The Joker Flips a House Upside-Down

by TSOHG A MA I

In the middle of the colorless, dark cityscape of Gotham…a townhouse with purple shutters was painted bright green... Pre-TDK

Still a rough draft, BUT THIS IS THE FULL FIRST CHAPTER.

ENJOY THE WEIRDNESS.

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THE JOKER FLIPS A HOUSE…UPSIDE-DOWN

(: :)

Jodi watched on with something like resentment as the casket was lowered into the ground.

The funeral was over.

Finally.

Jodi was bored out of her mind.

The sizable crowd of her mother's friends began to file out between the headstones as she stood stationary, staring down apathetically at the hole in the ground, a boulder in a sluggish, slow-moving stream of people. It had begun to rain, as is often the case in Gotham, and Jodi hadn't brought an umbrella, leaving her cheap boots sodden, her clothes well and truly soaked, and her dirty blond hair hanging down in long stringy curtains on either side of her head. She was sure her makeup was ruined too, running in rivulets down her face like some sad-looking human raccoon. Her full lower lip was split, casting an ominous light upon the pert shape of a cupid's bow, and a dark, multi-colored bruise adorned her high cheekbone, along with various other cuts and scrapes scattered here and there. In short, she was a disaster in a black dress, but she couldn't have cared less.

Some well-wishers attempted to approach, but with a forbidding glare leveled at anyone who came within a three-meter diameter of her, and the widely known fact that Jeanie's fifteen-year-old problem child was more surly and temperamental than a rabid, pregnant wolverine in a petting zoo when she wanted to be, they gave her a wide berth. She seemed to emit a quiet aura of 'fuck you' that even the densest of individuals could sense, and her mother's friends murmured about her quietly amongst themselves as they passed around her invisible barrier. She paid them no mind but for one of her habitual passing dark thoughts that came more and more frequently these days…

Sheep. Baying at each other like fucking animals. They can all go screw themselves and shit in their beds while they're at it—

Jodi cut the voice off with a wince at the unsavory image it conjured.

Sometimes she was sure there was a demon living inside her head with her.

They got along most of the time.

In any case, she was glad when the people left. Jodi didn't like most people as a rule, since most people were often scumbags, she'd discovered. Even the pastor left without a word—and she was glad of that too, because the last thing she wanted to hear right now was a bunch of religious drivel; that was always her mom's thing… No, everyone left Jodi there to watch her mother's coffin descend slowly (Too. Fucking. Slowly.) into the dirt. And when she looked up, she would've said she was surprised to find a man standing next to her, head hung low and shoulders slouched…but she wasn't, really.

They had a prior arrangement, after all.

"You the guy?" she asked inflectionlessly, her mascara-streaked face impassive.

He didn't have an umbrella either, she noticed.

And when he got around to turning his head from the progress of the casket to the sullen girl beside him, she blinked at him slowly with her mother's huge blue eyes. They looked out of place in such indolent, half-lidded features. She could honestly find nothing remotely familiar in the man's face, other than vague recollections and faded photographs from over a decade ago. She didn't remember the scars. It looked like somebody had tried to split his face horizontally and changed their mind a couple times halfway through. But beneath that, Jodi could see where she might've gotten her square jaw and impressive glare… Their hair was the same too, only hers was a little lighter.

"Uh, yeah…" he answered, his voice dry and a little grainy. He came off as somewhat awkward, though he didn't look uncomfortable. Maybe it was just her. And she thought maybe he could tell too, because he gave her another sideways onceover and asked, "Wanna hear a joke?"

One of Jodi's brows arched up towards her hairline and she eyed her mother's coffin pointedly.

Seeing this, scarface waved a hand at it with a dismissive snort. "Nah, Jeanie won't mind. 'Sides, she, ah, she, aha-ahee-ahoo…" he giggled a bit peculiarly to himself, as if remembering some private joke of their own, and leaned over towards her to emphasize the fact very plainly, "she always laughed at my jokes."

Jodi stared at him blankly, but she figured he was probably right about her mom not minding—what, with being dead and all—so she shrugged her shoulders. It probably wouldn't be that funny anyway.

"Go for it."

"I know a guy, who, ah…took his grandma to one of those fish spa centers. Ya know, the fancy-shmancy ones, where the little fish eat off all your peeling dead skin for only forty-five bucks?" He took a moment to pause for effect, quietly delivering the punchline: "…It was waaay cheaper than having her buried in the cemetery."

To top it off, he rolled back on his heels and gave Mom's casket a perfunctory nod as if to say 'case in point.'

It took a moment for her to get it.

And another.

And another.

And after a minute of straight silence interrupted by nothing but the light pattering of rain and the rare call of a crow…Jodi laughed.

It was more of a cackle, really.

Her friends always told her she sounded like a witch when she laughed. And they were right. Through no fault of her own but for an inherently twisted sense of humor, Jodi's amusement always came off as something wicked, vicious, and cruel.

So it was really no surprise that she ended up laughing at her own mother's funeral.

She was sure the woman would have understood. She always had before. Even when nobody else did. Which, really, was the true tragedy here. Without her, Jodi was sure there was no one else in the world who could keep her on the straight and narrow. The woman had the patience of a saint, and always knew what to say to get Jodi out of bed and out of her own head. And sometimes, she'd just get so angry—angry at people, angry at the world, at everything—so angry she'd even take it out on herself if there was nothing else readily available. But Jeanie, like magic, knew just how to calm her down and help her cope—even when Jodi took her anger out on her. She could explain away everything that troubled and confused her about the world and the people in it—things she knew people were supposed to understand without even thinking, but Jodi just didn't get it. It was all like some big joke that went right over her head…and everyone was laughing except for her.

Without her mom, Jodi knew she was completely lost. Everything was just so complicated and overwhelming. Most girls her age were worried about things like, boys, getting their driver's license, and getting into college. Jodi was more concerned about money, hospital bills, insurance problems, social services, and if she was even going to have a place to live soon. The whole thing, plus her grief on top of it, was enough to make her want to go and do something stupid…

Again.

