Their Boy

by The Smiling Shadow

He came to their home claiming to be their son, his face horribly scared. He became a son and older brother. Then he dyed his hair green, and stole the mother's lipstick. He told them he was becoming a new man for a new life. Then he took out his knife.

-1They had a boy who was taken when he was four. He was small for his age, fragile, but so full of life. Their boy, their young boy, the world ahead of him. He was taken away from them when they were at the park together. He was there one moment, then gone another, taken. It was on the news, it was in the papers, but the years went by and their son was never found. His name was Tommy, Tommy Perkins, his golden hair shined in the sun, his brown eyes were big and curious. He had a laugh you'd never forget.

But he was gone, their golden boy, gone before they ever knew him. Pictures of him still hung on their walls. They had become older then, twenty years passed, they had a daughter then, eight years old. Her name was Sophia, she was a miracle, they had tried to have another child for years, and just as they gave up due to their age, she came into their lives. She had brown hair and brown eyes, sweet and soft skin. Sophia looks up at the walls in her hallway, looking up at her brother, Tommy, the boy with golden hair.

It was summertime when he came to their doorstep. The young man with golden hair, twenty-four years old he said he was, their son he said he was. He was small but strong looking, brown eyes and golden hair, scars across his lips. He wore a modest blue collard shirt and a dirty purple jacket, clothes he found at the Salvation Army he would later tell them. He had with him but one suit case of his essentials. He came to their doorstep, Sue, the boy's mother, opened the door. She gasped at the sight of him, he smiled at her with those horrible scars.

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean --"

"That's all right." He smiled. "Is this the house of…Ronald and Sue Perkins?"

"Yes, that's right." She nodded.

He smiles, and tells her that he is their son.

"Tommy, my name is Tommy." He tells her.

She stares, and smiles, and screams. She grabs her boy, her son that she lost in the park all those years ago. He's returned to her as a grown man. He laughs that unforgettable laugh as she starts to cry.

"Don't cry, lady." He tells her. "It's all right, I'm here, don't cry. Come on, don't cry!"

She drags him into the house, screaming.

Their house was small and quant. It seemed darker than it was due to dark wood walls and dark golden carpet that covered the floor. He was dragged into the living room where a reclining chair and coach surrounded a small television and glass coffee table. She was still crying, still smiling.

"Oh, God. Oh, God." She was saying. "Tommy, Tommy, oh, God."

He didn't say anything, he just smiled a sweet smile that made you almost not even see the hideous scars. He stood with his one bag of luggage, just waiting for her to calm down. He looked over to the hallway where he saw the brown eyes of little Sophia staring over at him.

"Sophia! Come here, come here, sweetheart." Her mother called.

She walked with little grace, a little girl not even with shoes on, it's summer time and there was no school, no point in putting shoes on. She tiptoed to her crying mother, looking up at the strange man.

"This is Tommy, Sophia, this is your brother."

She looked up at him, he bent down to her level.

"Sophia is it? Can I call you Soapy? Cause when I think of Sophia, I think of soap."

She stared, her big brown eyes looking straight into his.

"Why do you have these ugly scars?" She asked.

"Sophia!" her mother yelled.

But he just laughed that unforgettable laugh. He rises and pats the girl on the head.

"I'm sorry." the mother tells him.

"That's all right, I'll tell you later."

The mother calls the father, telling him he has to come home from work right now. She doesn't say why, but she's screaming into the phone for him to come. Tommy sits at the table with Sophia, they each stare at each other with some horrible curiosity. She puts her face down on the table, he does the same, she lifts her head, he does the same, she sticks her tongue out, he does the same. But then he licks his lips and laughs. But she just keeps staring at him.

The father comes home, so afraid something is wrong, but then the mother runs to him, tells him of their golden boy's return, and he runs to the kitchen. He sees the boy sitting there at the table, as if he had always been there. The boy looks up with sweet brown eyes and smiles. The father doesn't even notice the scars, he sees but a young man, skinny in his own clothes, but a strong looking face. He doesn't cry like the mother, but he stares at the boy long and hard, before he smiles and bends down for a hug.

They eat at that table later, mother cooks up some steaks and green beans. They asked him what had happened to him, how he had found them when all these years they could not find him.

"Well, I don't really remember being kidnapped. I remember people taking me, and that became my mother and my father. They probably just wanted a kid and saw me and took me. But see, they weren't the best parents, not at all, my father, I hated my father." He shakes his head.

