Madness Becomes Her


Chapter Three
High Profile

My first month at Arkham dragged by at a torturous pace. Here I had been thinking I was going to be helping analyze criminals, sitting in on sessions, and learning the twisted thought processes of the deeply psychotic. But Dr. Leland had me doing the most menial things- filing, collecting laundry, escorting patients to and from various psychiatrists with two guards at my side, sorting mail, typing out various notes, etc.- and it was absolutely ridiculous. I mean, I was a grad student, not a secretary or a janitor, yet I was being treated as if I were an uneducated nobody.

So, it was with indignation and stubbornness that I went to Dr. Leland's office several weeks after starting my internship. I had just finished my graduate classes at Gotham School of Medicine and was due to start my hours at the hospital for the day, but instead of going to Dr. Leland's office to check in and get my tasks for the day, I was going to defend my case.

"Harley," she said, as soon as I had walked through the door. "I'm glad you're here. I need you to bring this downstairs to Dr. Katz and tell him it needs to be faxed medic-"

"Dr. Leland, I was wondering if I could discuss something with you," I interrupted.

Dr. Leland heard the seriousness in my voice- the determination- and the abrupt way I had cut her off, and she settled forward, folding her hands on her desk. "Is there a problem, Harley? Something wrong?"

"It's just-" I began, feeling young and inexperienced under this mature doctor's dark eyes. "I feel- I feel like I could do so much more here than the tasks I'm being given. I mean, I'm not trying to undermine your authority, Dr. Leland, but all I've done so far is escort patients and file and clean and-"

"Harley," Dr. Leland cut me off, sounding not unkind, but maybe a little incredulous at my words. "What did you think you would be doing here?"

This made me pause, before I said, "I don't know. I thought I might- you know- work with the patients more. Maybe speak with some of them, sit in on sessions, help analyze some."

By the look on Dr. Leland's face, I could tell that this was strictly out of the question.

"Harley, Arkham is a very secure facility, and you're working on a high-security ward," she explained. "You need to earn the kind of privilege you're looking for."

This made me frown, my shoulders slumping. How long did I have to do laundry at Arkham for her to think I had earned the right to talk to an insane criminal?

"Besides, you're only two years into grad school. In order to have your own patients here or work the way you'd like to, you need to have at least four years under you belt," she said, looking reasonable, if not stern.

Her words gave me a flash of anger so violent that I wanted to hurtle something out of her unbarred window. I had had all these visions of working closely with the criminally insane- getting inside their minds and untangling the mess of their thoughts- but Dr. Leland was only going to let me work closely with their jumpsuits in the basement utility room until I had two more years at Gotham School of Medicine. And the fact that she hadn't explained this to me before I took on the internship made me explicitly frustrated. I felt like I had been led on- felt like I had been lied to- and I wanted to wring her slender, brown neck.

"You'll get there," she told me. "Just not today."

Fuck you
, I thought, with another flash of malice that even left me surprised.

"Now, I need you to take this to Dr. Katz," she said, handing me a piece of paper. "Tell him it needs to be faxed to Hudson Medicare as soon as he's looked it over, okay?"

I nodded and turned from her, leaving the room.

As I walked down the hall toward the stairs, I tried not to let my disappointment and anger get the best of me but it was just- I mean, I had worked my ass off in high school to get a scholarship to Gotham University, and then I worked my ass off even harder there to be top of my class and graduate with honors and a degree in psychology. And now, with two years of perfect graduate work, I wasn't good enough to even chat with one of Arkham's bad boys. It made me want to spit in someone's face- specifically, Dr. Leland's- and screw it all. Instead, I ascended the stairs and continued on my route as Joan Leland's secretary.

I was almost to Dr. Katz's office when I glanced over the sheet in my hand. It was some kind of patient profile, with notes scribbled on it by Dr. Leland. Without feeling any kind of remorse at all, I read the profile in its entirety:

Patient Name: Pamela Lillian Isley (alias, Poison Ivy)

Date of Arrival: April 25

Diagnosis: Psychosis (symptoms of grandiosity, hostility, paranoia, obsession, control)

Physical Health: abnormal, due to poisoning (see attached file)

Treatment: Long-term stay on Arkham's F. Locked Ward. Medication: Zelqua, 80 mg. Biweekly sessions with Dr. Katz.

