Eventually, Bruce couldn't muster up enough courage to use the kitchen. It wasn't because he was a coward, but because he'd just watched a man leaning nearby taking drugs, adding a handful of plant roots and tubers into the pot.
He didn't demand that the dishes be entirely clean and sanitary, but at the very least, they shouldn't be poisonous, right?
Upon heading downstairs, Bruce decided to first observe the lay of the land. It was almost dusk and the streets still bustled with a fair amount of people, creating considerable noise. Bruce felt out of place, receiving peculiar looks from everyone.
Bruce knew only a few people would recognize him. He was more famous in the upper-class circles, as those people, who could afford gossip magazines, often caught him fooling around in bars.
Nevertheless, people here could only afford regular newspapers. Gossip rarely found its way there and, assuming they didn't read any magazines, they probably had no idea what Bruce looked like.
Lowering his gaze to his clothes, Bruce realized he wasn't foolish enough to wear designer clothes here. What he wore was unbranded, not much different from what any other Gotham citizens wore in the streets.
Bruce thought the problem might be his shoes. He had rushed over straight from a shareholders' meeting without having had time to replace his leather shoes. He also forgot to remove his expensive watch. It was likely these which provided a stark contrast to his surroundings.
The watch was easy to deal with. He could remove it and put it in his pocket, but if he took off his shoes, where was he supposed to find a new pair in this warren?
Observing his surroundings, Bruce noticed that many people were wearing boots, a practical choice given the expected rainy weather in Gotham. A sturdy pair of rubber boots was an excellent way to avoid having wet feet.
Bruce was fortunate to find a boots shop at a street corner. There were few people there when he arrived. Sticking his upper body inside the somewhat cramped store, he asked, "How much for a pair of rain boots?"
The shop owner, engrossed in his accounts, looked up and replied, "5 dollars, and for an additional 2 dollars, I'll throw in an umbrella…"
Raising an eyebrow, Bruce wasn't startled by the price because he found it expensive, but because it was surprisingly cheap. He picked a pair of boots from the nearby cabinet. After inspecting the thick material and decent handiwork, he decided, "I'll take a pair of boots and an umbrella."
The shopkeeper said, "Put down the pair you're holding. Those are for display. Wait a moment."
With that, he went inside a room, returning with the requested items. Bruce didn't simply accept them. Instead, he examined them carefully before handing the money to the shopkeeper.
On his way back, Bruce spotted a hot dog stand on the roadside. He spent two more dollars on a hot dog.
Once back at his rented room, Bruce immediately changed his shoes, hid his watch, and then opened up the hot dog wrapper to take a bite.
The next moment, he grimaced. Both the bread and sausage were acceptable, but there were simply too many condiments. As soon as he bit into it, sauces flooded his throat, almost making him choke.
Beyond the dense taste of mayonnaise were spicy chili sauces. The hot dog contained several slices of pickled cucumber and jalapeno rings. There was hardly any aromatic scent of bread nor the savory taste of meat. All he could taste was the overpowering flavor of the sauces.
With a grimace, Bruce forced down the hot dog, and then ran towards the tap to take two sips of water.
Having suppressed the queer flavors from his pallet, Bruce coughed forcefully a couple of times, shook his hands, and leaned against the edge of the sink, realizing he was probably too fastidious. In the slums of Gotham, the generous addition of condiments was likely considered a bonus, right?
But he quickly became aware of how naive he had been when, no more than 20 minutes later, he felt a stomachache coming on.
Right after he had been choked by all that sauce, he had hurried to the tap for water. But he had forgotten that he wasn't in his mansion, which had an expensive yet fearsome water filtration system. He was in the Gotham slum. No one, not even Mendeleev, could tell what was in the tap water here.
His stomach, accustomed to light meals, couldn't handle all that chili sauce and jalapeno rings. Combined with tap water that might as well have been sourced from the periodic table, Bruce spent the entire night squatting in the restroom. It wasn't until the early morning that he felt slightly better and fell asleep as soon as he hit the bed.
The next time he opened his eyes, it was almost noon. Bruce had intended to get up early to look for a job, but now he faced another problem: what to do about lunch?
Yesterday's dinner had not replenished his energy and had only left him somewhat dehydrated. Now he was both hungry and thirsty, and yet he dared not eat or drink anything, fearing bacterial infection might trigger another bout of gastroenteritis.
Now, he understood what Maggie meant: it was truly hard for people not born and raised here to survive. Besides having a determined will, a flexible mind, and tremendous endurance, one also needed to possess a gut of steel.
Battling weakness, Bruce reckoned he'd have to cook for himself. He decided to buy some groceries but didn't know where. Fortunately, he bumped into the Asian woman he had seen cooking earlier as he was heading downstairs.
