Batman and Robin Have an Altercation

"Batman and Robin Have an Altercation" is a short story by the American author Stephen King. It was originally published in the September 2012 issue of Harper's Magazine, and later collected in King's short fiction collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams in 2015.^[1]

Synopsis

Sanderson, a middle-aged man, visits his father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, twice a week. One of those times they visit Applebee's for their weekly lunch, where for three years they have ordered the same food and had the same conversation. His father's mental health keeps declining (he even mistakes Sanderson for Sanderson's late brother, who died 40 years ago in an accident). The only memory that he can recall is how, during Halloween, they once dressed up as Batman and Robin.

When driving his father home, Sanderson becomes distracted by an unpleasant (though unintentional) revelation by his father, and gets into a car accident when a pick-up truck swerves into his lane without signaling. The driver of the truck turns out to be an ex-convict with no licence, who has no intention of swapping insurance information with Sanderson. When Sanderson insists, the man loses it and violently starts beating Sanderson to a pulp, until Sanderson's father, in a rare moment of lucidity, intervenes and kills the driver with a steak knife he stole from Applebee's.

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