It had started out like any other day in the brief memories of childhood that Robert Hawkins had left,but at the same time it had been the day that would forever change his life and had shaped the man he would become for better or worse it was his destiny.
As Robert sat on the park bench watching passersby carrying shopping bags and busily going about their business in Gotham city he occasionally twitched his head uncontrollably to one side as he reminisced back in time to that fateful day.
He had once been a normal eight year old boy with shiny light brown hair and innocent bright blue eyes,he had remembered having a neverending supply of energy and had wanted to learn everything about anything,his mind had been an efficient machine able to process complex information that he had no hope of understanding as he was now.
The boy had asked so many questions that his weary mother simply couldnt keep up with him,he then thought about her,though he could barely remember how she even looked,Miss Hawkins had accidently fallen pregnant with her only child when she had been young and upon informing her boyfriend at the time that she was indeed expecting his child Roberts father had promply skipped town before his sons birth never to be seen again in Gotham.
His mother had struggled as a single parent and working as a waitress in a cheap rundown motel in the narrows but had still managed to raise her son to the best of her ability in the hopes that he would one day make a rich life for himself perhaps as a lawyer or business man and get a high rise apartment like where that millionaire bruce wayne currently resided when he wasnt hidden away in his family mansion or travelling the world on his private cruise ships.
Robert could remember his mother waking him up early on the last day they would be together with an excited expression on her face,it had been his birthday and his mother had announced that she had bought two tickets to the circus,Robert had leaped out of bed right away with great anticipation and started dashing downstairs towards the front door in his pyjamas before being called back upstairs again as his mother demanded that he get dressed first.A few minutes later Robert had finally managed to race outside the front door followed by his mother who walked over to the drivers side of the car unlocking it and climbing inside as her son leaped into the passengers seat,remembering to put on their seatbelts as his mother switched on the radio.
The next thing he could remember was breathing in the scent of his mothers favourite perfume and singing along with her to the tunes on the radio as their car continued up the highway,some twenty minutes into their journey Robert was having a laughing fit about a joke that he and his mother had just shared when a large truck on the other side of the road lost control and went careering straight into their path head on,there was barely anytime to react as roberts mother desperately slammed on the car brakes,the vehicle skidded sideways and the last memory Robert had was of his mothers screams as the truck went smashing into the drivers side of the car,then everything had turned to darkness.
The next thing Robert could remember was waking up in a hospital bed two weeks later with his world turned completely upside down,his mother was dead and so was the son she had known,the boy had suffered a severe brain injury from the accident that would destroy any hopes he might have had of a normal life.
Robert was now eighteen years old and had been passed around many different childrens homes throughout his troubled youth,adults simply didnt understand his strange ways and the other children in care would bully and torment him,he had never known what it was like to have a real friend and he assumed he never would,he had seen many couples visiting the childrens home over the years but he had always been overlooked,no one wanted a mentally challenged child to raise when there were so many healthy and more desirable orphans in Gotham city to choose from, he had reached his eighteenth birthday and then Robert had been unceremoniously kicked out of state care and left to fend for himself along with the rest of the cities underclass garbage,the authorities had seen fit to allocate him a small dingy flat along with a councillor whom he was suppost to report to once a month to check up on his progress but he hadnt gone to an appointment in months,not that any careworker or state official ever bothered to follow up and make any checks on his progress,the state of Gotham was already far to overstretched with other more important workloads to care and so Roberts case had simply fallen through the net like so many others.
