That's Not Funny Chapter 1
The Loony Bin Comedy Club in Newtown was packed that warm, balmy June evening. A new up and coming comic, Casey Cruse, was headlining the bill that night. He had recently had a special on the Comedy Network that was an instant hit, making tickets for the show impossible to get. That is, unless you happened to be the girlfriend of Gotham's most notorious Super-Villain and had connections to people like Oswald Cobblepot who were willing to do you a favor to keep said psychopathic boyfriend from getting all stabby and disgruntled. That being the case, Harley Quinn and her two best friends, Pamela Isley and Selina Kyle, were being escorted to their table at the front of the club.
"Wow girls, Ozzy did good. This is the best table in the house!" Harley said with a wide smile plastered on her face.
Harley was in a fabulous mood. Threatening other rogues into submission always seemed to lift her spirits. Not to mention that she had been needing to get out of the dilapidated hideout in Amusement Mile, away from Mistah J's current irritable disposition and have a night of drinks and laughs with her girlfriends. Selina scanned the crowd.
"It's really a mixed bag in here tonight, however I do believe I see some free drinks in our future if Ivy behaves herself." Selina nodded to a group of guys at a long table to their right who were very obviously checking the three of them out.
"Unlike you Selina, I don't appreciate being treated as a piece of meat and won't tolerate it merely for the price of a five-dollar drink."
"Well, you might have to change your tune Ives, cause the drinks in this joint start at fifteen bucks!" Selina nodded in agreement with Harley.
"Anyway, what's wrong with being treated like a sex object every now and then. Not only is it easy on the wallet, it's good for the ego, I say." Ivy rolled her eyes at the other two villainesses.
"Feel free to flirt all you want, I myself have more self-esteem than that." She motioned to the waitress who promptly came over to take their drink orders. Ivy glanced over the menu. "I'll take a glass of the cabernet. Selina?"
"I'll have a dirty martini, up. Extra dirty with blue cheese stuffed olives please. Harley what do you want?"
"I'll have the Finding Nemo, an order of wings, mozzarella sticks and a basket of fries extra crispy." Ivy wrinkled her nose.
"What the hell is a Finding Nemo?" Harley giggled.
"It's a fruity blue drink that's served in a glass that looks like a fishbowl. It's good, you should try it." Ivy screwed up her face in revulsion.
"No thanks Harl, I think I'll pass."
A few minutes later the waitress was depositing their drinks on the table. Harley's drink did indeed look like a fishbowl complete with red Swedish fish candies floating around in the electric blue liquid.
"Your appetizers will be right out."
The emcee took the stage as the waitress brought Harley's greasy baskets of junk food to their table. He was tall, young and black with closely cropped hair. He was wearing a black button down shirt and slacks, a red sports jacket, yellow tie and red high top Adidas.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen! What's up, what's up, what's up? My name is Kadaris Keenan and I am your host for tonight's entertainment. I would like to thank each and every one of you for coming on out to the Loony Bin tonight." He glanced around the room and focused immediately on the three sirens. "Damn, ya'll. If our comics seem distracted tonight, y'all will have to blame these fine looking ladies down front." He leaned over and grinned at the girls. "What y'all doin later?" He winked at Selina then looked off into the wings. "Oh I'm supposed to be emceeing? Sorry, sorry." The crowd chuckled as the men in the audience craned their necks to look at the girls. "We have one hell of a show for y'all tonight! Our first performer is a Gotham native. You may have seen him on shows such as Live at the Bijou, Last Comic Standing and Stand-up Tonight. Please give a warm Loony Bin welcome to Angelo Torra!"
The crowd applauded as the warm up comedian took the stage. The girls finished their first round of drinks and as Selina predicted a free round came compliments of the table full of guys that had been checking them out. The first comedian was amusing, not uproariously funny but entertaining to say the least. By the second performer Harley's face and fingers were thoroughly covered in hot sauce and ketchup and she was strongly feeling the effects of two fishbowl sized drinks. Ivy dragged her to the ladies' room between sets to get her cleaned up while Selina flirted with the boys. Ivy and Harley returned to another round of drinks waiting for them.
"Good job Kitty! Look Ivy, more Nemo's!" Ivy rolled her eyes, Harley was already tipsy and would soon be headed towards drunk.
"Yeah, thanks Selina. I'll let you know right now; you're helping me carry her later." Selina winked.
