ENCOUNTERS WITH THE BATMOBILE

I hear it before I see it. A rumble. Low and throaty and sexy in that femme-fatale-she-has-a-knfie-in-her-bra-but-it's-so-worth-it kind of way

It's not thunder. On the highway at night in the city it's difficult to see the sky but I know it's clear. It's not a storm or the vibration of Thor's hammer. This is something else. Something entirely man made

I begin scanning the highway around me. The highway is busy but it's moving well. Four lanes as it curves up towards the next ramp. My rear view shows a dust streaked SUV, certainly not the origin of the rumble. Driver side mirror shows a four door sedan coming up to pass, I can barely hear its engine over my stereo. In the passenger side mirror there is a white box truck, a working van, which one should not be surprised to see at night; New York is the city that never sleeps, Toronto is the city that never stops trying to make money

The box truck is blocking my view of anything behind it. But the sound is there, I can hear it, something between a growl and a whine and it's growing louder.

I'm in the middle lane. The highway is about to make a wide sweep, arching to the right, the ribbons of black and white vanishing into darkness

My lane is sparsely populated. I have space to ease off the gas a bit. At the same time the box truck sees an opening and he accelerates, passing me in a jangle of axles and a belch of diesel.

It's coming up on my right now; that rumble is louder and fully complex, a range of sound moving from soprano to baritone, filled with vibrato, a liquid sound, more organic than mechanical. I can't see it at first. I check my side mirror but there doesn't seem to be anything there; the mistake I've made is that I've been looking at the height of most cars.

I look down. And there it is.

It's black. At first it seems formless, hints of its shape defined by the lights of the highway that slide across its skin. It seems liquid, rippling as it moves along, as black as the pavement but gleaming in the harsh lighting.

It's low slung; like the gunbelt around the waist of Paul Newman in the The Left Handed Gun, like the bikini slung around the hips of Ursula Andress in Dr. No.

It comes up directly beside me and for a few minutes we are matched at speed. Look at that thing. I'm driving a car, I have no idea what this thing is. It's black and sleek and ugly and sexy all at the same time

Yeh, it's the fucking Batmobile

It's entirely black, or hues thereof, from the body to the deeply tinted windows to the spiky rims. The only other colour on it is the silver of the dancing pony. There are louvers on the back window. They look like fish gills which seems appropriate; the thing is some deep ocean predator, shark like and menacing, slipping swiftly through the shoals, hunting for prey

What the hell is this doing here. A weeknight, north end of the city, surrounded by family cars and work vans. It's exotic indeed, as in otherwordly. It doesn't belong on this highway. It may not belong on this world. And it seems to know that

It hangs beside me for only a minute. Then the timbre of the growl changes and the lights ripple across the car's skin and it moves. I swear that the air around my car changes. The shark lunges forward then I am not looking at the car, I am looking at the lambent red glow of its tail lights as it sweeps around the long off ramp just ahead of me.

Then it's gone.

Was it ever here. Did I ever actually see it. Who the fuck knows

I look up on to the ramp as the tail lights flicker brighter red for a moment. I guess it's entered warp drive. The thing got out of here in a damn hurry

Commissioner Gordon must have lighted the Bat Signal