But it felt good to just laugh. Like a weight lifting off her shoulders.

"Why does it cost so much money to dig a hole in the ground and put someone in it?" Jodi wondered aloud incredulously. "I just don't get it."

She didn't get a lot of things.

Like insurance.

She had no clue where her mom's social security and account numbers were.

And what the hell was a devisee in a last will and testament anyway?

And why were they all expecting her to just know these things?

She hoped this guy could help. But considering the presence he'd had in her life thus far—or lack thereof, rather—she didn't think it was too likely. Plus, judging by his face, she had an inkling that he had bigger problems to deal with. Such as the mob, maybe, if she had to make a guess… No, perhaps it was better for them both if they parted ways as soon as acceptably possible. They could hoodwink the social worker—it was the least he could do for her—so she could dodge the foster care system she'd heard such awful things about, then they'd both go on with their separate lives, and never contact each other again.

Still, Jodi thought, he'd made her laugh, so he didn't seem like such a bad guy.

He'd split when she was around two, so, granted, she didn't remember him much. She knew she'd loved him at some point, but kids are pretty much inherently programmed to love their parents at that age. Still, she remembered playing games with him. He could always come up with the best games, she recalled. Her mom was always the voice of reason in the pair, reining him in whenever the games got out of control. But the guy was a blast. And a reckless driver, she remembered that too—a not so nice memory of her mom in the passenger seat saying something derogatory about his 'crazy driving,' and distinctly, Jodi could hear him saying something like, 'Crazy? Cray-zee? Ya wanna see somethin' crazy?'

He then proceeded to swerve all over the road like a freakin' maniac.

He must've been having a very bad day…

She remembered the way her stomach lurched whenever the car fishtailed to the right or the left, and how she felt like she was flying. But the strangest thing, Jodi thought, was while her mother was screaming, pleading for him to get back on the right side of the road and drive in a straight line, Jodi was sitting in her car seat, laughing—like she was having the time of her life.

It was fun.

She didn't know why Mommy was so upset. Because she knew Daddy wouldn't crash the car. He loved them, he said. She trusted him. But that was also the last time she remembered being in a vehicle with him. One of her last memories of him, period.

She didn't remember saying goodbye.

One day, he was just gone.

And that was all there was. There wasn't anymore.

Daddy's curtain call.

And now here they were again. He was all scarred and grizzled now, the sides of his face puckered and mashed up, eyes looking slightly sunken and dark, like he didn't get much sleep now-a-days. And his teeth were all stained yellow—from caffeine addiction or a cigarette habit, Jodi didn't know—but at least he was smiling at her. She smiled back genuinely.

"I really needed that laugh," she confessed.

"Kinda figured," he said, turning fully to look her up and down. "You, uh…Ya look like you been through hell, kid."

She snorted, and returned, "So do you."

"Aah…" He nodded sagely, gesturing widely roundabout his face. "It's The Scars, isn't it."

"Actually," Jodi said very matter-of-factly, "I think they make you look like a fucking badass." At his nonplussed expression, she felt the need to add, "I can now confidently brag at the bus stop that my dad can make Chuck Norris piss his pants and run crying for his mommy."

He blinked once before bursting out into wheezy, chaotic laughter that broke off into childish giggles from time to time as he gasped for breath. Bent double, he had to grasp her shoulder to keep from falling over. Maybe he was asthmatic? Jodi hoped not. Her mom had already given her allergies and dimples as her hereditary contribution, and if he had asthma, it meant Jodi probably did too. She'd never had much luck in the genetics department, physiologically speaking, anyway. And an attractive outward appearance did her more harm than good in most cases…

When he recovered from his (maybe) asthma attack, he roughly patted the shoulder he'd used to remain standing—unbalancing her slightly with the unexpected forcefulness behind it—and straightened with a mangled grin.

"Cor-r-rec-tion:" he drew out the word with another giggle, "I wouldn't, ah…give him the chance to run crying for his mommy."

Jodi thought about this and the sense it made, nodding and returning the grin. "That's an even better idea; maybe everybody would stop telling stupid Chuck Norris jokes."

"Amen to tha-t," he chuckled ominously, and Jodi almost didn't catch the lightning quick way his tongue darted out to wet the corners where his lips met his scars as he gripped her shoulder again and steered her around, away from her mother's grave. "C'mon—let's get the hell outta here, kid. It's, uh…it's enough to make even a guy like me depressed…"

"I'm always depressed," Jodi muttered offhand. But after a second, she mused dryly, "I think there's actually a rule about that somewhere in the Angsty Teenage Handbook…something about it being unacceptable to not be whiny, entitled, and self-obsessed." She was quick to point out, "Otherwise you're doing it wrong."

He laughed again, throwing an arm around her narrow shoulders familiarly. Jodi didn't usually allow strangers to touch her, but did he really count as a stranger? She was uncertain, so didn't shrug him off when he leaned sideways and pronounced, "Somethin' tells me you're not one to follow the rules, babydoll…"

She eyed him warily as his black eyes darted around her face deliberately, and flinched when he poked her bruise.

"Who did that to your face?"

She sneered a bit, but didn't see any reason to lie. "Some dumbass. He hit like a girl."

He snorted, almost tripping over a flat tombstone as they headed for the gates catching up to the departures, and he pointed out, "Still gave you a pret-ty good shiner."

"Lucky shot," Jodi insisted fiercely. "I gave him a lot worse…"

"That so?" he hummed teasingly.

Jodi looked up as they passed through the gates and nudged him with her shoulder, directing his attention to a couple getting out of their car with her chin.