"Oh don't be such a mother hen Ivy, let the girl have a good time. I'll help carry her if she gets stupid."
"If? Ha! You obviously haven't been out drinking with Harley before."
The headliner finally took the stage and all three of the girls laughed uproariously as he performed. Casey's comedy was fairly clean, a little suggestive but his humor was unique and fresh and the girls really enjoyed his set. After the show ended Harley used her powers of 'persuasion' to get backstage and meet the comics. Harley came away with a t-shirt, a handful of autographs and some selfies of her and the girls with the comics. By the time they left the club Harley was slurring, stumbling and repeating her favorite jokes of the night over and over again and laughing hysterically as Ivy drove her rose colored Cadillac to Harley's hideout.
Joker and Harley were currently residing in an old Tunnel of Love ride in the condemned portion of Amusement Mile. Ivy and Selina had to carefully maneuver Harley into one of the swan shaped boats that slowly took them into the main area of the lair. It was after midnight and Harley's cackling laugh carried throughout the hideout. Joker was in his office when he heard the commotion. He sighed and pulled his suspenders back up onto his shoulders to go investigate. He found Ivy and Selina juggling a very drunk and giddy Harley out of the boat and into the room. J stood staring at the trio with his arms crossed over his chest and a very annoyed look on his face.
"Have a good time, did we, Pumpkin?" he said indignantly through gritted teeth.
Harley looked up and smiled widely when she saw her Puddin. She threw her arms open and would have fallen over as she did so if Ivy didn't catch her at the last minute.
"Puddin! We had a great time! Oh my God, this comic was hysterical! He told this joke you'll really like. It went like…'This one time-"
Joker walked over and pinched her lips shut before she could butcher whatever joke she was about to tell.
"Now Poo, what have I told you about telling jokes?" she answered with his fingers still pinching her lips shut.
"Thd I shdn't?" He smiled.
"Good girl." He released her lips and looked Ivy directly in the eye. "What the hell did you let her drink?" Ivy huffed out an exasperated breath.
"J, she's a grown woman. I didn't 'let' her do anything. She can make her own decisions." He shrugged.
"Fine. Well, you got her in this state, you take care of it you meddlesome harpies! I have work to do." He started walking towards his office but turned and looked back at the three of them. "If she gets sick, I'm calling you two to deal with it!" he grumbled as he pointed his finger at them. He turned and disappeared down the hallway.
"C'mon Selina, let's get her to bed." Selina threw Harley's arm over her shoulders as they tried to wrestle the teetering blonde to her bedroom.
"But I'm not tired!" she whined. "Maybe we should go out dancing now? Huh, whaddya say girls? The night is still young!" Selina raised an eyebrow at her.
"Harley, you can barely stand, much less dance. I think maybe you should just lie down for a few minutes." Ivy guided her over to the bed.
"Come on daffy-dill. Let's get you into your pajamas."
After a considerable struggle, they managed to get Harley out of her tight fitting jeans, boots and crop top and into a Batgirl nightgown. They sat her back down on the edge of the bed and Harley fell backwards with her arms out to her sides.
"Oof, why's the room spinning?" She grabbed her stomach, looked down and addressed it. "Nemo's, please stop swimming around in there already." She looked up at her girlfriends. "I think maybe I shouldn't have had those last two wings." Selina smiled at her inebriated friend.
"I think you shouldn't have had those last two drinks Harley. You gonna be okay, kitten?" Harley waved her hand in the air.
"I'm just ducky. You can leave me here, I'm just gonna close my eyes for a few minutes." Her eyes rolled back in her head and her lids fluttered closed. Ivy adjusted Harley's body so that she was fully on the bed.
"You think it's okay to leave her like this Ivy?"
"Yeah, she's a trooper. She'll have a hangover in the morning but believe it or not she can usually hold her liquor."
"She do this often?" Ivy shook her head.
"Not really. She'll act out when Joker's being an asshole so I suspect there's trouble in paradise. I suppose that means I should get the guest bedroom ready soon. C'mon Selina, I'm a little tired myself, let's boogey." The girls left the lair as Harley started snoring loudly.
The following morning Harley began to pay for her fun night out. As she opened her eyes the overhead light made her squint as a splitting headache began pounding her brain. She dragged herself to the bathroom, did her necessary, brushed her teeth and splashed cold water on her face. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her left pigtail was matted and flat, she had dark circles under her eyes and she was paler than normal. Her tongue felt desiccated in her mouth and her stomach was still a little queasy from all the sweet liquor and greasy food. She brushed out her hair and put it up in a messy bun on top of her head and trudged to the makeshift kitchen to find a cold bottle of water. J was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. She went right to the fridge, grabbed a water and chugged the whole bottle. J glanced over his paper at her and chuckled. He could tell she was hurting.
