The Moonstruck

Bowie

The body was starting to smell.

I sneered at it, mangled and graying in the middle of my father’s prized Persian rug; limbs thrown wild with the pathetic determination they’d show yesterday evening. Petty fight. I hadn’t expected much more. The name plate at her breast flashed as I nudged her with the toe of my heel.

“Oh Harleen,” I sighed, sniffing at the dank air, still ripe with the iron of her blood, “Where would I be without you?” I glanced lovingly over my shoulder at the folders on the desk, running a hand along their spines. Turning in my seat, I flipped the first one open. The Joker, free of his greasepaint, and in all of his black and white photographic glory smirked blearily back at me.

“Handsome devil,” I murmured, my eyes moving over his scars, sliding left and then right. Wouldn’t be too hard to duplicate…

A number of documents were attached to the photograph with a small paperclip and I flipped through them, with more than mild interest - I’d scan them more devoutly later. Psycho-analysis, health and behavior records…his personal file was exasperatingly blank. They hadn’t even managed an age.

I glanced over at the doctor, tilting my head slightly to mirror the odd angle of her neck. So why had you been so desperate to keep his file?

I could remember what little fight she’d put up over the Catwoman file. A simple ‘here you go’. But the Joker’s…she’d held tighter to that than her life. It made me laugh. She fought so hard to protect a man who’d kill her in ten seconds. Must’ve been a romantic.

I returned to the files, reluctantly putting aside the Joker’s and opening the second. My eyes flickered over the photograph, taking in the striking woman snarling up at me. There was something sinister in her face, a madness ebbing just beyond the surface. And yet…I could faintly read a fleeting tenderness in her eyes. For him, maybe. I wondered at the pair. I would’ve loved to see them together, interacting…

But of course, I grew up watching them.

When your daddy’s a preacher, trotting the globe and spouting religion and running from home; when your mother’s given up on somehow stretching the cellophane mask of Miss America over your dead eyes; when they’ve ripped you from school for disorderly conduct of the most heinous nature (a rather horrid incident with a mouthy bitch and a letter opener); and when you’re left alone at sixteen, to rot in your own haunted mansion, what’s a girl to do?

Naturally, plop down in front of the television and drown it all out with pop culture and murder reports and stories of crime and maniacs.

I could remember the night I’d first seen them. I was high on mother’s amphetamines. She was on her fourth martini. I’d been sitting on the rug in front of the television, uprooting the tiny fibers to keep from pulling my skin off when the pair of them had flickered across the television.

They’d robbed a bank. I watched the footage religiously as it played and replayed through the evening program; watched them waltz across the sunny lobby, her whip cracking, his painted face flashing smiles at the cameras. And I’d been inspired.

Enough at least to strike from my home and stride into the wild, my dark hair flying like a rebel flag, an ex-pageant queen. Enough to settle into a caravan of street and metro-savvy gypsies and name myself their princess. It’d been easy; I was the Fair One, sliding amidst the rest of their raven-haired, needling children. I was pretty and cruel, with my white teeth and my blue eyes; I was elected.

And for a time, I’d been queen. The Marie Antoinette of the immigrant slums. Bowie, they called me, for my white-blonde head. I was praised and I was glorified, tendered snitches and cheaters for heady sacrifice, proffered gems and fine green for offerings. I beckoned forward the worthy into my circle of smoke and collected the profit of smuggled drugs with the other. All the while keeping an eye out for my deities; I’d even slogged my fleet after them, marking their every move in my memory, scenting the air for them. But I was always one step behind. Always.

And it drove me mad.

I’d thought it be so easy. That I’d simply happen upon them if I slunk in the streets at the right stroke of midnight; if I hung in all the right bars, with the right creeps who said all the right things.

It was always the same.

Bowie, pretty girl, sweet girl…what are you doing here?

My reply.

Looking for them.