"Eyes up, dumbass at eleven o'clock." He looked over to see one of the approachers was her age, stocky, freckled, ginger haired, and—most notably—sporting a few impressive shiners of his own, plus a neck brace, an arm sling, and a remarkably put-out scowl. "I hereby present to you the Ballless Wonder…otherwise known as Timmy the Bitch; he's also been called Peabrain and Bedwetter, and has been known to cry pathetically like a sexually repressed retard when he jacks off to pictures of his dad dressed as a drag queen," Jodi growled venomously as the boy's redheaded mother caught sight of her, and began to march through the mud in her expensive high heels. "And here comes his mommy, the PTA whore queen… God, what the hell do they want?"

Her dad appeared to be trying very hard not to snigger as Miriam McKay stopped in front of them imperiously with her fake tan and her fake boobs, (fake, fake, fake, fa-a-ake,) but though her stance radiated intimidation, her face formed a plastic, red lipstick smile that she bestowed upon Jodi with benevolence. "Judy, dear—I was so sorry to hear about your mother. It looks like we were late for the service…"

That's because nobody invited you, meddling slut-bag. Slaggy conniving bitch. Snooping whor—

Jodi blinked.

She slowly reached out to grasp the witch's manicured hand, inwardly cringing at where it might've been. "It was good of you to come anyway. You can talk to Liddy if you want to attend the wake. She's taking care of all that, since she and Mom were such good friends."

Actually, Liddy was a whore too.

But at least she wasn't fake.

Which made her a relatively okay person in Jodi's opinion; Jeanie had liked her, so there must've been something good about her. Her mother had always taught her the value of being honest. Perhaps her friendship with Liddy was maintained by the woman's attitude of 'if you're going to be a whore, at least be up front about it.' Own up to it, find glory in it even, but don't be a pert-nosed snob about it like Miriam Forking McKay. And yes, that was her real middle name, by the way.

Actually—no. No, that was a dirty lie. Jodi didn't know what the hell Miriam's middle name was. But she thought it would be funny if it was Forking. Or some derivative of 'fake.' 'Floozy,' maybe? Something with an 'F' in it. Gotta be.

"Really, darling, Timothy and I came to speak with you."

'False'? 'Fradulent'? 'Fictitious'? 'Phony'? Okay, so maybe that last one didn't strictly start with 'F' but it sure sounded like it.

"Tim here just wanted to tell you how sorry he was about what he said about your poor mother the other day. We had no idea Jeanie was in the hospital—such a terrible accident—and you know how Timothy can just be so careless with his words sometimes," the witch demurred, stroking her scowling son's buzz cut. "When he gets excited, things just…slip out."

That's what she said.

Jodi tried not to wince.

Her dad was still trying not to laugh.

She could feel his diaphragm shuddering from beside her, struggling to hold the giggles in.

She wondered if his face was turning red.

She could see Mrs. McKay eyeing him warily.

"And who is this?"

"My dad," Jodi answered mechanically, but smirked slightly when she saw Timmy the Bitch eyeing The Scars with caution.

Miraculously, when Dad opened his mouth, the giggles did not come out.

"Uh, hi…"

He waved.

Miriam, the busybody bitch she was, swooped in on that like a homosexual on Brad Pitt.

"Ahh, the mysterious Mr. Napier," she purred, delighted as a cat cornering a canary. "We all knew Jeanie at the PTA, of course, but she never mentioned you…"

"I've, ah…been out of town for, hmm…" he paused as he struggled with the giggles again, "…a while."

Jodi slowly turned her head to regard him with a very dry stare.

A completely unrepentant giggle escaped through his nose.

"I…see." Mrs. McKay, said, clearly disappointed at the lack of elaboration, and pried further, "Well, will you be back in town long? Should I drop by with some registration papers? We're always recruiting for new members of the PTA."

Jodi snorted loudly before he could reply.

When everyone stared at her, she rubbed her finger beneath her nose and explained through a nasally filter, "Allergies. They're killer."

"You poor dear," Mrs. McKay simpered. "Maybe you should head on home. Pop some Clairton and an Ambien; you'll be out like a light. Everything will seem better in the morning. Just take it one day at a time."

Jodi added 'drug abuser' to the list.

"Sure thing, Mrs. M," was all she replied.

Still the rumormongering whore she was, she set her sights on Dad again, and told her son brazenly, "Tim, why don't you be a gentleman and escort Judy to her car while Mr. Napier and I have a little talk? Hmm?"

Timmy the Cockmuncher glared at Jodi hatefully, but grunted an assent and turned without a word, headed off in any direction. He had no idea where he was going, and frankly, neither did Jodi because she sure as hell didn't know what car her dad came in, or if he even came in one. But if he did, she thought it was a safe bet that it was the junker on the end there. And with a look and a nod towards the vehicle in question, she took that as a confirmation.

And with that, she left the man to the mercies of Mrs. McKay, but not before asking, "Hey, Mrs. M?"

"Yes, dear?"

"…What's your middle name?"

"Persephone." The woman blinked at her, nonplussed. "Why do you ask, dear?"

Jodi had to struggle not to laugh in her face.

Persephone.

Per-seh-pho-neee.

Per-seh-phony.

Phony.

Fucking called it, bitch.

Jodi grinned innocently. "Just curious…"

When she caught up with Timmy the Dipshit, she asked quietly, "How much did she pay you to be here, fuck-tard?"

He sneered at her, flipping out a bill with a face on it. "Got a Nixon, baby."

"You brought it with you?" She rolled her eyes, snatching the fifty from him effortlessly. "And that's Ulysses S. Grant, you half-wit. Not every dollar bill has a president on it; not to mention one who tried to rig his own reelection and got impeached for it. God, you're so fucking stupid."

"Give it back—I'm not stupid; I just didn't know that!"

There was a short, discrete scuffle that ended when Jodi grabbed some of his fingers on his unbroken arm and bent them backwards.

"I have a better plan," she hissed in his face as he winced. "You let me keep it…and I don't tell your whore mommy about how your faggot daddy touches you at night."

"He doesn't, you sick freak," he snarled back. "Why would you even think—"

She noticed he didn't deny that his mother was a whore or that his daddy was a faggot.

