Half Jack

Homer

The sun was shining too brightly. The birds were chirping too happily. Jay's little speech was even louder in my ears--like he knew these things too and he was trying to talk over them, trying to convince nature that this was a serious day, a day that didn't call for mockery or irony or anything so... so...

wrong. It was then I realized it, that everything about this funeral in the middle of Gotham's Park was wrong. The horrible quiet, the absence of anything that should cause fear--murderers, psychos, sleezeballs--yet, the lingering of that sour fear. The conflicted way my sister squeezed my hand. The presence of Bruce Wayne on my other side, too close. Even the natural smells--of the ground, of the wind--were all wrong.

The Mime

10, 9, 8 and I'm breaking away...

There I was in the alley outside of the police station, a silent watcher in a torrent of rain. And there she was, holding a gun and taunting--smiling the shaking smile of a woman gone mad--saying meaningful nonsense that I didn't understand at that age. But it didn't matter, because I knew what was going to happen. And my too-wide eyes traveled from him to her and back to him again. They stayed with him, because I'd never seen The Joker that way: form soft and fading, outstretched hand, voice barely a whisper.

And then everything dissolved, save myself and my father, to when he was very young. He was standing in front of a dusty television heralding noise of a long-since-gone cartoon. His mother stood before him with a broken bottle in her hand, frozen in the same position Ivy had been against the wall and rain.

The scene changes again. This time we were in a kitchen. He was chopping onions with a knife, sniffling and flinching. He wasn't very accurate. A woman I suddenly recognized as a pre-pregnant Jeannie stood in the connecting dining room, cradling a cat.

"I am going to keep you." She cooed.

My father's voice, whining and nasally and too amusing, "You know I hate cats. You know I'm allergic!"

"It's just a cat." She whined back.

"It's just my nose then, isn't it? It'll be running all the time! My face will get tired!"

She said something back about how things were all a joke to him, and things got loud all of a sudden, screaming. The cat had jumped from her arms and she was spitting insults. Eff your nose, Eff your allergies Eff your stupid jokes they suck Eff you and you can't even cut the onions right.

And he was pointing the knife at her as she came closer. And she laughed, "Oh ho what are you going to do (shoot) stab me, Jack?"

And he said, robotically, "Yes."

"No you won't."

"How... you don't... know that."

"You're scared. That's the only type of woman you can be around, one that scares you. Because you like knowing you can feel something, that someone out there might be as scary as you. Cowar--"

He rushed towards her, screaming. Screaming that desperate scream, the one he'd screamed when Ivy pulled the trigger when I was just sixteen years old.

I woke up with the same scream in my mouth. Weeks now, and every dream was like this one. Every dream he had something to show me, some connection to establish. Show n Tell with Jack Napier, see? What moments made me think of this day, that year, this minute. Let's show Daisy all the bad bits, how everything melds together.

I sighed, staring about the empty room. I slept on nothing. I didn't need anything. When you're on the run and stopping in any errant building you can find, you learn to need nothing.

Even my voice was thinning away. I could only whisper now, or scream. I grabbed at my throat instinctively, tapped the scar upon my forehead, shutting my eyes.

I wondered for a blip of a second about

(Nygma Nygma the enigma)

Angel and Jay and where they were, how they were doing. My funeral was just a few weeks ago--off in that land between killing and dreaming which people call reality, time. Goofy told me about it. Apparently he and Grumpy had driven the few miles away to go and watch at a distance, always a distance. I wouldn't have learned of this through television--I was too paranoid and didn't have outside "connections" that would permit me to keep the lights on, as they say. Yet.

Goofy and Grumpy had been through all this before, it was apparent. They were an awful lot of use to me.

But I was still terribly and utterly alone.

I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the dark. Try as I might, it was still pitch black.

Eponine

"Everyone leaves. Everyone leaves me and nobody stays."

He put special emphasis on the word me, because to him "me" was the most important word in the world. Especially the moments when his eyes became darker, his hair an irreverent mess beneath a hat. His jaw clenched so hard I swore that a visible crack would start traveling from the steep edge of his chin to his frowning brow. When he would cover the furniture he'd gotten in white tarps and wear latex gloves. And every sound and movement of a henchmen would cause him to look about feverishly. His cane would go stabbing into the ground with every puncuation, every out-loud thought. And there were a lot of those.

When he was in that mood, I learned to tread carefully. But I also learned to listen carefully. I learned he hoarded things. I didn't have any idea where. I wasn't allowed to look. He liked to sneer angrily about some people from long ago--"Daisy", "Grumpy", "Boss", "Flower Lady". I didn't ask who these people were. I took orders and didn't ask questions. It sounds weak and stupid. But I was only being careful.

"Eponine. Evvie Eponine. Evvie..." He half sighed, brooding from his throne-like chair in a corner of one of the dead-green rooms, "A very old pal has left me, along with all the others. Word around here is that it was a murder. My friends in high places aren't giving me anymore than that. They're ...hiding things from me."

