundbreaking work on fear chemicals.
This is getting a little convoluted now. I think I blew it.
Coolio fired, and the race began…