"Oh, it doesn't matter what I think—or even what you think you know to be the truth about those freaks you call parents." She grinned wickedly as she watched the denial seep from his eyes. "See, what matters is what I can make her think…" She laughed hollowly, as she watched the color drain from his pasty ass ginger freckled face. "And she'll believe it, Timmy. You can trust me on that… Just like the story I fed her about your broken arm." If possible, his face went even paler. "Hmm…I wonder what would happen if I told her the real story about why I broke it, you piece-of-shit rapist."

"It wasn't—it wasn't like that," he protested desperately, finally snatching his fingers back. But there was guilt in his eyes and Jodi honed in on it like a shark.

"Yeah? Why don't we ask Misty what she thinks about it?" Jodi snorted. "If she can even remember. Must've gone by real quick if it was you, after all—Ballless Wonder—and she was pre-e-etty fucked up, as I recall."

"You shut your freak face," he grated out through his teeth. "Who the hell sticks around to watch when—"

"You're the one who locked me in with you guys, dumbass," Jodi reminded him dryly. "I was standing by the window the whole fucking time and you didn't even notice. That's highly unobservant of you. Then again, you were pretty fucked up at that party too, as I recall—"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" he whisper-screamed, looking over his shoulder nervously. "Keep the fucking money—I don't give a shit. Just don't ever talk about it again, you got that, freak!? And fer-god's-sake, leave my mother out of it!"

She smiled, slow and sweet as honey. "Ask me nicely."

"Fuck you."

She held a hand to cup her ear. "Hm, what was that, Bo-bo? You think I should go talk to the Whore?"

Timmy the Rapist's eyes widened. "Oh god, don't bring that creepy thing out!"

"What thing?" Jodi feigned innocence, reaching slowly for her backpack. "Oh, you mean old Mr. Bo-bo? Why not? I think he likes you…"

He backed away from her slowly as she slipped the bag off and went for the zipper. "P-please, Jodi, just…don't."

She grinned at him victoriously. "I knew you'd see things my way." She slipped the fifty into a side pocket of the knapsack and threw it back over her shoulder. "Pleasure doing business with you, dipshit."

Incensed, and emboldened now that it looked like Mr. Bo-bo was staying put, Timmy Fuck-wit took an ominous step towards her. "Mark my words, I'ma make you regret this, freak—"

"Is there ahh…prob-lem here, kiddos?"

Timmy the Pillow-biter snapped around to face Jodi's dad. And as he took in The Scars up close and personal, he backed off with a flash of fear in his eyes. "N-no, sir. Have a nice day, sir."

And with that, he all but sprinted after his mommy who was walking off in a similar manner, all hot and bothered about something. Jodi stared closely after the both of them, then looked at her dad with an arched brow.

"Well," he said simply, with a 'what the fuck' shrug, "that was rude…"

She continued to look at him with questions in her eyes.

He looked back relentlessly until she looked away.

When she did, he banged a fist on the hood of the rustbucket to open the door with a clang. "C'mon, kid. You're ridin' shotgun. Careful, uh, the door sticks—" Another bang with Jodi bracing her foot against the side of the car for leverage, and "—yeah, there ya go, you got it. Huh, stronger than ya look." He paused before ducking into the vehicle and tossing her a box over the hood. "Figure out how to work the GPS while you're at it, will ya? The manual's all in Hindu, or somethin'…"

"I could just give you directions…" Jodi suggested dryly, taking the device out of the box anyway. She was good with tech stuff. Just had to play with it a little to get it working, and… "Yahtzee." It blinked on and she stuck it on the dash, brushing away some discarded fast food containers absently to make room.

"Uh…that was quick," he remarked, thrown.

She leveled him with a dry look. "You're one of those technologically challenged people, aren't you."

"No," he protested huffily. "No, I am no-t."

Jodi took a look at the box after a minute of fiddling around, trying to switch the language out of Chinese, frowned, then sent her dad an exasperated glance, turning the box over to him and pointing out clearly marked English letters. "English language pack sold separately. Where did you even get this thing?"

He blinked down at it owlishly for a second and shook his head slowly. "Now, that's just bull-shit." He threw the box carelessly over his shoulder into the backseat, then proceeded to rip the GPS off the dash and treat it just the same. Jodi listened to it clatter amongst some empty plastic bottles on the floorboard as she continued to observe the man's quiet temper-tantrum blankly.

"Mom's got a good one at home if you want it," she offered after a pause.

Jodi couldn't stop talking about her in present tense.

She tried not to think about it too deeply.

"Sounds perfect," he muttered, turning the key in the ignition. It took a few tries for the engine to turn over, sounding a little like a diseased horse hacking for water, but turn over it did. And with a crack like a gunshot, they were off.

For an instant, she remembered her mother's warning—one of the few times she ever talked about Dad—

Never get into a car alone with him.

For an instant, Jodi remembered the swoop of her stomach as the car fishtailed back and forth—

She was oddly disappointed as the traffic slowly drew them to a halt.

"Slower than a heard of turtles stampeding through peanut butter…" she remarked wryly, knowing that with the lunch rush coming, they'd be getting nowhere fast for at least half-an-hour. "But that's Gotham, for you. Take a left here through the alley. It's a tight fit, but I know a shortcut."

He gave Jodi a dubious look, but shrugged, as if to say, 'what the hell?' before turning sharply and charging down the alley. She directed him through the backstreets, dodging around homeless, junkies, dumpster divers, and little groups of punks who threw stuff at the bucket-o-bolts as they passed by. Jodi sneered, rolled down the window, and flipped her middle finger at the group as they passed, muttering, "Fuckers…" under her breath.

