Hey guys! So, my father wrote this story, and he's an absolutely brilliant writer who understands the character of the Joker incredibly well. So I wanted to post this and I think you'll all really enjoy it. Thanks for reading and hope you love it as much as I do. Reviews, of course, are always welcome.
The Dreams of the Dead
Since you've taken an interest in my predicament I'm going to give it to you straight.
Before ending up on the Joker's radar, I'd worked for a Virginia based CIA offshoot named ABRAXIS. It was an easy enough gig; I spent my days hacking terrorist cells online, gathering up e-evidence where I could find it and turning it over to the higher-ups. Like anybody I answered to a couple bosses, one of whom I thought of as a slacker with bad instincts, but that was the worst of it. The truth is this. I considered myself lucky for a guy that hadn't exactly killed them while studying computer science at M.I.T. And I'd been let go from a couple jobs before ABRAXIS, so landing six figures while on my way down and pushing forty was a bit of a windfall. ABRAXIS was the turn around point for me. I'd recently managed the down on a sweet little condominium, located just off Capital Hill on Duddington. Hell, I was set to get the hair plugs I've needed since I'd turned thirty.
But, today marks my eighteenth month in the witness protection program, and the fourth time I'll be moved to a different location. They transport me at night because it's supposed to be safer that way. The personal belonging I'll take amount to a couple stuffed suit cases. I just hope it all goes off without a hitch like the first three times. The phone should ring at 1:45 a.m... About five minutes later I'll expect a knock at the door. I'll look through the peephole to check that it's the guys I recognize. Even then I'll ask to be shown a correct sequence of numbers before I'll budge. If everything's cool, I'll step to the stoop and walk quickly with them to a waiting panel van. The whole harrowing experience shouldn't take more than a few seconds. I know this because I've pulled the window shade open just enough to calculate the distance from the stoop to the curb and then I practiced the walk while carrying empty suitcases. I'll be sweating the whole way, of course. The federal boys will do their best to keep me alive; I just doubt I'll be around to see my next birthday is all. Fear is a nauseating thing. Spend enough time under its dark mysticism and you'll understand the type of injury it causes one's mind. When I look in the mirror these days I see a face that's weirdly the same but somehow diminished. You see, I don't breath right lately. I tremble and, if you'll allow me a moment's digression, I want you to know that I hate myself for this particular weakness. I guess that's the way it goes when you've become his mark.
How did I get here? Well, I'm getting to that. For now, let's just say I got over ambitious. Strange, you know, how very dangerous misguided ambition can be. It's so strange that I now experience uncontrollable urges to laugh aloud at my own recklessness and stupidity. Be that as it is, there was a time when I was better off for having laughed aloud. My laughter had been a sort of tonic that made my troubles smaller. I only mention this because it's all escaped me; there's nothing funny on any side of me, yet I laugh very strangely. Some men will say that laughter is good for the soul. I wonder about this particular bit of wisdom because I've learned how very off kilter it can become. Most people are at least in some way familiar with the sort of laughter I mean. If you doubt this then test it for yourself! Pick any of our good cities and stroll its downtrodden area. Walk casually is you like; there's no rush. Take note of the wheezing structures that tower over your head, the worn curb stones and the pigeons at your feet. If you feel suddenly discouraged, it might be that you've noticed a creature that galls you to the quick. He's nobody in particular, only that composite degenerate you've seen stumble from a hundred filthy allies. Perhaps he's no more than an animal, the approximation of what you'd call an actual man, with his broken spirit and the rags fluttering about his elbows. But you're relieved when that little prayer of yours seems to work; when he grips the bottle of poison he's hidden in a brown bag and veers off in an opposite direction as if he's walking on egg shells. But then a startling shriek fills your ears, the mark of his debauchery. For want of a better description you might call it laughter. I mean that ferocious sound that pours from his mouth and into the street with a singular and morbid disregard for everything you've ever valued. When you've familiarized yourself with that laugh, you'll understand something more of the Joker's soul.