He drops his fork and holds his face in pain. He shuts his eyes but he looks up and smiles at everyone. He points to the scars but continues on.

"They only told me they took me after I was moving out when I was sixteen, we had a fight and I had to leave." He nods. "I didn't think much of it though, I don't know why. I just didn't want to think about…about a life I could have had, a family I could have had. No I had a 'don't-look-back' mentality, and I just continued on in my life. I had a wife, you see? She was beautiful. But. She left me and took all my stuff with her. I loved her too."

He stops and holds his scars again.

"I loved her very much, and I was working really hard to make our lives good. But she even left me. I mean she was my life, and she took everything. And with nothing I began thinking who I really had in this world, who would stand by me. I started looking for my real family, seeing if they had at all looked for me. And when I found you all, I came."

He licks his lips.

"I'm sorry, really. I need a place to stay, I need to get up on my feet, you don't even know me but I come here expecting to be taken care of." He smiles a sad smile. "Really, you don't have to, if you can't take me in I understand, I won't leave or anything. I'll get a space at a motel, stay awhile, get a job, I won't leave though."

"Hush now, of course we have room for you." The mother says.

"No, I came in here too quickly, I didn't think about it --"

"Tommy." The father interrupts. "You're our son, of course we're going to take care of you."

They were quick to welcome him. He showed them the papers he found, the fake birth certificates his kidnappers had given him to put him through some public school. They were a couple of small thieves, criminals, a woman who thought a child could win her husband's love. She forced the husband to get some fake birth certificates for the boy, so they could put him through some public schools, so they could make it seem like he was really theirs. But his addition to their family couldn't support them. The father was a fiend and a drinker, the mother crippled in her mind by his abuse. He says she did love him, she did try to be a good mother, but only in the bounds that the father allowed her.

He showed them all the newspaper clippings he'd gotten, the ads they ran when they were looking for him. He says he doesn't remember anything before his kidnapping, like it was all blocked out or something.

They quickly take him in, they eat up every word, their poor boy they think to themselves, taken from them. Torn from their safety, taken to a dark place, a place where he was hurt and despised. He could have easily become something less than himself. He could have become bitter, angry towards them, towards the world. But their boy looked at them, with those horrible scars, and despite them, he smiled. He smiled and smiled, always smiling.

He was a stranger to them, but not really. The mother would stare at him and see her child, laughing on the swings like it was yesterday. She knew him without knowing him. She grabbed him and showed him to the guest room, declaring that it would now be his for as long as he needed. She wished him to stay near to them, even when he got back on his feet, to stay near, to remain with them as their son.

His room was cold and bare, an extra room where they stacked their extra things in boxes. He had a lone futon in the center, a window, it was beside Sophia's, down the hall from the bathroom. Sophia looked down the hall to him from her room, simply staring at him.

He said goodnight to everyone, but Sophia sneaked into his room and sat by his futon. She saw something shine in the moonlight at the desk beside his bed. She reaches for it but he grabs her hand before she can touch it.

"It's a knife, it's very sharp, don't touch it." He licks his lips.

He releases her and he wipes his eyes into the waking world.

"Are you really my brother?" She asked.

"Why, yes, yes I am." He nodded.

"That's neat."

"I think so too."

She stares at him.

"You're staring at my scars aren't you?"

She nods.

"Do they hurt?" She asks.

"Only sometimes."

He smiles at her, prompting himself up.

"You know, my wife was pregnant for a time."

"Really?"

"I was hoping for a daughter, a girl like you, Soapy."

She laughs.

"What a pretty laugh you have." He says.

"What happened to your wife?"

"She left me, I told you that."

"What about the baby?"

"What about it?"

"You said she was pregnant."

"Oh, well, it didn't happen."

The next morning he was already up cleaning dishes before the father had gone to work. He stopped to see the boy one more time before he was off. He made himself useful around the house, he cleaned up everything, literally everything. He reorganized movies and books and anything that needed organizing. It was as if he needed to continually be doing something, never being able to stop. He kept going, feeling some guilt in imposing on the family, wanting to somehow make up for it.

The mother tried to stop him, tried to tell him it's all right. But he didn't stop, he helped her with everything, followed her around closely like a puppy, not knowing what to do on his own. He decided she was a good woman, perhaps lonely has the day wore on and the father was gone. But a good woman nonetheless. Soapy tired her out, she was too old for such a young child, they both were, but they had hoped for years to have another child, and she came along just a few years too late. The mother needed rest constantly, Soapy's birth was an unkind one. She told him how she had been an accountant before, how she had been able to work the long hours, but ever since Soapy came along she couldn't push herself too hard. This only gave him more reason to help around the house.