They were part of this junior street gang that had popped up recently. The Candy Skulls or something of that ilk. A bunch of charlatan thugs, stupid kids asking for trouble, going out in contrived chain and leather getups, faces painted with fluorescent green, glow-in-the-dark, grease-based costume makeup, and freakish, reflective contacts that made their eyes look like feral dogs in dark alleys, thinking they were bad and scary. And with growing ties to the mob, they were getting there. Despite Jodi's best efforts to stomp out their influence around her neighborhood and in her school of Parkview PS 111, a recent riot at the Wakefield PS 110 school, involving their own Skulls infestation, had sent an influx of displaced students to her merry district. And like a disease, they had spread…

They were a rougher crowd, coming from a city district a few shades darker than Jodi's, but they were all bravado and charades to her. They thought they were big and bad—they thought they could come in and have the run of the place like they owned it. But in their efforts to assert their dominance, and prove their place at the top of the food chain, they overlooked something…something very important.

There was already someone at the top of the food chain at Parkview, and that someone was her.

Jodi knew everything that went on in that infernal place of learning. She knew who was fucking whom, and who was fucking which teacher, and so on and so on. She knew the bullies, and she knew the weaklings who crawled to her for protection. She knew the jocks like Timmy Date Rape, and his little group of cronies that were all scared shitless of her, (she'd made sure of that). She knew the cliques in and out, and had something on almost everyone who liked to stir up trouble. They were all like animals, really. High School was a Jungle, and Jodi, colloquially known as the Queen of Detention, was the black panther who stalked the halls from the shadows…and sometimes helped her friend Mowgli out when she was feeling generous. Well, her name was actually Roxy, but she used to bring the Jungle Book over to Jodi's house all the time when they were kids, singing the Bear Necessities at the top of her lungs, so the name stuck.

She learned from a young age how to tip the hand in her favor with teachers. It was easy to find out their secrets and what she could use against them. She hadn't done homework since the beginning of sixth grade, and if she got bored with class, she left. She never really needed to study, and the only reason she even showed up at school at all was to finish up some tests in detention and maintain a presence. She owned the place. And anyone who said different was in for a very rude awakening.

She was going to have fun with those Skull fuckers from Wakefield, oh, yes she was…

"You, ah…" He glanced at her furtively. "You know your way around the city pretty well, huh, kid?"

"Better than some, worse than others…" She caught his glance. "My name's not 'kid,' you know."

"Yeah, ha-ha…" He chuckled, but it didn't seem to have any humor in it. "Yeah, I know… It's just, mm…weird."

Jodi frowned, puzzled. "What's weird?"

"I used to call you Jo-jo, I think… Memories are a little, aha…fuzzy." He knocked on his head and laughed again, more cheerful, but it tapered off and he frowned, as if puzzled at himself. He gave her another glance. "But you, uh…now you're, hmm, taller…and, uh…and you're walking, and, ah…talking like an actual person, with actual words that come out of your mouth and make sense, and, umm…" His eyes darted to her chest, clearly discombobulated in all ways, and shook his head a little like a dog. "It's weird."

Thinking about it that way for a minute, she realized she didn't really know what to call him either, and Jodi said quietly, "You can still call me Jo-jo if you want…" She remembered him calling her that too, and she felt herself smile at the warm thought. "Just don't call me Judy," she warned quickly, "or I won't be responsible for my actions…" He giggled at her like she was being cute, and she waited a minute for him to say something, but when he didn't, she asked dryly, "…You want me to call you 'Dad'?"

"Hell, no," was his immediate and quite emphatic answer.

Jodi cackled at him, even if it was slightly cruel.

She wasn't hurt, or bitter. She didn't expect a damn thing from the man. In the scheme of her life, having him in it for barely two years, and not exchanging a word, or acknowledging each other's existence for the other thirteen was hardly cause for expectations of any sort. They didn't owe each other a thing. She could've been mad about him not paying child support too, but judging by the barely running state of his car, and the fact that he seemed to have been living out of it for god knows how long, Jodi wondered where he would've found the money to spare for her and her mother in the first place. Times were hard; one only had to look at his face to know they'd been hard on him too. And until now, Jodi and her mom had been just fine without him.

Relatively speaking, anyway.

Jodi couldn't complain, because she knew there were scores of people in this city who had it much, much worse than she did.

And she refused to weigh herself down with something as cliché as Daddy Issues.

Even if she loved that song.

Awesome band; she had a huge crush on Jesse Rutherford.

Jodi ruefully eyed the ripped-out hole in the dash where a car radio should have been.

"Cause somebody stole, my car radio, and now I just sit in silence…" she recited somewhat forlornly, tapping out a rhythm on her bouncing knee, unable to sit still. Jodi's dad gave her a perturbed look. She explained, "I like music." At his further perturbed expression, she elaborated, "I like the band who sings Car Radio a lot. It's a song about a guy whose obsessive thoughts only stop going when he's listening to music…but somebody stole his car radio, and now he just sits in silence." She snorted softly. "It's kind of random."

"Mine wasn't stolen," he told Jodi slowly. "I sold it."

She stared at him doubtfully. "To buy that crappy GPS?"

He growled obscenities under his breath.

She took that as a 'yes,' and sniggered at him.

"Hey, I, uh…It got me here, didn't it?" he defended churlishly.

Jodi stared at him incredulously. "How on earth did you manage to get here with the directions all in Chinese?"

"Ah…skill," was his taciturn explanation.

They hit a pothole and Jodi heard an odd noise like a groan coming from the back end of the car. The trunk? She broke the dubious one-sided staring match to look puzzledly over her shoulder. "What was that?"

"Nothing," he said a little too quickly.

Her stare must've been a little too doubtful because he swiftly changed the subject.

"I was in Detroit when I got the call," he explained shortly, more perturbed than ever. "From the, uh…that lawyer guy. Sanctimonious prick tracked me down—I don't, ah…" He paused to chew on the inside of his cheek pensively before speaking again slowly, "I don't like it when people…do that."

Jodi hadn't heard from Mom's lawyer in a while, come to think of it…

Weird.