Well, enough about that. I've despised the Joker since puberty, just about the same time I realized that my old man had tried his best but was a loser anyway, and that my mother liked to get tipsy and involved with anyone interested enough to drop a double scotch on the bar in front of her. The Joker doesn't drink, you see, and for as long as I can remember he's skipped clean away from any consequences for his crimes. That's what riles me! He profits by breaking the rules that everyone else has to abide by and it burns my backside. Hey, I'm no angel myself and God knows I've never been married to the rule book. The truth is I never cared much for rules. I never cared what other people said or thought about the Joker. I certainly never cared about the law's inability in bringing him to justice, or holding him in that abysmal facility they call Arkham Asylum. And since I'm on the subject of not caring, I might as well tell you that I've never cared a rat's ass about the Bat or commissioner Gordon and their preoccupation in fighting the good fight against crime. So what's my point? Let me put it to you this way, the Joker has everything his way and I don't. I wasn't even able to land a date for senior prom for Christ's sake! But the Joker has the alluring goddess, Harley, on his arm. She'd been a doctor and he turned her into a Joker sycophant like pimps turn out the lost girls found wandering in train stations. Do you see? I loathe the ground the Joker prances over.
Call it jealousy if you want, I'll admit to it. After all isn't that the dirty little secret in most men's lives. And yes, I wished that bad things would happen to the Joker but it wasn't personal until it got personal!
I'll start by saying that no man can know the truth behind every event that catches him blindside in life; and I suppose there's wisdom in some men's belief that fate is a tangible monster that rules our lives from the moment we're conceived. But I've never been the sort you'd think to ask about the finer points of existence. I will say this, though; rage is all I felt when I received news that my nephew Walter had been killed in a train derailment. You see, the kid looked up to me. He always ran to me like I was a special guy when I came through the door and, frankly, I haven't gotten a lot of that in my life. Dogs don't even take a shine to me, and this is to say nothing of other people. But, Walter, now he was a different story with his big, toothy grin and the excitement and patience he showed while I mashed the controller buttons on his newest gaming system. He treated me like his buddy is what I'm trying to say, and the night I learned of his passing I ended up drunk in a waterfront bar where I got punched around by a couple of swabs who decided they didn't like my face. I blacked out the drive home, and when I came too the next morning, all busted up, I'd reached the bottom. All that morning I lay there, scotch laden nausea in the pit of my stomach and my mind revolving in the same orbit, Walter is gone, funeral in two days…. He'd never grow up and I'd never get the chance to show the gratitude I felt I owed him. They gave me bereavement days off, naturally. Well, I spent the days walking the streets because the air in my new condo had gone bad with the odor of a decaying mouse that in my anguish I couldn't help but associate with Walter. The daylight seemed unfair and immense as if the sky had expanded to some critical degree and the sun, like a cold marble, would explode and fall around me in sparkling shards. And then there was the appallingly stupid face of a man framed in a windshield, the searing blare of a horn, the smearing of blistered tires on stinking hot asphalt. I'd stepped mindlessly into oncoming traffic without a care. Well, that poor sonovabitch behind the wheel had been more frightened than I.
When I got back on the job, I learned from a guy in the next cubicle that the derailment that killed my nephew was being treated as an act of terrorism. That meant the national security boys would be involved. It also meant that ABRAXIS would come in and start up a full scale investigation. Interviews with the usual suspects could start and our agents would hit the streets like pissed off bees. It pleased me no end to imagine how the bastards responsible for Walter's death would burn when we caught up to them. And it didn't take long for the rats to start spilling their guts. Within a week one of our better agents, a kid they call Super Boy, was jamming his nine millimeter against the skull of Terrence Teff , a.k.a. Slug-bait, a psycho with a penchant for torturing small animals, as he attempted to ravage a prostitute underneath the West end docks. I've always relished a good interrogation and, as the elevator settled on the basement floor; I walked the maze of hallways to room number X-17. I knew Super Boy would be handling the opening ceremonies and I could count on him being a hard case. I walked into the screening room, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness, peering through the double mirror. But, nothing prepares you for seeing a guy like Slug-bait for the first time. The lurid eyes, the congealing snot and blood in his beard are all I seemed able to focus on. I thought to myself, Super Boy must have worked him over pretty good, but it must smell bad in there, real bad. Super Boy was across from him at the table, cool as you want, and I thought, that kid's got some set on him. What happened next floored me! A side door opened and the Bat walked into the interrogation chamber. The actual Bat in person! I mean, who looks like that? The incredible power, the panther-like movement, I hadn't understood until that moment. My feet took a few instinctive steps back from the mirror and my body followed. Super Boy tapped the microphone on a recorder and then leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. Slug-bait twisted his head around and I saw an egg on his head where the barrel of Super Boy's piece had impacted.