He sought out jobs at the table, looking over all the help wanted ads. He brushed his hands across the papers, until he came across a strange picture of a black silhouette in the shape of a bat. "Gotham's Batman, The Mysterious Vigilante," the article read. He looked endlessly at the picture, just a black shadow streaking across the page, about to fly away. He cut it out and stuffed it in his pocket.

He spent hours just looking around the house. He took in its smell, the smell of old couches and dust. It was all stuffy, the family never threw anything out. This is how he found pictures of himself, in the photo album.

"That's your third birthday, see?" The mother says. "We were all so much younger back then."

A young boy laughs in the pictures, golden hair, and such.

He's in the bathroom a few days later, returning home from buying groceries at the store. He's got his hair caught up in a bun, dripping green goop into it. He stares at himself in the mirror, a young and happy face, scars staining his flesh. He licks his lips because the stinging never stops. He hums as he washes his hair out in the sink. The green goop dripping off of him.

"Tommy!" The mother calls.

"Yes, mother?"

"Will you go pick up, Sophia?"

"Of course. Just a moment."

He puts his head in a towel, trying to dry it all. He looks at himself in the mirror, the green hair covering his face. He tilts his head and feels satisfied with this decision. He leaves the house, and the mother doesn't see his change.

He walks down the street down to the park where Soapy is supposed to be playing with some friends. He shakes his pants from the Goodwill, they're just a few inches too short. He still hums though, smiling, putting on new gloves he bought at the store. His green hair shines in the sun.

He comes to the park where he sees Soapy running over to him, tears filling her eyes. She doesn't cry out, she doesn't scream, but there's tears in her eyes, and boys throwing rocks at her. She stops for a moment to see his new hair but she keeps running, grabbing his leg when she can.

"Let's go." She tells him.

But he starts walking over to the boys.

"Tommy, let's go!"

The boys are her age, a group of three. They run along the entire park, throwing rocks at girls just because that's what they do. They laugh at Soapy, laugh at her apparent weakness. They quiet down as he gets nearer to them. Then he stands above them, with a smile on his scared face, green hair in his eyes.

"Are you hurting my little sister?" he asks.

The boys stare up at him, and laugh. Laugh at him, laugh at the freak with the scars and green hair. He licks his lips.

"What's so funny?" He asks them.

"Nothing!"

"Nothing!" They try to excuse themselves, but they keep laughing.

He starts to laugh too.

"Why are you throwing rocks, huh?" He laughs.

"Cause she was looking over at us!"

"She was coming into our territory!"

"She didn't listen, we told her to go away."

They laugh, he laughs.

"You've got green hair!" They finally point and laugh at him.

"I do!" He agrees.

"Look at your ugly face!"

"The hair in your face!" They laugh.

"Yeah, it's pretty ugly." He agrees again.

"You're so funny!" They laugh.

"Funny, huh? Like a clown?" He asks.

"Yeah, like a clown!"

He grabs a boy by the neck. The boy gasps and he tightens his grip on the neck before the boy can scream. The other two stop laughing and then it's just him, laughing on his own. The boy wraps his small hands around his skinny arm, tries to kick away but he doesn't let go.

"I'm a clown then! That's it, lets laugh, lets all laugh!" He screams at them. "Here's the joke, here's the funny part. You kids, young kids, already forming gangs together, already perpetuating violence against those who are different, against those who are weaker than you so you can feel some satisfaction, some superiority, because in the end you know. You know you're gonna go home and listen to parents and teachers, and have no control over your lives because you're just three stupid little brats."

He's not choking the boy, but he's keeping him in his grip.

"Mister, let him go…please." The boys try.

"Listen, the funny part's coming. You kids are already screwed. You've lived eight years of your life and you've already ruined yourselves. You're thinking violence is the answer to all things. You're not going to trust anyone else, you're going to ruin every friendship you have with another human being. You're going to push everyone away. You can't undo it either, it's in your heads, in your souls, already, corrupting what was pure. You've gone and destroyed yourselves, this is the destiny of brats like you, and so many of you exist in this world."

He laughs that unforgettable laugh.