"Well, I'm glad he did," she told him as the house came into view around the corner. "Mom couldn't, so the divorce was never finalized. And she wasn't exactly expecting to get run over by a drunk, so she didn't update her will. I have a copy of it here." She searched through her backpack, shoving aside Bo-bo to fish it out and place it in the glove compartment for him to look at later if he so chose. She spotted the telltale metallic glint of a gun between the cluttered mess of crumpled papers and candy wrappers, but didn't ask. Wasn't her business.

"Basically," she explained, "I'm not an emancipated minor, blah, blah, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, I'm too young to handle diddly squat, and you get everything—including custody, but that's a whole other can of worms we can get into later." She skimmed over that quickly to get to the good part. "Point is, it's a good thing you came, because if you didn't, the banks would foreclose everything. I don't know what you plan on doing with all of it, but you should probably know that Lexcorp has been sniffing around, eyeing our block for ages. For what, I have no clue, but Mom was the only one who wouldn't sell to him. The house has been in the family for generations. It was sentimental to her." Jodi shrugged. "I mean, I guess you could sell it to him, but odds are, he'll try to sucker you into selling it at a lower price than he was offering Mom." At his appraising look, Jodi added, "I mean, whatever you wanna do is fine with me, I just don't want you to get fucked over; Lex Luthor is an evil corporate bastard."

"Lex Luthor, huh…?" He seemed deep in thought for a moment, his brow furrowed, sucking on the insides of The Scars as he pondered on that. He nodded his head back and forth as if rolling the thoughts around in his skull. "You, ah…you might be closer to the truth than you think with that 'evil bastard' theory, kid… But why warn me?" he laughed darkly. "Thinkin' about asking for a cut of the loot? Wha'd'ya want? A quarter? A third? …Half? Hee-hee-hoo-ha!"

Jodi sneered at his peculiar, obnoxious laughter and shook her head vehemently. "I don't want anything from that bald-headed jerkoff. I just don't want him to cheat anyone else like he did with the rest of the neighborhood…" Her neighborhood. "I'm just saying, if you're gonna sell, get your money's worth and wring the miserly bastard for every last cent. 'S what he deserves."

"Probably not all he deserves…" he growled under his breath murderously, almost too low for Jodi to make out, then looked at her. "Kid, you, ah…you do real-ize…if I sell it, your ass is gonna be out on the Cur-r-rb."

Jodi stared out at the three story rowhouse on the corner listlessly. It had been in Jeanie's family for ages, and she'd loved the place dearly. Jodi herself had lived there with her mom since her great-grandma died when she was five. It was built in 1862 with the typical Gotham architecture in mind, with a Victorian twist, sporting intricate scaffolding around bay windows, and a three-story turret. Jodi's room was at the top of that turret; when she was a little girl, it always used to make her feel like a princess. Though Jodi's favorite part about the place was what she thought of as its most unique feature.

In the middle of the colorless, dark cityscape of Gotham…a townhouse with purple shutters was painted bright green.

"Eh…" She shrugged nonchalantly. "The place is falling apart anyway. With my luck, the roof would cave in over my head one day."

He looked at her, then let out one of those shuddery wheezy laughs again. "Ha-hah! You sure know how to look on the bright side, kid."

"Not a kid," she reminded him with some exasperation, and reached for the hazardous looking doorlatch, having to jimmy it more than a little and slam her shoulder into it to get the damn door open. She looked at her unlikely companion expectantly. "Want a tour of the death trap?"

"Sur-r-re…" he agreed, very enthused. Or not.

But he trailed dutifully behind her like an awkwardly shaped shadow, passed the iron wrought gate and up the front stoop which was framed by classical pillars. The whole neighborhood was in a historic district of Gotham, not far from Burnley. But it bordered the bad side of town, and, like a disease creeping into the rest of the city, the neighborhood had fallen into disrepair. And now with Lexcorp buying up the place left and right, it was like a ghost town… It made Jodi angry in a small, but highly possessive place in her heart that had a hold over this place. But Lex Luthor was a very powerful, very rich man, and she couldn't do diddly squat about the situation.

She knew when she was beat.

She knew when to back down and gracefully accept defeat in the wake of a greater adversary.

"This is the ves-tib-ule," she enunciated the word her mother had always used with a roll of her eyes because she thought it sounded pretentious, gesturing around grandly with a pirouette, her every move exuding sarcasm as she walked through the decaying foyer, flipping the light switch as she went.

A cobwebby, brass chandelier that looked like it could've belonged to the Addams Family at some point in time slowly came to life overhead, illuminating the carved railings of the stairwell winding up to the floors above them. The hall included a coatrack, an empty umbrella holder, and small, round table cluttered with junk mail and hospital bills, and a vase containing a solitary stargazer lily—Jeanie's favorite. Jodi couldn't bring herself to throw it out, even if it had long since wilted. Damask, fleur-de-lis wallpaper lined with intricate, but tarnished crown molding lined the upper half of the walls as Jodi led the way deeper into the house. The dark wood floors were old, warped, and creaked when she walked over them, but softened a bit when she reached the antique, busy patterned rug.

"This is the sitting room." She swept the door open to a much brighter space that could only be described as cozy. Pale light from the setting sun filtered through the gossamer curtains, illuminating the dust motes in the air warmly. There was even a cat curled up snoozing on the cushion in front of the bay window. Next to him was a book lying open on its spine where her mother had left it. Like the flower, Jodi hadn't moved it. She hadn't really moved anything in the house since her mom…she wanted to say 'left,' but that didn't really cover it…

"It's one of the more lived in rooms in the house. Mom used it as a sort of arts and crafts headquarters—sewing and knitting…" Jodi gestured to the storage drawers and a large basket of yarn in the corner. The coffee table was covered with half-finished projects, and the settee was draped with a hand stitched afghan she remembered her mother spending ages on. Jodi loved that blanket; no matter how many times it was washed, the smell of her mother never came out of it. She reminded herself privately to grab it on her way out.

"When did she learn to knit?" she heard her dad ask incredulously.