"Ya like the way we got the place set up, Slug-bait, I did all the decorating myself?" Asked Super Boy.
He stood up and walked behind Slug-bait.
"What do you think for this wall, pinstripes, maybe?"
"You get nothin' out of me, flatfoot," whispered Slug-bait.
"Well," chuckled Super Boy. "Nothing is a relative term. Maybe I should just turn you over to this guy." He said, motioning his head toward Batman.
"You keep him back!" Screamed, Slug-bait.
"Hey-hey, calm down a minute. We're all buddies here, remember? The only difference between you and us is that you're gonna burn in the chair and we're not."
"You keep him back!"
"Ok-ok, let's just say for argument's sake that the Batman doesn't cut loose on you right now. You gonna tell me what I want to know?"
"You're gonna die, you're gonna die! When he comes you're gonna die dead. You get it, flatfoot? I ain't sayin' another word, 'cept when he comes you're gonna' die bloody!"
"You're lookin' a little bloody yourself, Slug-bait. Who is he, not the Joker is it?"
"Yes-yes, it's him that's commin." You're gonna die dead. All dead with your stinkin' flatfoot guts hanging out! Joker's commin' Joker's commin'. Just wait, guts hanging out! You should have given the statue like he wanted. But you disappointed Joker an' I got to do the train. And now guts is gonna hang out!"
So now it all became clear to me. Something less than two months before, the Joker had made headlines by absurdly donating a fleet of broken tricycles to a home for wayward boys in Hartford, Connecticut, and then demanded that a Joker statue of no less than fifteen feet be erected in Keney Park for the purpose of honoring his good deeds. When the Mayor refused, the Joker swore revenge in the form of a railway collision.
And this is where I lost it. The Joker was responsible for Walter's death and I wanted revenge! Oh, but it wasn't as if I hadn't already suspected his involvement; derailments fit his modus operandi perfectly. But hearing it from the lips of one of his henchmen drove me to the edge of insanity! Although, with this much said I should tell you that I've always been aware of my limitations. Experience has taught me that I've never been up to the bigger challenges in life, and I've wondered constantly at the meaning of being ones own worst enemy. Certainly, and for whatever reason, I've always been that guy who convinces himself of the uselessness of some object, and then tosses it out only to discover a need for the thing a week later, the guy who puts an event into motion without taking the time to predict a probable outcome. I've made a habit of working the system, of looking for the quick fix, of making excuses. I've refused to take responsibility for my own actions in the past; I am compelled to speak out of turn, and entertained the notion that I've somehow been cheated out of entitlements. I've let laziness control my approach to life, avoided competition for fear of being labeled as second best. And perhaps worst of all, I am ungenerous. Yet, I chose to challenge, to seek revenge against the most notorious criminal mind in recent history. As a matter of fact, I'd already used a week of company hours in conducting my own investigation on the side and had flushed out an anonymous tip.
A reverse trace on the tip had led to a magic shop in East Hartford with a reputation for selling tasteless gags, loaded dice and literature on how to get even with whoever your mark might be. One of the items offered there is a bumper sticker with the statement, "I Brake for Jayne Mansfield's Head" if that means anything to you. Seems the place was a corporate concern, so I had a quick look at the articles. The single corporate officer was a guy named Aaron Shins. Turns out there's a couple hundred of them scattered around the U.S., about a dozen in the New England area, but only one that's been a patient at Arkham Asylum for the past forty years. It was time for me to arrange an interview with Mr. Shins.