"You're all running around already, butting heads, blind, trying to reach out to each other and push away at each other all at the same time. You're running as fast as you can but you're going nowhere!"

He laughs and laughs and laughs, pushing the boy away, getting up and rising. His hair shines in the sun, his laugh echoes in their ears. The boys scream and run the other way. He turns to see Soapy sitting upon a hill, watching him. He wipes his eye as he makes his way up to her. But he comes to her and she doesn't move, not a budge, doesn't even look up at him. He stands there for a moment, before sitting beside her.

Her knee was scraped, she had a cut on her forehead, nothing serious, nothing that didn't hurt too much.

"Hey, you're bleeding." He told her.

He went to wipe her face but she turned away.

"What's the matter?" He asked.

"You didn't need to do that."

"Do what?"

She stares at him like he's the stupidest thing she's ever seen.

"You didn't need to hurt them!"

"I didn't hurt them --"

"You were choking them! They were my friends!"

"Soapy, you have poor taste in friends."

"Well, they were gonna be my friends."

He sat there beside her, waiting for her to get bored and want to return home. But she just looked up at him, ashamed of him.

"Why'd you color your hair!?" She screamed, as if that was another offense on his part.

But that question made him smile. He wipes his hair out of his eyes, pulled it back and moved his fingers through it.

"It's my new hair." He said.

He was carrying her on his shoulders then, the little thing sat comfortably there. His hands held up holding hers, helping her keep balance. He was carrying her home, not too far down the road.

"Why'd you need new hair?" She asks.

"Because I'm becoming a new man."

"How come?"

"Because the man I was is not strong enough to do what I intend to do."

She sways on his shoulders, lowering her brow, unsure of what he means. She looks down at him, at his scared face. But he didn't look at her, he was looking out to the world, to all the houses that looked the same, that housed families all the same. All the same dysfunctional fake love that thought the more you bought your child the more you must love them. He was looking to the world, seeing all its flaws, and laughing inside.

"I am not who I was, and I am not who I am going to be." He told her. "I already cast out the man I was, I killed him, now I'm just picking off the remnants he's left on me."

"And green hair helps this?"

"It's my new hair."

"Tommy, you're crazy." She laughs.

"Crazy, just like the rest of the world." He looks up, up towards her.

He started laughing, that unforgettable laugh.

It was harder to explain to the parents why he had made the change. Soapy noticed he didn't tell them the same thing, and she figured because it was embarrassing for Tommy. When the mother asked he just laughed and said he needed to be a little wild now, he needed some change after everything he has been through. The father didn't seem as amused as the mother. But his son would smile at him and he would smile back.

He left now in the mornings, out searching for jobs. Soapy finally came along with him as the boys had staked out the entire park as their territory. He walked out in public with his green hair and regular suit, and he didn't notice any stares, or at least he didn't acknowledge them. It was an unusual thing for those people to see, that quiet suburban town where nothing out of the norm happened. But there he was, Tommy Perkins, the lost son of the Perkins, with his green hair and little sister, walking around as if they had always done that.

They stared at the scars, they stared at his smiling mouth, those hideous lines across his face. Gossip spread around of his life before he came to their neighborhood. Horrible rumors said that he had not been kidnapped, but given away. They said he'd been cut by the father, or that he had done it himself. But no one asked, everyone just stared. Soapy saw them, as she rode on her brother's shoulders, she saw people stare, but she didn't want to tell him, afraid he'd become embarrassed if he ever found out.

He'd finish a job interview early and he'd take her to the arcade or the movies. He'd buy her ice cream and they'd sit and let it get all over their clothes and faces. He'd take her to the Salvation Army where he told her he, as a new man, needed new clothes. They'd spend hours buying the most outrageous things, things that made her laugh, things that made him laugh.

"Why do you dress like this?" She asked.

"Why don't you?"

"Cause it's weird."

"And what's wrong with weird?"

"It's weird!"

He started dressing in his new clothes and his new hair. It worried the mother and the father. They fear they had witnessed some sort of horrible transformation in the son they had never really known.

The mother began voicing a concern that perhaps the life he had before he met them was far more traumatic than he had let on. Perhaps he was suffering from a mental break down of some sort, something in his nerves. His wife was pregnant, she reminds the father, losing her and the baby must be devastating. But look at him, the boy never frowns, as if he's scared to. He didn't seem abnormal when he spoke, he didn't seem disturbed or hurt, but he had green hair and was wearing these outrageous things. She said he wasn't sleeping, she could hear him rummaging through his room at night. He was starting to get bags under his eyes, he was looking thinner by the days.

