Terra Firma

Joker

"I'm a monster... I'm a killer... but no matter what you'll never take that from meeeee..."

I whistled, high on the pre-energy surge of crashing completely due to a serious lack of shut-eye, opening the bottom drawer of my desk. I threw out the endless supply of number two pencils, old candy wrappers, an empty can of spray dye, half eaten twinkie that was now rock solid. I sniffed it, giggling, chucking it at the wall. I don't know why I was going through the drawers of the few things I kept, but I was.

I am (a little tiny bit) crazy, so I don't need an excuse.

I laid the books down carefully, throwing the newspapers I'd messed with aside, cackling at some. At the bottom my dirty hands inadvertently grabbed up some pictures. I didn't remember those. I shuffled through them.

Ivy. Back in the days I was obsessed with finding out about her, I would have Happy follow her around. Most of them were blurry. She moved like she actually had somewhere to go in those days. The one at the bottom of the little pile was clear though. A rarity. I licked my lip, staring at it. It must've been her first day out since I'd 'met' with her. I knew because she was at a bus stop in the early evening. there was a crowd behind her--businessmen staring down at watches, some tall guy with hair all in his face listening to his little music player. Her red hair, although down and pulled back, stood out against them all. She was biting that pretty little bottom lip, eyebrows set menacingly in a frowning position above her eyes--probably hating the fact that she was waiting on a bus.

I giggled, then stopped, blinking.

It's a weird feeling.

Missing someone.

I don't feel it very often, because she'd usually come back quickly after leaving.

And when I went, I was too wrapped up in slicing faces to get that feeling.

But now, now--it was on me like a bad smell, some sick and hungry disease. I blinked out of another one of my detached dazes and looked down again at the photograph, grumbling.
Another sleepless night for me, filled with bad dreams and Jeannie/Mommy Dearest screaming at me to shut up before she made me shut up.

I blinked.

An idea. Usually if I have an idea I have to scribble it down or draw out a plan with stick people. That or just act on it then and there. If I don't have a pen close enough to me and can't go through with the deal, I have to convince myself it wasn't a good one.

I giggled, taking the favorite picture and grabbing an old peice of gum that was still somewhat sticky off the floor. The bubblegum kind--not that mint tasting shit. Seems kind of like a useless endeavor, chewing things to make me smell good anyways.
I stuck it crookedly over the mattress, smiling.

(getting a little desperate clown going completely nuts you know that)

"Of course. But you didn't hear that from me HEEHEE." I said to Gambol's Daddy, one of the more distinct voices in the collection of dead folk swimming round and round my brain. I stood back, surveying my work.

"Missing... something... Ah, I know!"

I grabbed up two ballpoint pens from the widespread mess all over the floor--red, black. I drew my trademark eyes and smile over Mr. Warbuck's dapper face, over Sir Emo the Lonely Giant's paper bag haircut.

(you have moldy combover who are you to talk)

I giggled louder, running a hand over my scars absentmindedly.

"Make everyone look like me..." I mumbled to no one, painting more faces with the pen.

The goal--the plan--was to make everyone look like me. To reveal the ugly, the horrible, the dirty. The true nature of ourselves. Back to childhood and chaos. The only way to live in truth--madness. The instinctual side. The anarchistic side. The free side. The honest side.

I dropped my tools of art, staring into a sea of red grins and devilish black eyes.

There were no faces left, no scenery in the back, no sky no sidewalk no foreground. The smiles blurred my vision and ran into each other the way rain drops slide fast and sideways down your passenger seat window as you drive to some pointless destination. When I was a young guy I used to pretend the raindrops were racing. I would bet which lost and which one would win.

Until I realized they all got wiped away when you pressed a button and brought the glass sliding down.

I blinked lazily, feeling my eyes get heavy.

But through the sea of dizzily swimming smiley faces, one figure still stood--untouched by pen or the redness of ink or the blackness of soot.

"Ivy, Ivy, Ivy. You look like an Ivy."

Missing someone is a weird feeling.

Cosette

Where had I been?

(whiiiine whiiiine whine)

Where had I been?

(whiiiiiine)

I couldn't help my mood change in that moment, but my wild imagination was now whizzing through snapshots of young women--all with cracked skulls and caked blood on the faces, standing like a baker's confectionary treat against an alley wall, heads hanging limp and eyes lifeless. Once sweet and full of vibrant color, displayed behind glass. The next, shut up in the darkness of the trash. The morgue.

The shock that blared on his face was something that would've made me laugh had I been in a good state of mind. But I wasn't, so I spit angry words,

"What do you mean? What about you?! Where have you been? What a great fucking reunion we're having! You going to kill me too? No, don't answer that."