The young man continued to sit on his usual park bench where he had made a habit of coming everyday for the last few months at midday in a strange routine that helped him feel normal in his own mind,he would sit there in rain or shine for exactly two hours each day mumbling crazy sentences to himself and twitching his head occasionally to one side which was just one permanent effect of his brain injury that he would always have to live with for the rest of his life,another effect of his injury was his inability to care for himself efficiently,somedays he would eat snacks and others he would be so immersed in his own fantasy world that he would completely forget about meal times and go without food for days at a time which caused him to be severely malnourished and boney in appearance,he also had no coordination when it came to clothes and would on most days wear strange clashing tops and bottoms that only made sense to him,most of his clothes lay strewn around on the floor of his grungy flat and had never seen a washing machine since the day he had bought them,Robert would sift through the mountain of clothes each morning to decide what to wear,today he had chosen to put on some stripey multicoloured boxer shorts along with a bright blue top with a picture of a cat on the front which looked suspiciously like it came from the womens section of the clothes store.
The disturbed young man rocked slowly backwards and forwards on the bench in deep thought as he watched some pigeons at his feet pecking at crumbs people had thrown down for them,it was then that a young boy of around six years old walked right past the bench with a strawberry ice cream in his small hand,the childs mother called out his name and he ran of towards her accidently dropping his frozen treat in the process,Robert immediately stood up in facination at the slowly melting pink blob on the pavement,he began inching closer towards it unable to focus on anything else at that moment in time,it was as though he was the last human on earth and there was no one left alive to have to attempt to maintain any form of normal behavior for,he slowly kneeled down on all fours like an animal stalking its prey,he then cautiously stuck out his tongue and began licking the ice cream of the pavement to his hearts content.
After a few minutes of licking up the melting blob on the ground he became aware of a dark shadow hovering over him,he slowly tilted his head to gaze up into the eyes of the stranger,Robert immediately noted his long bright purple overcoat,unkempt green dyed hair that fell to his shoulders and greasy full face paint with two deep ugly scars on either side of his mouth that where covered in red paint which gave him a permanent creepy smile,as the young man observed him the Joker would occasionally lick his scars with his tongue and chew on the insides of his cheeks as he himself regarded the teenager with interest raising one eyebrow at the ice cream dripping down the young mans chin,the Jokers mouth then curved in a half smirk as the teenager quickly scrambled back onto his feet before cocking his head to one side and shyly glancing at the notorious clown prince of crime unsure how to behave in this odd situation,the older man then stepped forwards raising his purple gloved hands infront of himself in a gesture.
"Oh i Uh didnt mean to Huh disturb you,please feel free to continue with Huh well nevermind about that Huh listen,i was just passing by the park and i couldnt help but notice that your quite a unique young man arent you? kind of different and i mean that in a good way..."
The Joker waved his hands infront of himself as he continued his speech.
"Anyway i think that you are just the kind of guy im looking for,you have some real Huh potential,believe me,i can tell,might i ask what is your name?"
The young man sideways glanced at the eccentric clown infront of him before gazing down at his own feet like a child and slowly extending his right hand towards the Joker in his own weird version of a handshake gesture.
"Umm my name is Robert HHHawkins,i like ice cream,i like your coat too,its so bright and flashy,i like bright colours,its fun looking at them OOOooo EEeee..."
For a moment the joker seemed surprised as the twitchy young man offered him his hand in greeting when most people whether they where crazy or not would have run in the opposite direction after meerly glimpsing him nearby,the clown prince of crime slowly extended his own gloved hand taking the teenagers extended palm in a firm grip and giving it a good shake before letting go.
"Well its Huh nice to meet you Robert,Im going to call you Bob"
The joker turned away from Bob for a moment faking to hide a blush at the boys compliments regarding his outfit,he waved one purple finger in the young mans face dramatically.
"Now Huh now Bob stop trying to butter me up ah ah he he oh you know what though,you have Huh quite the fashion sense yourself,of course it could use one or two little tweaks here and there but we can work on that later,i would like to offer you a job,what do you say? A job for Bob? oh he oh ah eeh"
Before he could respond the Joker leaped forwards and wrapped his arm firmly around the young mans shoulder in anticipation and started skipping away with his newest toy towards the park exit as Bob was simply forced to go along with him with an expression on his face that was a cross between excitement and confusion.