Well, I got my interview date. That much was good, although a day trip to Arkham has never been on my leisure list and you can forget about me ever being caught there at night. I've got my reasons. Do I need to explain myself? OK, by way of a short sub-text I'll tell you this. I'd gotten drunk once with a stranger from one of the bars and suddenly I found myself listening to his story. Seems he'd been witness to his brother's death in Alaska. They'd been surprised by a brown bear. The first man had reached the safety of a tree but the brother hadn't been so lucky, pulled down from behind while reaching for the lower branches. I won't forget the way my inebriated friend curled up inside, recalling his brother's screams, the grunts of the beast as it sunk its claws into the rib cage and scrapped entrails into plain view with a single movement. I guess some things are difficult to describe and that goes double for Arkham.
I arrived there on a chill November morning where a sort of security zombie, wearing a captain's hat with gold roping above the visor, and possessing the morose eyes of a stroke victim, handed me a visitor's pass, swung open the gate and motioned me in the direction of an empty parking lot. The shifting breeze pushed oak leaves back and forth along the ground and caused my eyes to tear as I stepped from my car. Could this be the flagship institution that'd been erected some one hundred years earlier? I wondered. Its bricks and decrepitude rose up hugely against the overcast sky. I noticed a cemetery with no gates on the south end of the grounds, a silent garden of the mad I suppose. The charge nurse shot her head up as I entered the main reception area, very wide eyed as if a gong had gone off suddenly behind her head. When she'd recovered sufficiently I stated the reason for my visit and took a seat, waiting on an orderly that would be sent up shortly. It seemed a very long while indeed and I spent the time amusing myself that I was in close proximity to some of the craziest bastards of the modern era. I mean, we're not talking about garden variety neurotics here! This place housed the Scarecrow and Two-face at the same time for cryin' out loud! And it even had the Alligator, or was it called the Crocodile? I couldn't remember which. Haha! I couldn't have given a damn less, though; and that's the truth because trash like that just needs a deeper hole and a bigger lock to my way of thinking, although I wouldn't mind giving Harley a little pat on the backside for good measure. But she's the Joker's bitch! Christ on a rubber crutch was I going nuts, too? I needed to get a grip on myself so I scrolled through my cell phone until the orderly showed up. He smiled at me and it was all fake except for the rotten teeth. I couldn't help but wonder if he was part of a ring which had been tagged for setting up fist fights between patients whose grip on any semblance of reality had long since flow the coup. The dirty sonovabitch certainly looked the part. He led me back out the main entry, around a corner, and then through a side door which led to a stairwell that descended to a series of platforms, always turning at right angles. I made a note of this, but halfway down I gripped the handrail and shot a glance backward; I'd already lost my bearings. Eventually, we reached some sort of ground level with a reinforced metal door that he slammed over and over with the palm of his hand until finally the bolt was thrown from the opposite side and the door swung inward. The orderly stepped forward into a very long tunnel that was dimly lit and split into a T at the end. This was too much. I demanded to know where we were headed.
"Ya' want the hospital ward, eh?
"And this leads to the hospital ward?" I asked.
"Yeah, this leads to the hospital ward." He answered, sarcastically, showing the teeth again.
I gave him the go ahead motion with an upward tilt of my head and followed him past the other orderly who stood there grinning foolishly while he held the door.
Now bear with me for a moment. There is a place in my mind where I've heard rat's paws scampering over concrete rubble and a stale breeze with its message of human degradation floating through darkened tunnels. Upon entering the hospital ward I was drawn into a dream I'd suffered not two days before. All the rancid details came crashing back with a vengeance! I am strapped to a gurney, rolling over terrazzo tile toward a malevolent face that peers at me, half hidden from around a corner. The gurney's speed increases; I am careening headlong into insanity! An unseen hand is pressing my chest; I cannot breath and the woeful message of madness has taken root in my mind. The gurney tips as I round the corner. Another corridor and at its end a door is ajar. I am crashing through it into yet another corridor. The face reappears at its corner. Joker! Joker! Joker! The gurney rolls to a stop and the light fades. I am falling forever, enveloped in darkness so impossibly black it seems to implode upon itself.
