Bananana Split

It was a quiet cold night, a rare break from the usual chaos, no echoing mad laughter or stray penguins braying in the streets.

Vinny prowled through the dark alley, flicking his switchblade open and shut, feeling tougher than he probably should. He just made a big score, selling fake Bane signed posters “You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it”. He had gotten some decent cash and a taste of respect on the streets. Tonight, he was after a much bigger prize.

He crept after a shadowy figure, tall but stooped over, moving deliberately along the darkness, keeping just out of reach of the lights. The figure wore a shawl over its head, hiding its facial features, it shuffled with the odd stiffness as if like someone pretending to be frail, leaning heavily on a cane. Every move looked wary, almost as if it knew it was being watched.

“The Bat has been out in the city more lately, dressed up differently in disguise. Hunting smaller fish, for intel, better be careful” one of Riddler’s men told him the other day, he had been roughed up by the Bat the previous night so the info was trust worthy.

This was his chance. If he could surprise the Bat and take him down, his street cred would skyrocket. Even Maroni would take him seriously.

What didn’t make sense to Vinny was; why was the Bat clutching something long and yellow? A Batarang? No, it looked more like… a banana?

He gripped his small pistol, careful not to make a sound, his fingers trembled.
Would the bullet pierce the armor? It didn’t matter now. Shoot first, wonder later, he thought.

“Drop the batarang, Batsy!” Vinny shouted, raising his pistol with a shaky hand.

The figure paused, turned slightly and then said in a creaky grumpy voice “Who is Batsy, kid?”

A fake raspy voice… Ofcourse a disguise! It was trying to trick him. Vinny wasn’t about to fall for that like Two-Face did last month.

“Nice try, Bat freak!” Vinny shouted, squinting one eye and pulling the trigger.

Through the open one, he saw the figure throw the Batarang his way.
He had expected a metallic clang on impact but instead the bullet tore straight through the banana, turning it into a splattered mess

“Vinny, you idiot punk! Why would you shoot at me?” rasped the voice and into the faint glow of a flickering streetlight, came an old woman.

Vinny’s heart sank. The mysterious figure wasn’t the Bat at all.

“Granny!?” he whispered in disbelief.

“Who were you expecting, the Crocodile?” she huffed in annoyed voice as she struggled towards him. She hit him on the head with a knock off Penguin umbrella which she used as a walking stick. He had gotten it for her after she kept falling during the time Mr. Freeze had frozen all of the city’s streets, turning it into a slippery nightmare.

“I thought you were Bat!” Vinny stammered. He was a lowlife, sure, but there was a line he wouldn’t cross, shooting family was definitely that line.

Granny shoved a finger in his face. “Maybe if your lazy ass visited more often, you would recognize your own flesh and blood! Shooting your poor granny like I am some kinda Poison Ivy!”

She wobbled off down the alley, muttering about no respect for elders while Vinny just stood there, too embarrassed to move.

His cape billowed in the breeze as he silently witnessed the bizarre scene unfold below from the gargoyle he was perched upon.

“In a city terrorized by a Joker” he growled under his breath “someone nearly dies over a banana.”

“Perhaps, Master Wayne, a fruit stand is what the city needs?” Alfred’s voice crackled in his earpiece. “What next, Banana Man?”

Batman couldn’t help but smirk as he vanished back into the shadow.
Gotham never failed to surprise him.