They’d just laugh, shake their heads at my fatal pursuit. Offer me another drink or tell me to go hit the streets until they hit back. I’d shake off their breath on my neck, shake their hands out of my pockets, off of me. And my eyes on the door, I’d wait for them to walk in. He’d smile maybe. And she’d sneer. Ghosts in the flesh.

But I never found them. If it weren’t for the body count and the news reports; the echoes of madness and the stench of gasoline and sweet blood in all those abandoned warehouses I’d stumbled upon; if it weren’t for the horror stories whispered into empty bottles and left to float along in the sewers, I’d have thought them myth.

Until at last, a slip of human nature – they were caught. Promptly plucked from the streets and thrust into the bleary light of institution. The papers blathered about their brief and gag-worthy day in court. I’d ripped one of their photos from its place amongst the text; a rather dashing capture – the Joker caught mid-yawn, his makeup smudged across his face and the Catwoman, then revealed to be a Ms. Selina Kyle, with her lips pulled wide in what could only be a rabid cackle. It was the first good look I’d gotten of them, knowing full well however that the pictures could do them no justice.

And as talk of them trickled out of the dives and out of the gutters, I silently followed. Bestowing my crown to the most laudable of my kin, I left my kingdom; I took my best man with me. Rex. He’d been the one-man freak show of my caravan. He didn’t talk much – with all the screaming, macabre ink etched across his body he didn’t need to. And he didn’t moon over me, a first; I’d been bitter about that much; having to coax, wring the praise from him. If it was only the pair of us, alone in my adolescent home (which had long since been abandoned by my parents, lost to me), then he would have had to give me what I needed. After all those years of being sovereign, being petted and stroked and glorified, even as a child…it was necessity.

He’d come around with a little persuasion. It wasn’t sex he wanted, though we humored one another once in a while. Neither was it drugs nor premise. He just wanted money. Money to fund his art piece – himself.

We were quite a pair: the vain fair-faced fanatic and the gypsy punk who didn’t give a fuck. He was helpful. Knew enough faces to get me into the deeper circles of hell and prestige. Now that the mob had been all but bowled over, there were plenty of vacancies. Gaps waiting to be filled by more bad apples. I didn’t need much power; just enough to propel me toward the ultimatum: them. And their fleeting attention.

All those meetings with those flagrant, greasy, touchy men had been worth it.

The dead body in the middle of the living room was proof enough. And so was the rising stench. Sighing, I got to my feet, striding over Quinzel. The satin train of my robe ran over her, dusting her blue face. I smiled down at her as I passed, striding from the living room and into the hall.

“Rex,” I clipped, my voice dancing across the gilded mirror’s lining the walls. I floated into the bedroom to find him perched at the edge of my chaise. He was pulling his boots on one at a time, his eyes fixed on the television which hung on the opposite wall.

“Oh good,” I murmured, leaning against the door jamb, “You’re dressed.” I glanced with some amusement at the rumpled bedding; I’d been humored earlier this morning.

“Have you seen this?” he replied simply, at last acknowledging my presence. My gaze jumped to the screen, running along with the ribbons of text.

Four words caught my eye. The only four that mattered.

Arkham. Escape. Joker. Catwoman.

My heart, however much was left of it, leapt up into my throat and something like delight stung my eyes. Joy flared up into my face, a smile stretching along my lips.

About damn time, I mused vaguely, my eyes hanging on the glassy picture of the screen. We were, the three of us, back in the game. And I planned to be one step ahead. Then they’d have to notice. Then they’d have to stop and stare. Like everyone else in this silly, cinder town.

“Rex,” I said again, softer this time, the excitement hitching my voice slightly. He looked at me, standing and shrugging into his sweater, waiting and expectant.

“Fetch the car…and some champagne,” I was still staring at the television, the blood galloping away in my veins.

“And the doctor?” he murmured, blinking, sliding his hands against the leather of his pants.

A slow, wicked smile split my face. “Bring her along. This kind of news calls for celebration. Of the most malevolent nature.”