But this is only a dream and the hospital ward is only a sickening place. I come out of my reverie and follow the orderly to where I am let into a room. The orderly clears his throat and stands very stiffly to let me know he'll not enter. Aaron Shins lies in his bed at the back wall. His eyes are submerged in cataracts, sores cover his arms. I won't describe the odor. He grabs my jacket suddenly and attempts to pull me toward him. "Joker!" he gasps. His withered arm is demonically strong and I am forced to pull back and pry his fingers off. He turns his head over with drool and gibberish pouring out. I back away, knowing I'll learn nothing from this derelict. I've seen enough! I am finished with all of it!
Well, the orderly led me out and for the first time I appreciated the ape. Rain had arrived so I put my collar up and push past the door into daylight. I walked quickly, as quickly as I could down the sidewalk and upon turning a corner I spotted a figure, wearing a rain slicker as he crouched near the front driver's side tire of my car. He held what appeared to be a lug wrench. Have I mentioned that I've got a short fuse? Well, I yelled to him and when he didn't respond and started popping the hub cap off I flew toward him. It was the security guard, alright; I recognized him by the ridiculous captain's hat.
"What the hell is going on here?" I demanded.
The lug wrench clattered against the pavement and he rose up suddenly turning toward me. For the smallest fraction of a second I saw the flash of his eyes, and then a white-gloved backhand slammed across my face with such violence that lightning exploded in my head and it seemed the ground had rushed up to meet my collapsing body. I tried curling into a defensive posture but blacked out. I came too momentarily, feeling the pieces of broken bridgework in my mouth, the sensation of being dragged across the ground. I tasted the metallic flavor of the blood swamping mouth, but I was blind from the shorted out circuitry in my skull and I blacked out again! When I came too my eyes gradually focused on a figure leaning over me, leering at me from his cross-legged perch atop a tombstone. I thrust my head to the side, blinking violently to clear this insanity away, but when I turned back the image before me was clearer still. The large, greenish orbs were luminescent steel, unblinking as if ever-focused and imbued with the light of a blast-furnace. The nose was long and refined with thin, flaring nostrils and an ability to remain motionless while the rest of his exceedingly thin face assumed a level of animation not unlike the bidirectional and flawless movements of sea life. His complexion was inhumanly white with a tinge of blue. But the mouth! The compressed lips pulled straight back over his partially open jaw, exposing a dual row of piano key teeth, and then dropping at the corners into a tragic frown. A black rose decorated the lapel of his lavender suit. He was magnificent. He tilted his head as if listening intently to something from an impossible distance, and then spoke to me in a low whisper.
"Have ever you once considered the dreams of the dead?" He asked me. "I've wondered, are they so much unlike our own that, as our result, we fail to see mankind's fatal flaw?"
"I don't know what you mean." I stammered, with blood trickling from a corner of my mouth.
He tossed his head back, throwing his hands up and laughing hysterically. Then leveling his searchlight-eyes on me once again he asked.
"Do you not know me then, little man?"
My eyes were swollen and awash with tears. I shook my head painfully back and forth.
"No…no, I don't know what you are." I said.
"Then know this!" Roared the Joker.
His voice shifted, lowering itself and changing pitch to something horribly recognizable.
"Yes-yes, it's him that's commin." He said, "You're gonna die dead. All dead with your stinkin' flatfoot guts hanging out! Joker's commin' Joker's commin'. Just wait, guts hanging out! You should have given the statue like he wanted. But you disappointed Joker an' I got to do the train. And now guts is gonna hang out!"
My heart stopped and I stared at him in astonishment. I knew in that very moment the extent to which I'd been duped and that Super Boy no longer existed in this world. I shifted my eyes away and waited for the end.
"You…you are a demon!" is all I could manage.
"And you are a dreamer, sir," he said. "Only heed this, it is not yours today to realize the dreams of the dead."
And then he was gone.
On the day of my visit to Arkham, it seems a bomb had exploded on level three of the ABRAXIS compound, killing eleven and allowing the Joker's escape. But Super Boy had been poisoned. For my own part, I was found by the orderly. Back in Gotham, they wired my jaw back together and let me lay in a hospital bed for two weeks. I was released into protective custody. Perhaps I'll never trust my eyes again. Anyway, that's my story. The phone should ring at any moment now. I'll answer and then check the peephole to make sure it's guys I recognize.