It wasn't long before Soapy caught him in the bathroom putting on lipstick. She walked in on him in the bathroom, puckering his lips with "fire engine red" lipstick. She laughed, and he rushed over and shut the door behind her. She was laughing but she ceased after she saw his serious face. He seemed upset, hurt, he tripped off balance as he returned to the stool he sat on in front of the mirror. In front of him there were rows and rows of different shades of red of lipstick. All standing before him in some horrible pattern. She looked at him as he sadly stared at them.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"I read in the paper about the Batman." He said.

"Oh, yeah?"

"The police are looking for him now."

"Hm."

He picked up another stick of lipstick and started to smear it across his face, over his lips, onto his scars.

"Tommy, what are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm becoming a new man." He told her.

She watched him for a moment.

"Are you one of those men who dresses up like a lady?" She asked.

"No, Soapy, I'm not."

She watched him again and then walked over to him, and sat on the sink in front of him.

"Can I try? Mom doesn't let me touch her lipstick."

He motioned for her to use any she wished.

They sat there together, putting on lipstick. Soapy loving how it made her look so much older. She laughed but Tommy did not. He merely stared into the mirror, deep into it, as if there was something more than just his reflection. He didn't smile, he didn't laugh. He stared, and his fingers scraped the red lipstick across his scars. He looked to Soapy finally, red over those markings, titled up in a horrible smile.

"Now." He said. "Now I'm always smiling."

She forced a laugh out of herself. He returned to staring at himself, somehow satisfied with himself.

"You can't tell mother about any of this." He told her. "She mustn't know until I'm complete, until I am that new man."

He made her promise, on pinky swears. She didn't say a word to mother or to father. But mother did find the towels stained with red lipstick the next day, and knew what happened.

He was out and about however, on a job hunt, with Soapy at his side. He was wearing make up that day, red lipstick across only his lips, not his scars, as he thought that'd be too much for his interview. He wore the finest purple coat, the stainless orange blazer that day. He walked with pride, walked unlike he had before. He walked with a certain stride, happy, content, at peace with himself. It was hard for Soapy to keep up.

When he went in for his job interview the interviewer couldn't stop laughing. But Tommy only smiled an innocent smile.

"What's so funny?" He asked the man.

"You're joking, right? This has got to be a joke, someone's making a fool of me."

"Why would this be a joke?"

"Where'd you get those clothes, I mean, seriously!"

"I think the real joke here, is that this is a banking job right?"

"Yes." He says between his laughter.

"Security?"

"Yes."

"I could break into your bank tomorrow, take all the money, and you'd never know."

The man stops laughing.

"Easy." Tommy licks his lips, smearing his lipstick. "I think it's funny you're laughing at me. I think it's funny here you are, an older man, fat, and old, your life's behind you, you wake up each day to sit at this desk, and what? What do you do then?"

The man stares at him, and Tommy starts to laugh.

"You're the Perkins' kid aren't you? The one who was kidnapped?" The man asks.

"Yes, sir, taken from my mother's arms."

"I heard that bitch gave you away because you're were a bratty little shit."

And the man laughs, and Tommy licks his lips. He takes a pencil from the man's desk and twirls it around in his fingers.

"Do you ever wonder how much it must hurt to have a pencil jammed through your eye?" He licks his lips.

"Are you threatening me?" The man asks.

Tommy looks up and tilts his head.

"I'm asking you a question. Do you know what it looks like? Putting a pencil through someone's eye? It's a really funny thing."

He was yelled at until he ran out, laughing his head off. He ran to the car outside where Soapy was waiting, she knew then, by the way he laughed, that he had just made fun of the man instead of anything else.

"Come on." Tommy said. "Let's go to the goddamn Arcade."

The gossip eventually found the mother. She heard about her son's wild behavior. How he wore lipstick, how he walked, how he laughed at everyone and everything. And they asked about the scars, they always asked. He was smart enough to wipe the lipstick off before he came home with Soapy. She stared at him from across the room, he walked in like a stranger, but smiled at her like her son.

"What's wrong, mother?" He asked.

"Sophia, come here." The mother called, grabbing her daughter.