"Calm down and I'll tell you. Old friend..." His voice was warning and too calm.

(I don't want to be told Bruce has been doing that to me for four years!)

"NO. Don't call me that either! Not when you've locked me up! My real friends... my REAL friends are looking for me!..."

There was this weird noise in my head. Like when you come across that one channel on the old television set--the one with the weird multicolored bars and that annoying siren noise but you always happen to pause for a minute on it, staring at it like some dumb monkey. It was in my head, that noise. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Making me mad, so very very very mad.

I rushed for the door, needing to get out, ready to implode. I struggled when I felt him grab at my arms, restraining me. I was thrilled to realize I was winning for awhile.

My hand was on the door handle, and I was about to go sprinting down that hall.

But good girls can't win at everything all of the time.

Riddler

I don't know how to deal with women.

I hadn't touched one in...

in..

Ahem.

Well, I hadn't touched... one.

Joker

GIGGLE-SNORT.

This is the sound of me holding in laughter.

Riddler

But I had to do something.

(if she reaches that door the plan is over buddy no batman no riddle no fame

the cane the cane you put it up

too late to think about that, act fast)

I felt myself grow angry as I clapped a hand over her mouth, cringing as I did so. I swung her away, holding her down as best as I could with my bent up leg. I pulled the syringe I'd been keeping in my pocket for this purpose. I knew ever since she'd begun complaining lightly of a headache and her lack of medication she talked about she was bound to snap. She scratched at my arms but I persisted, relief washing through me when I found a vein and connected it with needle, relaxed a little when she relaxed--eyelids slumping lazily in a sleeplike state.

"Benzo--"

"I know what it is, sssstuuuupid. I have epileps--epishe--aw, fuck it." She smirked lazily.

I got up, looking down at my naked hands, staring at the intricate flesh on the palm and the sloppily crafted tattoos of code I'd had done in the carnival. Her mouth was on it. Her mouth was on my hand..

And she had such a dirty mouth. I cringed, leaving her there and stumbling lamely to my little bathroom connected to this poor excuse for eden.

(germs germs potty mouth germs!)

I needed a shower.

Or two.

Homer

I pressed myself to the wall by the kitchen. I was good at hiding, because I could be very quiet and very still.

Gordy's Dad was home, a rare thing. So I listened to them talk in the kitchen, to find out what I could.

"Shouldn't you be going after him? This puts all of us at risk! Can't you get Batman..."

"I can try, but for some reason he's been blocking himself off. All I can do is look around idly and--"

"You can't look around idly! Not with that... that..."

"Man. Sweetheart, he's still a man."

"Man.."

"You don't understand, if I try and chase after him at this point, it might end up blowing up in my face like it did four years ago! I have to let things go for once, something's telling me I have to trust--"

"You can't trust The Jo--"

"Sh. I'm not talking about him. You can't trust him, you can only understand. And it's finally making sense. If I just..."

"James, this is completely crazy!"

"Crazy is what we need right now."

A long pause.

"So for now..."

"I trust Jay."

Totally called it. For the first time in days I felt real hope.

"But what about Homer?"

"We take care of him, like we told Jay we would--"

Another voice now, one I knew. It was still scared but angry too. He must've been hiding away in the kitchen. What a rat.

"No."

"Jim... go back to bed..."

"I SAID NO! I don't want him here. He's weird and he's creepy."

"Young man, that is no way to talk--"

"Have you seen his eyes Mom? I mean really seen them? They're some kind of demon eyes. And the way he talks about The--"

"Sh. Sh."

"I don't want him here. Put him with that old lady he talks about. He scares me. He's a freak. He's a monster."

I flinched.

(GET OUT

MONSTER)

I'd heard some pretty bad taunts in my day, but never these words. Naturally, being a child and being emotionally set off, I reacted the way most kids in that position of high stress and anger do.

I ran.

I shot down the stairs, slammed the front door shut before they could even realize I'd been standing there. That bad stuff was dripping from my dead eyes again, and I darted into the nearest alley, twisting of into the night quietly, a ghostly, tiny shape in nothing but his pajamas--like a moth taking flight. I didn't even have shoes. But it didn't matter. I had my magic shades and I knew where Jay was. I could hear Gordon's father calling for me desperately but I didn't hear. All I did was smell. There are lots of smells in this city, bad ones and good ones. But I'm really good at picking out certain ones.

The wind roared in my face, messing up my hair.

I caught it. A small hint but I caught it.

(the purple man and jay)

I could find Jay.

All I had to do was follow the smell of gasoline.