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“I try my best to baby that car as best as I can,” Lawrence said. “It was fine, but it didn’t take long for traffic to build up, as it always does when Batman is around.”

The 39-year-old Lawrence has been portraying Batman in one way or another since he was 14. He said it started when he was in high school in Markham, Ont., where he wore a black trench coat to class over his school-issued uniform.

“I started wearing that and it looks like a big, black cape,” he said.

“So my friends started calling me Batman.”

That’s when, he said, he started practising the art of ninjutsu.

When his dad died a few years later, he began wearing a homemade Batsuit and lurking around in the shadows at night.

“When your father passes away and, obviously, you’re looking at Bruce Wayne’s life and looking at your life and you’re saying, ‘they kind of match, don’t they?'”

There are nights that I have gone out in my early, put-together homemade suit and literally be Batman and be by yourself — you can help kind of cope with your changing life

So he went with it and spent years doing it, his own personal thing.

“You don’t want people to think you’re just nuts,” Lawrence said.

“It was private. There are nights that I have gone out in my early, put-together homemade suit and literally be Batman and be by yourself — you can help kind of cope with your changing life.”

Then he decided to “follow his dream” to drive a Batmobile. His friend saw one roaming the streets outside Toronto and Lawrence eventually met the man who builds them in Orangeville, Ont.

I told them I was getting a Batmobile and would appreciate it if they didn’t pull me over every two minutes

He began saving to buy one, so rather than take transit or drive to work, he decided to “come out” as Batman and walked home after his late shift at Coca-Cola — a 2 1/2 hour walk. He met many who loved the suit and police officers who wanted to know what was going on.