▸ Column · Modern Gotham gothic-noir — a letter that found its way to the Dark Knight, with a cat burglar reading over his shoulder.
BATMAN replies.
The letter
Six weeks ago my boyfriend Marcus started answering every single question with "that's classified," delivered in a gravelly movie-trailer growl with a meaningful pause and a slow turn from the fridge. The first few times it killed. Now I can't ask where the car keys went, whether he wants salmon or takeout, or if he called the building super without getting the full redacted-government-file treatment. Last Tuesday he seemed off — too quiet — so I asked if he was okay. He looked me dead in the eyes, whispered "that's classified," and went back to his crossword. I've laughed along, I've ignored it, and I even tried a counter-bit where I only answer in hold-music hums — and he just folded that into the lore and now I'm "Agent Hums," which is somehow worse. I love him. He makes me laugh every day. But I need to know how to decommission a bit that has clearly become load-bearing to his whole personality.
Batman replies
Six weeks. That is when the bit stopped being a bit. You already marked the date — last Tuesday.
A man who answers "are you okay" with a punchline is not joking. He is sealing a door. I know the sound. The voice drops lower. The pause runs longer. The armor gets heavier the closer you stand to what it is covering.
The keys and the salmon do not matter. Let them go. He can play spy over dinner forever. The Tuesday answer is the one to work. Something is wrong, and the bit is the wall he built so you would stop asking.
Do not fight a wall with a wall. Retire "Agent Hums." Competing armor only proves to him that armor holds.
Then pick your ground. No audience. No crossword. No refrigerator to turn from. Somewhere the joke has nowhere to land. Ask once. Then wait. Silence is a tool. Most men break against it eventually.
He makes you laugh every day. Good. But laughter is a mask like any other. I have worn enough of them to recognize one from across the room.
Find what he is hiding. Before it hardens into something neither of you can reach.
— Batman
Catwoman weighs in
Oh, sugar. Taking "how to retire a growl" advice from the man who's been doing the same gravel-and-pause routine since the night it stopped being a choice. Pot, meet kettle in a cape.
He's half right and all wrong on the fix. Don't corner Marcus. I've tried cornering exactly this kind of man — strip his exits, wait him out in the dark. You get a better wall, that's all. The only times he ever told me the truth, I'd already left the door open and turned my back first.
Give Marcus a way out of the bit that isn't a confession. Laugh, say one true thing, quiet, and let him walk to it. Men who hide come when they're not called. That's the whole point of cats. And, apparently, your boyfriend.
— Catwoman
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