His laugh grew louder in those days. And things apparently got funnier because he laughed more and more. It was becoming apparent that he was not really looking for a job, but merely going through the motions. They thought their son sick, they did not resent him, they feared for him and his mind. Something must be wrong, something must be wrong. Their son, our boy, our dear boy, we've lost him. We never had him but we've lost him.

"Open your eyes." He licks his lips. "Well what do you think?"

They were in the bathroom together again, with make up scattered all over the sink. Soapy opened her eyes to see her brother, white make up over his face, black circles around his eyes, and his red lipstick across his lips and scars. He smiled, expecting some sort of reaction. But she only stared blankly.

"Why'd you do that?" She asked.

"I'm becoming a new man!" He screamed. "This! This is my new face."

"It's scary."

He laughs, and laughs, and laughs that horrible laugh.

Mother called for them.

"Oh, shit." He mutters.

He quickly wipes his new face off, scratching at his skin to get it all away. The make up clogs up the drain.

"Shit!" He sticks his fingers into it trying to get the clog.

He emerges with Soapy minutes later, his face all scratched up, his eyes black and red. She stares at them, and he smiles.

"You can't be with your brother today." The mother said. "You have to stay here with the babysitter."

They took him to the Doctor, had him examined up and down. The Doctor admitted the boy was in perfect health, and said he could do nothing for his mental state. But the scars they asked, what about the scars. The Doctor approached him, touched his cheeks, and Tommy grabbed his hand, and nearly crushed it. I want to help the Doctor said, you're in pain, I know you are, I can see it. But Tommy just stared up at him.

"The tissue -- it hasn't healed properly, it was a deep cut wasn't it? I can help you, with surgery, I can help you, it must hurt, it must --"

But Tommy just stares, and licks his lips.

They drove home in silence.

"Tommy." The mother says once they're home. "Sweetheart, please, we're just trying to help you."

"Why?"

"What?"

He turns to her.

"Why do you want to help me?"

"Because we love you." She tells him.

"Why do you love me?"

"Because. You're our son."

"You don't know me."

"But we do. We're family, we love each other."

She takes her boy in her arms, she hugs him tight, but he seems so weightless, so dead in her arms. Slowly he wraps his arms around her too.

"I don't need this sort of help." He tells her. "I know what I'm doing."

"People are talking."

"I don't care."

"I do!"

She screams at him. What he's doing is hurting the family. He has to stop. He has to stop.

"If you love us --"

"Why do you care what other people say?" He asks. "Soapy doesn't, Soapy knows but she doesn't even mind to listen to that anymore."

"Don't bring her into this."

"People stare at us and she doesn't care. That's the problem, people care about the wrong things."

"What happened to you, Tommy?" She asks. "You never talk about it. How did you get these scars?"

"I'll tell you later." he touches his cheek.

"I wasn't referring to those."

Then he lowers his head and smiles that horrible smile.

"If I were to ever tell you, mother, it'd drive you mad." He told her.

"Tommy, stop this." The father says. "I know you've had a hard life. I know it's been difficult for you. But you have to stop and look at yourself. If this isn't the help you need, what is?"

Tommy stops. His green hair folds over his eyes and he licks his lips.

"Purpose." He says. "I need to shed all that was, I'm becoming a new man, with a new purpose. That's what we all lack, purpose. We're playing a game, being pulled by the strings we made up for ourselves, but I choose my game, I see it, and I want to play it, and I'm almost done, I am." He shakes his head.

"Son…" The father comes to him.

"I hated my father." He says, looking up as if forgetting what he was talking about.

"How did you get these scars?"

"I was being born anew."

"Who were you before all this?"

Tommy suddenly looks up. He stares at them with those young and youthful eyes.

"I killed a man." He smiles and giggles. "He was myself, I don't know who he was, I don't know anything about him, except that in order for me to live he needed to die. So I killed him, very swiftly, he had a father, my father, I hate my father." He starts to laugh again.

That glorious laugh.

In the morning they're going to get their son the proper help. In the morning they're going to get a Doctor for him, get him all worked out. No more talk of murders or fathers, no more scars. Their son is dying, they see it before them, and they're not going to lose him.

Soapy comes to him in the night, she sees him sitting up playing with a shining knife. He doesn't look at her, doesn't acknowledge her. But she sits there and tells him he heard him arguing with mommy and daddy.

"This is coming to an end, I feel it." He tells her. "I'm the new man, or I will be soon enough. This…indulgence must end."

She doesn't know what he means.

"I love you, Tommy." She tells him.

He doesn't answer.