"Awww, are we having a rough morning, Pumpkin?" he coddled.
She could hear the condescension in his tone. He had been particularly cruel to her lately, at least when he even bothered to acknowledge her presence which was rare these days. That's what had prompted her to get together with the girls in the first place. She was lonely and bored. She tried to put a smile onto her face but she could feel how forced it must look.
"Nope, I'm A-okay Mistah J. I just need something to eat and an aspirin and I'll be right as rain." She replied in as bubbly a tone as she could manage.
"Harley, you're a terrible liar." He shook his paper out and held it back up as he continued reading. "Serves you right for going out with the alley cat and the talking house plant and leaving me here all by myself." She had awoken irritable to begin with and he was already raising her ire.
"I'm surprised you even noticed I was gone." she said sarcastically as she rummaged in the fridge for something to soak up the alcohol in her stomach. She settled on a few slices of cold pizza. Joker lowered his paper to the table.
"How could I not notice. It was blissfully quiet for a change."
"Then why doncha quit complaining about me going out then?" He raised one verdant eyebrow and pursed his lips.
"If you know what's good for you, kiddo you'll shut your insolent mouth before I shut it for you."
She shot him a look but kept her mouth closed. She grabbed another bottle of water, shook out a few Ibuprofen from the bottle in the nearby cabinet and took her breakfast into their living area to watch TV. She flipped on the Comedy network. They were running a marathon of Jeff Dunham specials. Shortly after they had first gotten together, Joker took her to Atlantic City and they caught his show. This was about five years ago before the comic/ventriloquist had become famous. Now he was a household name and his act had grown. She giggled and chortled at him and his cute little puppets as she slowly chewed her pizza and let the medication do its work. Into the second special she was beginning to feel much better and her headache had subsided. She laughed more whole heartedly now that the pounding in her head had stopped. She felt rather than saw him standing behind her.
"What on earth are you cackling about in here, Harley?"
"Jeff Dunham." On the television screen Jeff was introducing Jose the Jalapeno on a Steek. Harley squealed. "Oh my God I love this thing! It's so cute!"
Joker rolled his eyes as she continued to giggle. He couldn't believe she was hysterical over a freaking ventriloquist! She didn't laugh at his comedy like that anymore. Oh, there was a time that she did, not all that long ago either if he could recall, and that bothered him. It bothered him more than he cared to admit.
"If you're going to watch a comedy special at least do me the favor of watching someone who's actually funny!" he spat.
"But he is funny Pud."
"Is Scarface funny? Is Arnold Wesker funny? No, and you know why? Because ventriloquists aren't funny!"
"I don't feel like arguing with you, so if it offends you that much I'll find something else to watch." She started flipping through channels as J continued to stand behind her. "Did you need something from me Pud, or are you just waiting to approve my television preferences?"
He sneered at her as he grabbed the bun on top of her head, yanked her head backwards and bent at the waist until his nose was millimeters from her forehead as he stared into her eyes.
"Someone is letting their mouth write checks their ass can't cash." Her eyes widened as she saw the rage building in his face. If she kept it up she'd spend the rest of the day licking wounds instead of recovering from a hangover.
"Just kidding Mistah J, really!" She plastered an awkward smile on her face. "Did you need me to do something for you Pud?"
"What I need you to do Pumpkin, is to start showing me the respect I'm due. So drop the sass, little girl, before you really make Daddy mad." She pushed her bottom lip out in a pout.
"Yes sir." He let an evil, satisfied grin cross his face.
"Now, there's a good girl." He let go of her hair and she rubbed the spot on her head where his grip pulled her roots the worst. "We're going out later, so make sure your suit is ready and do whatever you need to, but I need you in working condition by tonight. You getting drunk with your friends is no excuse to get out of work." He walked off leaving her alone.
Joker wandered back to his office and tried to figure out what exactly they were going to do tonight. He needed to come up with something that truly showed off his unique brand of comedic genius, something that was bound to make her laugh. Fah! If a ventriloquist and his ridiculous muppets could crack her up, he had something that was sure to put her in stitches. He sketched out a plan and got to work on the props right away.
