The Ballad of Harley Quinn

Part 2

--

"What's the first thing you can remember?" I asked Mr. J.

"I can remember…what I had for breakfast this morning. Does that help?"

"You know it doesn't. Now me, I can remember being in my crib. I can remember being given a stethoscope for my second birthday."

"A stethoscope? Really?"

"Yeah, well, doctor for a mother, lawyer for a father—what are ya going to do? I was lucky it wasn't a copy of the Law Review." I winked.

Mr. J. laughed.

I smiled. It was all going according to plan.

Our initial session hadn't started out well, but the Joker and I soon found a common footing.

I'd ask questions, he'd dance around them, I'd try a different approach, he'd respond with different questions. Thrust, parry, thrust, parry. It was kind of fun. And more importantly Joker began dribbling out just enough tidbits that Dr. Bates was happy.

Yours truly was now Joker's official therapist. Twice a week, although I would soon be lobbying to make it three.

I was happy. God, was I happy.

--

Contrary to what you may have read in those gossip rags, Mr. J and I were not going at it like crazed weasels every time we met in a therapy session.

I wasn't after sex. As much as I love Mr. J now, such a possibility hadn't even occurred to me at that point.

But Harley, didn't you know? They'll ask. You know, know?

Look, if someone told you that you were about to fall head over heels in love with a psychotic clown, would you believe them?

Didn't think so.

And I mean, security is lax in Arkham, but do you know how many cameras there are in that place? I have a cute little tush, if I do say so myself, but no way would I have been caught on film, under fluorescent lights, in flagrante delicto, with anybody.Yipes.

It was all quite chaste. Just talking. Joker loved to talk.

"What did you think of my little ferry lark last year?" He asked me one day, after we'd been working together for a few months.

I wrote the word "ego" on my pad and drew little squiggles around it.

"I think it must have taken an awful lot of work and planning on your part," I answered honestly.

I had been in town at the time, but unlike most Gothamites I had known enough to take a madman at his word. I had proceeded down to my local bar and gotten so hammered that by the time I had sobered up the whole mess had been over.

"It did, Harley, it did," Joker continued. "Most people don't appreciate that." He stood up and started pacing, gesturing with his manacled hands. "Batman certainly didn't."

I added "Batman" to the pad, and drew a little bat shape around it.

This was a topic Joker frequently returned to in our sessions. The Batman had thwarted him. That's the only thing I had been able to discover that really bothered Joker about his last spree. Not the dead. Not emotional and psychological damage to the city.

Just Batman. Joker couldn't get over it.

"Never mind the Batman. What made you come up with such a scheme?"

He gave me a sly smile, the same one he always used when he didn't want to reveal any more. "Just a joke, Doctor. Just a joke."

I set down my pencil. "But one that didn't work."

"I know that!" He snarled. Rage blew through him like a sudden storm. He seemed taller, darker, and all of a sudden the room seemed far too small for the two of us.

It was in these moments I glimpsed the Joker the rest of Gotham City knew.

This time, however, his rage was short-lived. Abruptly his shoulders slumped, and his head bowed so that hair fell across his face.

"It should have worked."

It was taking a risk, but I spoke up anyway.

"It didn't work because there were too many variables," I told him.

He looked at me with that puzzled, tilted-head expression he often used. I think he had momentarily forgotten I was in the room.

"Excuse me?"

"You were saying, rhetorically, I think, that your plan to blow up those ferries in Gotham harbor should have worked. I gave you an answer. There were too many people involved, and thus too many variables. For all you know most people on those ships really did want to blow each other up, but one good person on each boat made the decisions for them. I don't think you can feel responsible for that."

It was an odd and rather nonsensical answer, but it seemed to console him.

"You're right, Harley. I never looked at it quite that way. Two good eggs, one in each basket, spoiled a perfectly rotten omelet."

"Glad I could help. That is what I'm here for, after all." I resumed writing. I had already filled boxes with my notes. No one else had seen them yet, not even Dr. Bates. They were for my eyes only.

Joker abruptly changed emotional gears again, this time to his more manic but charming state. He sat down in the chair opposite me and leaned forward.

"Did you get the flowers?"

My pencil froze in mid-sentence. A cluster of flowers in a red vase had turned up in my office a few days before. No card. At the time I had assumed they must have been wrongly delivered.

"That was you?"

He tilted his head back and smiled.

Of course, deep down I suppose I knew that it had to have been him. I wasn't sure what to think. Or was I?

"I think Dr. Bates would be interested to know you've got someone running errands for you outside of the asylum, Joker. Is it the same person who keeps you in clean jumpsuits?"

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in that odd way he had.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, Harl."

"Why?" I asked, quite honestly.

"Why not? I'm a nice guy." His brow furrowed. "At least, I think I am. Or was. Anyway, you said you liked roses, remember?"

"Actually, I don't."

"Ah, Harley." He smiled engagingly. "I remember everything you ever told me."

I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that.

"I think we've talked enough for today."

Quick as a serpent he slid forward. He grabbed my wrists in his hands, pinning them to the table.

I now knew enough not to try to outmatch him in physical strength, so I didn't try to pull away. I knew I would be bruised the next day.

"Let go of me, please," I told him calmly.

But he continued with his previous train of thought.

"See, here's the thing," he told me, his voice slipping into a low, almost husky growl. "I know you. From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew everything there is to know about you. Now, most women, they don't want much out of life. A husband, a couple of squalling kids, maybe a dog, that's about it. But not you. You've got bigger ambitions, am I right?"