Jodi shrugged. "I guess she got bored one day. I have more fuzzy hats than I know what to do with now."

And she'd hoard them jealously for the rest of her days.

"Uh…what's this thing?" He'd wandered in and was now holding a lacy shroud up between his thumbs and forefingers, eyeing it puzzledly. It was detailed with daises and petals and interwoven with little silver pearls. With a jolt, Jodi realized it was finished.

"Mom always wanted me to get married one day. Some fancy, bells and whistles white wedding…" She swallowed a little sickly and explained, "It's a veil…"

He dropped it like it was poisonous.

It fell on top of an old, dusty photo album that was open to pictures of another wedding.

They were both smiling at each other in the photos.

Her mom, beautiful and ready to pop.

Her dad, scarless and roguishly handsome.

It was a better time.

Wordlessly, Jodi grabbed Bonkers and left the man in the room full of memories.

She walked through the kitchen and set the black and white feline on the floor after filling up his food bowl muttering, "Fatass cat," under her breath before walking out the kitchen's second door and back out into the foyer. She powered up the steps, passed the library on the second floor, which was currently uninhabitable seeing as half the floor had been ripped up. Paint cans riddled the landing, the carpet covered with an opaque tarp. Her mother had been in the process of restoring the place—a huge project that had been going on for as long as Jodi could remember. As soon as one thing was fixed, another part of the house went to hell.

It was like entropy, she thought—the universe's ever increasing tendency towards discord.

When order is restored in one place, naturally, disorder increases in another.

This was Jodi's perfectly logical excuse as to why her bedroom was never neat.

Why fight the natural order of things?

Disaster was the universe's natural state.

It was just physics.

(It was also the answer as to why the toast always lands butter-side down).

Jodi's room was a mess, but she knew where everything was. In fact, if things were neat, she wasn't sure she'd be able to cope with all the things she'd end up misplacing because of it. Organized chaos, she'd heard it called once. There were band posters and black and green Christmas lights taped to the walls haphazardly. A lamp and an alarm clock made to look like a timer strapped to a bundle of dynamite cluttered a tiny bedside table. The four-poster bedframe, wrapped with pink and black Christmas lights this time, held a queen-sized mattress. The Hello Kitty comforter set was twisted up and unmade from when she'd last slept in it—which had been about two weeks ago. She'd been staying at her best friend Roxy's house with her mom Liddy since the hit and run.

She threw her backpack down on the bed and dumped out its contents indiscriminately. There was the random notebook or two she doodled in when she was in class and should've been taking down notes. If her psychologist got ahold of the thing, he'd probably have her institutionalized…again. Not fun, by the way. She barely even remembered her time at the loony bin because she'd been drugged halfway to hell and back. At least it wasn't Arkham; she'd probably have to kill someone to end up there, and the only person she'd tried to kill was herself. So far, anyway. And the culprit for that unfortunate episode was currently tumbling out of her backpack.

She stared down at the stitched-up jester with a tinge of wary distrust.

Mr. Bo-bo was old.

She'd had him for as long as she could remember.

He used to be a puppet, she thought. But his strings had long since snapped and been lost. He'd weathered years and years of wear and tear and abuse, both accidental and deliberate… Whenever she broke him, she'd be compelled to fix him again. There was a time when Bo-bo had been Jodi's only friend. She used to take him with her everywhere as a kid, and had full, complex conversations with the floppy-limbed clown over tea parties in her room. But as the years went by and Jodi grew older…and the conversations didn't stop…that's when Jeanie began to get worried.

Strange things started happening around the house. Items would get misplaced and Jodi would insist that Bo-bo was the culprit. Things like stolen sweets and tubes of Mommy's lipstick, Jeanie could understand, but kitchen knives? The rat poison under the sink? What did a nine-year-old need with things like that? When pressed, Jodi would confess, 'Bo-bo told me to do it! He made me! He said he'd hurt us if I didn't!'

Jeanie believed her.

And when Jodi started seeing a child's psychologist, her mother briefly discussing her father in hushed tones while she worked tirelessly on a fairy princess puzzle—Bo-bo the clown watching her eerily from a chair placed purposefully across the room—her doctor tentatively diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia and a mild form of autism. He recommended seeing a psychiatrist for meds. He sent them to a well renowned man named Dr. Strange. Jodi remembered him because she thought his name was funny. He'd laughed with her, and said he thought it was funny too. She liked him, because Mommy always told her that strange was good. Strange meant different, special, unique. Normal people wished they could be strange, she'd told Dr. Strange. And he'd agreed with her whole-heartedly and prescribed her some pills. And they worked for a little while. They did. Even if they gave her headaches. Even if they made her a twitchy, nervous wreck who couldn't sit still to save her own life. And then, one day, when she was fourteen, out of the blue, they—just—stopped.

They just stopped working.

And then everything was so much worse.

Things started disappearing in the house again.

Dr. Strange had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Jeanie took Mr. Bo-bo away and gave him to a neighbor kid.

Big mistake.

They found the kid mutilated, chopped up under the Gotham Railway a week later.

Mr. Bo-bo sat in the chair in the corner of Jodi's room like he'd never left.

'I didn't do it, Mom. I swear to God, I didn't,' Jodi had cried hysterically in her arms, hiding her face from the oppressive, glassy eyed stare of the clown in the corner. 'Please,' she'd said, looking up with pure terror in her tear streaked face, 'you have to believe me, I didn't do it.'

Jeanie believed her.

Jeanie didn't try to get rid of Bo-bo again.

Jodi tried doing other things.

She tied Bo-bo up, blindfolded him, and stuck him in her closet.

That worked for a little while.

Until she started hearing loud thumps on her closet door at night.

She tried putting him in a box, and burying him out in the garden.

The next morning, she found him lying next to her in bed, covered in dirt, staring at her.

There was a trail of mud coming from the back door; no footprints.