"Huh Marius?" I looked past him from my far side of the room, letting the muscles in my face become vacant.

He chuckled, made a sliding comment about my immature brain. Then he rubbed his forehead, saying:

"Evvie, so far I don't know why you're here. You're useless."

I couldn't help but gulp.

"Do you even know why you're here? Probably not. I assume your parents were horrible folks. Everyone who joins the underground turns out that way, it seems."

Actually my parents were very morally upright people who gave me everything I could ever want. They never paid much attention to me, sure, but that was only so I could "live my life". So I really didn't know why I was in this situation. Maybe because I was tired of being a spoiled brat, maybe I was just scared. People turn into fools when they're pissing themselves, right?

He continued, "Anyway, don't tell me about your bad mommy and daddy. I don't care. Something smells off with the whole murder story. So, you're going to prove your worth today, Evvie dear. You're going to find out what really happened. Solve a riddle for me! Now, isn't that exciting?" His grin grew wide again, his cane hit the floor.

"But where do I--"

He got up, pacing over with the help of the cane and getting right in my face, letting the brim of his hat hit my skin but nothing more. Nothing more than the white teeth and the bloodshot eyes, reflecting like the backs of fish scales. He reached into his coat pocket, and I felt my stomach curl in like a fist.

That skeleton key card thing, from that day he left Arkham. I hissed out a small breath. He grinned.

"You remember the wonderful person who gave you this? He's a friend of a friend of mine. Ask him about Oswald, I'm certain he knows things I don't."

"What if he doesn't want to talk to me?"

"Oh, he will, deary. Tell him I sent you."

I nodded eagerly, my mind buzzing with the possibility of running away. Maybe I could go back to my parents and reform my falling-for-abusive-man-scum ways. Or maybe I should go to the police first. Yes, the police.

I got up from my seated position in the green room, nodding repeatedly. Bent on leaving, bent on escaping these green bricked walls. Honestly, who painted them this way? I didn't know, but it was driving me mad.

I almost got past him, I almost did! I almost walked away from death.

(run run run as fast as you can)

"Evvie." His icy voice, catlike and playful, and I froze as he walked closer to my turned back, "For every riddle I give a person--there are two elements."

(the fox always fools the gingerbread man)

"The answer?" I guessed. His head suddenly rested upon my shoulder, and his fingers dug into the weakest part of my arms.

"Yes, yes. Correct, my dear," he hissed, "but also... the trap."

Angel

I held Harvey's coin in my hand. I did this, every night, in the security of my own room.

Like clockwork, I would arrange myself stiffly upright and retrieve the coin from its hiding place--a pocket, a zippered compartment in my purse--and I would lay it onto my palm. First, the burnt side up. Running a pale thumb over the terrifying gashes and rough edges, I would force myself to think of the negative man, the Dr. Jekyll, the unforgiving, unframed eye in the charred section of his skull.

And I would force myself, force myself to try and understand why--why after all these years, I could only set the coin upon the nightstand clean side up. Why I became aware what a huge weight it was for me to carry around, yet if I ever misplaced it I would panic. Why I practiced this strange ritual in the quiet---

"Hey."

I jumped, dropping the last piece of Harvey I had into a cluttered drawer within the dark wood nightstand.

"Hey." I repeated back quickly, "It's you."

Homer raised his eyebrows, "Well, duh."

"You should be asleep." I remarked, "You have school in the morning."

A pause, "What did you drop in the drawer?"

"It's just a.... souvenir, Homer. Did you have another nightmare?"

He bowed his head and took a step out of my doorway. This was always something he didn't like admitting or talking about. As siblings, Homer and I had an ability to know what made each other leave a room, and even after all this time, we used it to our advantage.

The thought of siblings led me to thoughts of Cosette. Even now, weeks after the funeral. Once a person important to you dies, it's as if they weave a ghostly web around your mind and nestle safely within. Each thread, each sticky and innocent bit of memory or information entering your brain will eventually travel down the threads to death, forcing you to see them again. And while it may be comforting for the lost friend to remain, it still pains you.

"Can you do me a favor?" Homer said this suddenly, very loudly.

"What is it?"

"Wash my coat. The one with the pockets inside."

"I.... I washed that a while ago."

"It got dirty."

I groaned, "What have you been doing out there? Wrestling pigs?"

"I just need it washed. Okay? Please. I love you." He wiggled his sunglasses strangely, most likely because he could tell I was giving him a look of pure disbelief.

"...Alright, alright." I said finally.

"Oh and make sure you turn out the pockets, because my Zune might be in there and I'm too lazy..."

"Just go to bed, Homer!"

Finally, he nodded and disappeared from my doorway.

I sat still for another couple of minutes, taking deep breaths.

No use. I tore open the drawer and rustled about the contents until I found it. I turned Harvey's coin over and over again in my hands until I calmed, and very quietly set it on my nightstand.

Always the right side up.