I'd dealt with difficult patients before. It comes with the territory in my line of work. Once, I was bitten by a suicidal candy salesman. Another time a psychotic was only able to answer my questions by barking like a dog. Joker himself had tried to kill me at our first meeting.

But this was getting out of control. It was turning into an interrogation, and I didn't like it one bit. I squirmed in my chair.

"But the thing is, Harl, the thing is, I don't think you know what it is you really want. I mean, what you want deep down, in your heart of hearts, at night when it's dark and nobody else is around to hear or see you."

I had had enough.

"Guards!" I yelled over my shoulder.

"In fact, I think deep down you have no idea who you really are, do you?" Joker asked as the security guards slammed the door open.

He didn't let go of my wrists, even when the officers grabbed him by the arms and yanked him backwards. I still had to pull hard to get free.

"Who are you, Harley Quinn?" He asked me, his voice rising as he was wrestled to the ground. "Who are you, really?"

I fled.

--

The next day I cancelled my morning appointments. Instead I passed the time brooding in an armchair in Arkham's staff lounge.

I suppose I could have stayed home to brood, but to be honest I suddenly didn't care much for my tastefully decorated condo. I had gone home the night before and put ice on my wrists to minimize the bruises left by Joker's long fingers. My sleep had been troubled, full of dreams I couldn't quite remember when I woke up.

I didn't really care about my bruised wrists, anyway. It was the bruises on my pride that hurt more. All those years of training, emphasizing self-examination and the power of the mind, and I had let the Joker get under my skin. The Joker, of all people. And I couldn't figure out why.

Arkham's other doctors were gathered around the table, drinking the sludge that passed for coffee at the asylum. The running joke was that we all hoped our next intake would be a deranged barista.

"So, Quinzel, nailed down a diagnosis on the Joker, yet?" Dr. Nguyen asked me. "My vote is still for paranoid schizophrenic."

"Nah. I'm telling you, he's disassociative, like Dent," Dr. Lipinsky added.

"Sociopathic," an intern chimed in.

"How about all of the above?" This last from Dr. Malone, who had recently returned to work with a patch over his right eye. He only worked the upper floors of the asylum now.

They were all looking at me expectantly.

I scrunched down lower in my chair. "I haven't decided yet."

"How about his 'how-I-got-my-scars' stories? You got a favorite one of those yet?" The intern asked me.

I felt a bit surer answering this one. "I believe there is probably some truth in all of them. But I'm leaning towards the one about his father. First of all, because that's the one he tells me most frequently, and yet it changes the least between tellings. And, second, because severe childhood trauma would do a great deal to explain why he clings to the Joker persona."

After all, even a normal childhood could leave scars. Look at my own. I had been given everything I ever wanted. And I'd still become a textbook overachiever to get (and keep) my parents attention. I had been a bit of a third wheel attached to that happy pair. They'd been so enamored of each other they'd fused their two names to make mine. Harlan and Aileen. Harleen. Ugh. They'd even gone so far as to die within a year of each other when I was still in college.

"You'd better come up with a classification quick, Harleen, before Bates rotates you onto another case," Nguyen told me, snapping me back to the present.

I sat up straight.

"He wouldn't do that. The Joker and I are…making progress."

Dr. Justi, who until now had been silent, snorted derisively. "Sure you are."

The other doctors exchanged smirks.

I was honestly flabbergasted at the hostility suddenly oozing from them.

"What does that mean?"

Dr. Malone cleared his throat. "I think I'd better get to my rounds."

Dr. Nguyen stood up hastily. "Me, too."

The two fled the room, the pimply-faced intern hot on their heels.

I narrowed my eyes.

"I'd like you to explain you previous comment, Dr. Justi. The one about me and the Joker."

I was genuinely hurt. I had never said an unkind word to this woman; in fact, I doubt I had said more than two words to her my entire time at Arkham.

"You're not fooling anybody, Quinzel. I mean, look at you—the blond hair, the lab coats that are a hair too tight. You're not here to be a doctor."

I finally allowed my voice to rise. "You know, I'm getting pretty damn tired of people telling me what I am and what I am not."

"Everyone knows you wanted to work with the Joker because you think he'll be your big breakthrough. Get your name in all the papers. Get you on the cable news shows as one of their 'experts.'"

"Who's 'everyone'?"

"All of us—the doctors, the staff." Her face was serious now. "You don't get it, do you? Even if you made some progress with Joker—real progress, not just some scribbles in a notebook no one else is allowed to see—it wouldn't matter. No one's interested in what goes on in his head. In fact, the only thing the general public ever wants to hear about him again is that he's dead."

I sucked in a sharp breath. "That's a horrible thing to saw about one of Arkham's patients."

"Maybe so, but it's the truth. The others have been tiptoeing around you for months, but I'm telling you this for your own good. Drop the Joker. Find yourself a nice private practice somewhere. You're not cut out for Arkham."

"Get out."

"Gladly." Dr. Justi paused with her hand on the doorknob. "The funny thing is, I don't dislike you, Quinzel. I kind of admire your guts. But you can't keep pretending forever."

As the door closed behind her, I took a deep breath. Unaccountably I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, threatening to spill over.

I pinched myself hard until they subsided.

Then I closed my eyes.

Physician, heal thyself.