A psychologist would tell her it was all in her head. A psychologist would say her condition had grown worse, and now she was having blackouts, sleepwalking, not remembering what transpired when she awoke from the trance. A psychologist would theorize that she was projecting suppressed negative thoughts and emotions through a childhood comfort object, now made into the opposite; her own worst nightmare personified. And in some respects, they would be right. Jodi did do that. She did project through Bo-bo, there was no mistake about that. There were delusions, hallucinations, voices that, logically, she knew weren't real. Hell, maybe they would even be right about the sleepwalking—she hadn't disproven it yet.

But then there was the rest that she just couldn't explain.

The rest that, even if she told the therapists, they'd never believe her.

Jeanie believed her.

She was the only one in the world who would.

And so, when Mr. Bo-bo told Jodi to kill her…she said, 'No,'

…and turned the blade on herself.

Jodi almost died that night.

But it would've been worth it.

It was worth it.

She didn't hear Mr. Bo-bo's voice again until almost a year-and-a-half later.

It was right after Jeanie died in the hospital.

"You're staying here," she told the clown very firmly, as she began to stuff the necessities into her emptied backpack. "I'm not taking you with me."

Aw, but, Jo-jo, I thought we were friends, came the sinister voice in her head. I'll be so lonely without you…

"Tough shit. You can stay here and get bulldozed and be Lex Luthor's problem," Jodi muttered back dispassionately, even though she knew talking back to it just made it worse. "I'm sure you'll have a lot in common." She switched on her stereo and cranked the music up high so she didn't have to hear the clown's retort.

The shuffle launched into a quick beat and low gritty base as the angry rifts of Gravity Kills assaulted her eardrums. She felt instant relief and cranked the volume even higher to the point she knew that if she still had neighbors they'd be complaining. The visceral sound shook her bones with the satisfyingly violent rhythm, and she nodded along, dirty-blond locks—still damp and matted from the rain—swinging to the beat as she continued to throw things haphazardly into some boxes she had lying around.

Behind closed doors, your words ring hollow, what you said they'd be…

She mouthed along with the words and they mercifully blotted out whatever else was trying to manifest in her head. She concentrated on them, meditating almost, focused merely on the task at hand and nothing else. Block it out, she told herself. Just block it out. Block it all-l-l-l out. Nothing else, just pack your shit and go. You're free—free as a fucking bird. Just get your shit together, Jodi. Get your shit. Get your shit, leave the clown, and get out.

Oh, but we're going to have so much fun together, miraculously, the voice managed to get through over the noise. Now that the Bitch is finally dead—

Jodi saw red.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" She grabbed the doll by its floppy noodle limbs and flung it into the wall next to the door frame.

But when she lunged forward to visit more punishment upon the (maybe) inanimate object, she froze, staring at the figure at the door as he stared at her peculiarly. Her muscles were stiff and tense as she stood quietly, poised as if stuck in that brief moment where an animal chooses between fight or flight. Her dad was watching her closely in the open doorway, not saying anything, head tilted to the side just so, like a spectator observing a caged beast at the circus. All the while, the angry music continued to beat deafeningly out of the speakers.

Jodi reached over with a tremor riddled hand and slowly switched it off.

Her dad's black eyes flicked around the disaster zone that was her room appraisingly and he asked, "You, uh…hah, plannin' on going somewhere?"

"Kinda thinking on it, yeah…" Jodi answered quickly, her blue eyes darting away from him, to the clown on the floor, and then back.

Black eyes drifted slowly down to where her blue ones kept darting towards and he grinned.

"He-e-ey…I remember this guy!" Jodi watched in horror as he bent down meaning to lift it off the cluttered carpet. "Picked him up at a flea market years ago—"

This bozo again?

"NO!" She exclaimed emphatically as he reached a hand out towards it.

He halted, almost like she startled him for a second. And then he looked around at her with that perturbed expression of his that demanded, 'Speak.'

Jodi swallowed thickly before brusquely marching over and snatching the broken, stitched-up thing out of his reach. "Nobody touches the clown. He doesn't—" she broke off, wondering if it would be wise to finish that sentence, but then thought, 'It's not like it can get any worse. You already look fifty shades of fucked up.' "He doesn't…like being touched," she finished quickly, walking back over to her bed and pulling out a bungee cord from beneath it. She then very methodically went about the process of hogtying the harlequin menace, tying the knots impossibly tightly, not listening to the disgusting tirade the clown let off in her head about bondage, and sexual innuendo with the subtlety of flying butcher knives, and much, much worse things, while she muttered a mantra of, "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up—" under her breath. Then she opened her closet and threw the beast inside, slamming the door shut behind him, and proceeded to start barricading it with heavy objects.

Her dad continued to stare at her until he remarked, "We have wa-a-ay too much in common…"

She sneered at him over her shoulder as she valiantly made an attempt at hauling her dresser over. "Are you going to make stupid-ass comments, or are you going to help me?"

He looked at her for another second, then gave that 'what the hell?' shrug, and stood. He waved her away so he could grab the dresser, and shoved it with surprising strength for a guy of his build over in front of the closet door. Satisfied, she went over to get her nightstand, shoving off its occupants unceremoniously to join the rest of the clutter on the floor. They worked until there was a veritable tower of furniture and junk stacked up against the door, and they were both breathing heavily from exertion.

Jodi wiped at her damp brow and observed their progress dully. "That should hold him for a couple of days…probably." Maybe.

There was a thump from behind the door.

Or maybe not.

"…What was tha-t?" her dad asked bleakly.

Jodi turned to stare at him slowly, and—remembering with some resentment what he'd told her about the noise in his trunk—she very deliberately lied in the most damningly innocent voice she could muster, "…Nothing."

There was another thump from the closet. Louder this time.

Jodi didn't blink…although her eyes were a little too wide, a little too manic and frenzied, to be completely composed.

Or sane, for that matter.

THUMP.

He looked back at the door.

"Huh…" He stared some more. "That's interesting."

Jodi thought he sounded like Jack-Fucking-Sparrow.