There's a doctor very willing to help the family, he tells them to get Tommy over as soon as they can, and they are so happy, so very happy.

But they come home and he's waiting for them. He's tucked Soapy into bed, and he sits on the chair in the living room, a knife in his hand. Green hair, white face, black eyes, and red lips look up at them. And a horrible, god forbidden laugh in his throat. He licks his lips.

"Mommy, dearest, you're finally home." He says.

"Tommy --"

"No, sorry, dear, no such luck."

He's shaking now, and he doesn't know why. He stands and he motions for them to sit, using the knife.

"Come on, come, sit down, sit down around the television like a good regular family." He laughs.

"Tommy, put down the knife." the father says.

But he just laughs.

"You keep calling me that!"

"That's your name!" His mother tries.

"Nope."

But the thing is, she isn't really his mother.

"I've got a confession for you lovely people." He sways, in some sort of ecstasy only he can feel. "I'm not Tommy Perkins, I'm not your son, I don't know where your son is, I don't think he's alive!" He laughs.

"No, that's not true --" the mother tries.

"You god damned bastard --" the father gets up.

"OH! I wouldn't do that! I'm a crazy man with a knife!"

He waves the knife in front of them, dancing in some sort of hop. He thrusts it towards the father, making the mother scream. She grabs at her husband, pulling him back down to the couch, keeping him there beside her.

"My name is -- was Jack Napier. I came upon you all by coincidence. You see, I needed a family, and you needed a son, it was all so perfect."

"You do this a lot, don't you, you sick --" The father said.

"This? No, not particularly this, this was new for me. I've dabbled in many forms of criminal acts, but not this."

"Then why did you do it!?" The mother cries.

"Because. I wanted to know what it was like." He says to her, shrugging. "I never had a happy family, ever. I wanted to know what it was like, to be loved, to have a home, to have a family, because, I'm not going to be having one after this night."

He laughs at himself, wiping his hair and licking his lips.

"I'm a new man, you see? A man of my word. But before I shed off all the pieces of the old me, I wanted to experience some sort of family love. Just to see what it was like, just so I could know, so I could say 'yeah, been there, tried it, done with it!'" he laughs.

It was all an experiment, he tells them. A social experiment. Most of the world lives in families, some relatively happy, and he as an observer of the human condition wanted to at least experience it for a time. He says they were good to him, very good. He enjoyed being loved, being cherished. He enjoyed going to sleep and knowing someone wanted him to wake up the next day. He enjoyed not being a leech, not being a burden, but being taken care of. He enjoyed it for what it was worth, but now it was over. He had bigger and better things to move onto. He was preparing himself for a war he knew would consume him, and he couldn't wait. His purpose lied before him, a game he wanted to play for the rest of his life. But he could not play the game as he was, he had to become something far more horrible. He had to go crazy, he had to lose everything, he had to have one bad day, and he had to let go of everything people unlike him were so caught up in.

"You're a freak!" The father yells.

He embraces the word. Everyone in the world seems so miserable and misguided, to be a freak amongst them he figured he was well off.

It's going to take a long time, he said, until he's ready for the actual game. For the actual dance. His partner he says is ahead of him, but he had the element of surprise on his side. He rambled on like this for a while, telling them but really telling himself what he had to do next. There was planning, so much planning was necessary, ahead of him all he could do is plan and accumulate supplies, and analyze, always analyze.

The mother was crying, the father was holding her, when she walked into the room.

Soapy, the little girl.

"Soapy, oh, Soapy." He says.

"Run away, Sophia!" The mother screams.

He grabs her, and puts the knife to the father, he clamps her mouth shuts and smiles at his little sister.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, did I wake you?" He asks.

She nods.

"I didn't mean to." He parts from the parents and walks over to the chair where he sits. "Come here, sweetheart, come here." He pants his knee.

"NO!" The mother screams, and he holds up his knife to make her shut up.

"Sweet, Soapy, come here."

She stares at her parents, then at Tommy, or Jack, or whoever he was now. Slowly she walks over to him. The mother cries beneath her hand. He grabs her and prompts her up on his knee. He smiles down at her, looking at her. He hugs her and makes sure the knife doesn't come close to her.

"I really did have a wife. A pregnant wife. I did once hope my child would have been as sweet as you, Soapy." He tells her.

"Tommy, what are you doing?"

"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry, I've been lying to you."

"You have?"

"I'm not really your brother. I don't know where he is."