Harley got into her work clothes shortly after dark. J was practically vibrating with excitement. He had a broad smile across his face and she eyed him curiously as he was carrying a dozen small white boxes in a stack in his arms.
"Let's go Pumpkin, time's a wastin'." They piled into the rear of an old green sedan as their henchman Sam took the wheel.
"What's the job Puddin? Where we headed?" He placed his arm around her shoulders.
"Nowhere special, we're just out for a bit of fun Harley-girl. Just a little giggle to make sure Gotham remembers I'm around."
She started getting a sinking feeling in her stomach as they slowed. The Gotham Police Department's Major Crimes Unit was up ahead on the left. J pulled his long barreled pistol from his coat pocket as Sam stopped the car in front of the station. The trunk popped open and Joker stepped out of the vehicle. He went to the rear of the car and called to Harley.
"Come on Pumpkin, I need help with these pies."
He opened one of the small white boxes to reveal a fluffy cream pie. Her eyes widened in surprise. What the hell was he playing at? Not that his plans ever really made sense to her but what was his angle, there was little to gain here. Joker lifted his pistol and emptied it into the front doors of the MCU. Glass exploded into a thousand tiny pieces as cops swarmed out of the door. The captain yelled down at the clowns.
"Joker! Drop your weapon or we drop you!" Joker smiled, tossed his gun into the street and raised his hands.
"Hello boys. No need to be so bossy. I just stopped by to bring you hard working boys in blue a little snack. I do apologize, but they were fresh out of donuts, so I brought you some pie instead!"
Joker launched the first pie and hit one of the rookie cops in the face. He screamed in agony as smoke began to rise from the pie and he frantically clawed at it trying to tear it away from his burning flesh. A smell similar to smoked pork filled the air. Gunshots echoed through the street as the cops opened fire. Harley didn't question J, she just threw pies and dodged bullets like her life depended on it, which incidentally, it did. Joker was laughing and guffawing at the cops as they writhed in torment from the deadly acid pies.
He reached for the last pie and realized that not only was Harley not laughing, she wasn't smiling either. This was a classic gag! How can you not laugh at deadly acid pies killing cops? A burly cop was barreling towards the Joker as he frowned across the rear of the car at Harley. He lobbed the pie in his hand almost absentmindedly in the cops' direction. He knew without looking that he hit his target as the screaming had begun again. She glanced over at him nervously.
"What now Mistah J?" He sighed. Not so much as a giggle out of her.
"Now, we go home I guess."
He slumped into the backseat of the sedan and Harley scurried in alongside him as Sam tore away from the scene. Harley wasn't sure what was wrong with J, but she prayed it wasn't something she had done. It had almost been a week since her last shiner and she was going for a new personal best. He was withdrawn and obviously stuck inside his own head. While this was not unusual, he was in a strikingly poor mood for having just killed a bunch of cops. When they got back to the lair, he went straight to his office, slamming and locking the door behind him. Harley breathed out a sigh of relief. She had managed to avoid a beating which was more than she could have hoped for.
In his office Joker paced back and forth as he reviewed tonight's routine in his head over and over again. His timing was perfect, everything went off without a hitch. Why didn't she laugh? Was he getting too predictable? Was his material stale? She had suggested a while back that he needed to 'get with' popular culture and update his act a little. He had broken her jaw for that little assessment. She'd never mentioned it again, nor did he expect her to. Could that be it? She was so much younger than him, could it be that she felt his comedy was too dated? But she watched the Three Stooges with him and her favorite movie growing up was an Abbott and Costello flick, he'd seen her laugh at it before. Okay so maybe that was five years ago, but who was keeping track?
He tried to think of the last time they watched an old comedy together. Two months ago a job of theirs had gotten postponed due to weather and they watched Duck Soup. Did he remember her laughing? He barely registered she was in the room that night. Oh that's right, she fell asleep about twenty minutes into the movie. In that twenty minutes did he remember her laughing? Nope, he couldn't say that he did. He groaned as he fisted his hands in his hair. That had to be it. She thought he was washed up. She didn't find him funny anymore, she thought his act was old hat.
He needed inspiration, he needed some new material. Something modern, something big and flashy, something she'll find hysterical. That meant he'd need to observe her to figure out what her triggers were. He'd need to be able to differentiate what made her giggle as opposed to what made her chortle or cackle in glee. That meant he was going to be forced to spend time with her.
This was going to suck.