Notes: Patient was brought in for evaluation after being arrested by authorities. After attempting to threaten the city by 'releasing her suffocating spores' she was subdued by vigilante, Batman, and taken into custody. Patient's ability to release such spores is still under question, as she does seem to have a degree of poison in her blood stream from past experiences (see attached file).

Under this profile, Dr. Leland had written out a paragraph:

Seems Pamela is suffering from some kind of trauma- from said experiment gone wrong? From the notes you sent me before I think she'll definitely need a moderate-heavy dosage of Zelqua, as well as regularly scheduled sessions. I'd be interested to know more about this Dr. Woodrue who performed the experiment- where did he come from? where did he go? etc. Also, because of this poison problem she'll have to be kept in high security, even if she seems to be cooperating, for fear that she'll injure the staff. Be happy to sit down and talk with her if you think she'll speak to a woman. Also, don't see anything wrong with her keeping the plants- even in the ceramic pots.

All of this left me absolutely floored.

Of course I had heard about 'Poison Ivy' and her threat to poison the city on the news, but everyone had just assumed she was a psycho. I mean, poisonous spores? And then Batman got her and she was gone. I didn't know she was taken to Arkham, though that should have been obvious if she's a criminal, and insane.

Suddenly, I wanted to meet this person- what could be a more extreme personality than a woman who thought of herself as a kind of plant villain? But if I couldn't talk to the patients on my own ward, I knew I wouldn't be able to talk to Poison Ivy.

Unless of course Dr. Leland didn't know I was going to talk to her.


"Bon Jovi or Queen frontman?"

I considered my brother from my bed for a moment, before asking, "Is that a serious question?"

"Come on, Harl," he whined. "I have an interview with a club owner and I need to look the part!"

"Fine, Bon Jovi," I replied, going back to the thesis I was working on.

He stomped out of my room, saying, "I want to look like Queen!"

Downstairs, I heard the front door slam shut and Mom call, "Hello?"

"Hi, Mom!" I called. "Your son's trying to look like a queen!"

"Shut up, Harley!" Barry barked from his room next door.

I laughed to myself and scribbled away on my notebook.

After a minute there was a knock at my door frame and I looked up to see Mom standing there in her uniform for one of her two jobs- since it was after twelve, she had just returned from waitressing at the diner and was still in her diner frock and apron.

"Hey," she said. "How was the hospital?"

I dropped my pencil onto my bed and said, "It was okay," thinking of Dr. Leland and her failing to give me something substantial to do. "Do you remember Poison Ivy? The plant lady that was on the news?"

"Yeah," Mom replied, looking skeptical about this.

"She's at Arkham! I just found out today!"

This didn't look like it pleased my mother. "Well, I guess it's good that she's locked up, right? She was certainly crazy."

"Yeah, but Mom, she's got like actual poison in her bloodstream- from some freak accident she was in or something!" I told her, gushing about this woman I had never even seen in person.

"Oh God, that's weird," my mom said. "Make sure you don't go near her."

I rolled my eyes. "That's not the point! Think of how screwed up you have to be to relate yourself to a plant- to try to poison people with spores!"

"Yeah," she replied, looking none too impressed. In fact, she looked kind of sickened by the whole thing. "You'd definitely have to be very 'screwed up.'"

"Mom, we already know that Harley's a psycho mess," Barry said, joining my mom in the doorway. "But you don't need to say it to her face."

I was about to make another queen comment, but then I saw that my younger brother had black lines ringed around his eyes in an obviously failed attempt at some kind of rock and roll eyeliner. Without a word, my mom and I burst out laughing.

"Barry, what is that?" Mom asked.

"What?" he countered. "It's my look."

"You look like a raccoon!" I managed to choke out through giggles.

He gave me a dirty look.

"Come on, honey," Mom said, steering him out of the room. "I'll teach you how to do your make-up like a proper woman."

As she left with him she made a face at me over her shoulder and I laughed some more.

But once the giggles had subsided and the house was quiet, I tried to focus on my notes again. However, my thoughts, as always, turned to Arkham, and it was hard for me to turn them away.