"You're not Tommy?"

"No."

"Then who are you?"

To this he smiles and takes a moment to consider.

"I'm the Joker." He tells her. "I've always been. I've got to go away now, got to go back to Gotham and make sure they remember who I am, make sure they remember the cell they put me in at Arkham, hope they didn't give it away yet."

She stares up at him, he wipes the hair from her eyes.

"Never be afraid, Soapy, to be different, to go against the current. Because the world is messed up, and it's probably best to go against it, start some anarchy, let the world panic, while you stay calm and know exactly what you're doing." He smiles down at her.

He flips the knife in his hands.

"Hey, you wanna know how I got these scars?" He asks her.

She nods.

He kneels down to her ear, and tells her.

Then he hugs her, and holds her and sways with her, and looks over at the parents.

"They love you very much, Soapy, they live for their children, I know, I was one of theirs for a time. They'll die for you, Soapy, they'll die. So, if you had to pick which one had to die and which one had to live, who would you pick?"

"Tommy…"

"My name's not Tommy."

She looks up at him, tears filling her eyes.

"Let her go, Joker." The father says. "Kill me, just let them go."

"No, no, she's got to pick." He grabs Soapy, holds her tight. "Which one?"

"I don't want to pick."

"You have to, sweetie, you have to."

She shakes her head, and he shakes her.

"No! You have to pick one!"

But she starts to cry and she still says no. He slaps her, and he's not laughing anymore.

"Come on. Come on, you little brat, who would you pick!?"

"Stop it!" The mother screams.

"I can't pick!" The girl screams. "Tommy, don't make me pick!"

"My name isn't Tommy!"

He shakes her but she just cries.

"PICK ONE!" But she doesn't.

He stops and grabs her by the neck.

"If you don't pick I'll kill you."

"NO!" The mother screams.

The father poises for attack, but the Joker lifts his knife, twirling it, showing his skill.

But Soapy looks up at him, big brown eyes like his. Water streams down her cheeks onto his gloved hand, and she shakes his head. She will not pick.

He lets her go.

This is the love of sons and daughters to their mothers and fathers. This thing that binds them together for no reason. There's no reason for a mother to love her child, it's all a trick, hormones and chemicals make the parent love it. Love's just an excuse to take care of a thing that's done you no good but eat up your resources. Here it was, in front of him, this thing he'd never known, this thing he somehow missed.

He looks to the parents with complete and utter hate, and licks his lips. He gets on his knee in front of Soapy.

"This is my last act as the man I was." He tells her. "Back when I didn't have this face. Back when there was this humanity in my that all people, no matter how crazy have. I've killed and maimed, Soapy, I've robbed banks and spent it on anything that took me away from here. I've mutilated the human body. But in me was still some instinct that I could not shake, a reaction to not do my actions, a feeling of perhaps, regret. But I did them anyway, because I couldn't stop."

He hugs her.

"I'm not going to be that man anymore. I'm going to have purpose, I'm going to see things like no one else does. I won't be like you or anyone else anymore. You're taking it now Soapy, you're killing me instead of them, my last act as a man, I give to you. I give you mercy."

He pushes her away, wipes the tears from her eyes and rises. He looks to the parents and nods.

"Thank you for the hospitality lady and gentleman." He nods.

He whistles then, walking to his room, he grabs a suitcase and comes back out. He pulls back his sleeve to see the time.

"I'm just in time, my ride is here." He tells them.

He smiles and laughs at everyone.

"It was fun for what it was." He tells them. "Bye, everybody."

He's gone then. Out the door. They hear a car come by and take him away. Their boy, their golden boy, gone. He was a devil in their home, a creature that took a pleasing shape to use them, to watch them, observe them, take from them their love and their hope. But they grabbed their daughter, and felt a new sense of life. They were alive, with their daughter, they were happy with their daughter.

They heard about the devil on the news about a year later, but they didn't bother to watch. They housed him, that murderer, as he descended into what he now was. They didn't watch, but when the parents were gone, Sophia did. Not with some curiosity or fascination or even love. Nor did she watch with hate or anger. She merely watched the thing that had held her on its shoulders, the thing that she had pushed into what it was then.
The Batman got him in the end, he's been put away for a time. She hears his laugh when she goes to bed. She reminds herself, the Batman is his life now. He won't bother her or her family again, he's with the Batman, and the Batman can handle him.

Their boy is gone, he's never coming back, but then again, he never was really there.