The woman lived on the third floor. She informed Bruce that he could go to the nearby main street, where there was a vegetable supermarket. If he wanted to buy meat, he would have to travel further to the nearby slaughterhouse.
Having arrived at the location the woman directed him to, Bruce found that the prices were indeed very cheap. He suspected that he may have been swindled in his earlier purchases of boots, an umbrella, and hot dogs.
For less than a dollar, he could buy enough vegetables to fill his stomach. Although the vegetables were not exactly fresh, and some even looked like subpar leftovers from high-end restaurants, at least they were edible.
Bruce felt that he also needed to buy a pot since he had no idea what had been cooked in the communal kitchen's pot.
Bruce inquired with the vegetable vendor about where he could buy a pot. The Black vendor scratched his head and suggested, "Why don't you go check out the nearby general market?"
Just a short way from the vegetable supermarket was a general market that sold an array of items – from hardware parts, household goods, second-hand odds and ends, to pots and pans of every kind.
Bruce did find pots for sale, but the issue was that all the pots here were second-hand, and their origins seemed dubious. Or rather, most of the items here seemed to have dubious origins.
Bruce recognized the logo of one of his familiar restaurants, which indicated that this set of dishware certainly wasn't donated by the restaurant out of generosity.
Walking in the general market, Bruce felt like he had walked into a massive fence. No wonder Selina lived here, he thought to himself. No wonder the stolen goods would disappear overnight whenever he failed to catch Selina red-handed.
But there was no other option; he didn't have a choice. He knew there wouldn't be any organic supermarkets in the slums. After wandering around for half a day, Bruce finally chose a frying pan. He also tried bargaining for the first time and discovered that he really had been ripped off before.
The common frying pan was priced at 3 dollars, but he had managed to haggle it down to 60 cents. Finally, Bruce left the market clasping a pot and a bunch of vegetables. His silhouette drudging along the sidewalk looked even heavier than Batman's.
He went on to purchase some relatively fresh ground beef from the slaughterhouse. When he got back home, he didn't dare wash the vegetables or the pot with tap water. Instead, he filled up the pot with water, heated it up on the stove, disposed of the water, and then carefully washed the pot. He then heated up another pot of water, allowed it to cool, and used it to wash the vegetables.
By the time he finished preparing the vegetables, it was already past lunchtime. Always one to be punctual with meals, Bruce felt his stomach acting up.
As he started to fry the beef patties, things became even worse. The layout of the kitchen was problematic in that no matter where Bruce positioned himself, he would always be downwind of the smoke. Without a ventilator hood, the greasy smoke billowing from the fried meat stung his eyes until he could hardly keep them open.
The stove ran on propane gas, but the knobs were badly worn making controlling the flame a near impossible task. A bunch of spinach leaves took half an hour to cook, whereas potato slices chucked in the pan burned to a crisp within two minutes.
Bruce was already not a very good cook. Being able to heat up the food properly was in itself an extraordinary achievement. But when it came to controlling this mystic-like cooking heat, he was completely at a loss.
During the meal, these last-minute prepared vegetables made swallowing a challenge. A meal took him over an hour. By the time he finished having lunch, the sun had set. As he was washing up the pot and dishes, he was blinded by the setting sun's residue glow.
He realized, much to his surprise, that he was quite a sensitive person. He thought he was incredibly resilient, capable of running a kilometer even after being shot twice, and willing to return to the battlefield after enduring countless times of pain.
Such a great hero never thought he would be defeated by the banality of life.
He had not expected that instead of the wounds left by the wicked criminals prompting him to shed tears, it was the ordinariness of life hidden by the evening glow that coaxed his tears.
Only after plunging into the deepest part of the cliff did the bat realize that there were no massive battles to be fought here; his biggest enemy was the myriad of commonplace hardships that were everywhere. A single misstep would leave him no room to recover.
Having finished his meal, Bruce sat on the small balcony in the living room, listening to the drunken rant of the upstairs neighbor and the couple arguing downstairs. He withstood the revolting stench brought by the garbage truck on the street and the churning in his stomach as he silently watched the sunset.
At this moment, he suddenly felt a sense of enlightenment, an effect unparalleled by any psychological therapy.
Because here, though the passing of one's parents might cause great sorrow, people didn't have much time to mourn. They had to go to work, pay rent, buy groceries, cook, browse the market, eat, sleep, and empty the trash.
Sorrow, resentment, confusion, and longing were best processed within a few days. If they had to brood over it for ten years like Batman, they would probably starve to death.
Only Batman, high above in the loft, had time to envision himself as an avenger in the darkness. Those on the ground, the human race, could only think about what to eat the next day.