After a few weeks of twice-a-week sessions with the Joker, I was starting to understand him. But, unbeknownst to me, he had already figured me out completely. He crawled right under my skin, made me think about him round the clock. I was obsessed in him; his personality, all his little querks. The licking the lips, the laughing at everything that isn't funny. All of it. I just wanted to be around him twenty-four seven. He made me feel right, somehow. Like I was among friends. Which I shouldn't have felt, since he was the patient, I was the doctor.
But after these few weeks, I have a pretty firm diagnosis; he's a misanthropic anarchist with a serious sweet tooth for the betrayal of humankind. Oh, and he's a masochist. Major masochist. But is he crazy? I don't think so. He's smart. Really smart, too smart. He analyzes every inch of a person, stripping them down in mere seconds. He sees one's weaknesses, their faults, and instantly uses them to his own benefit. And what was so captivating about him was that I was no closer to figuring out why than the first day I laid eyes on him. That's the fun part. He keeps me guessing. Somehow… I like it.
In one way or another, I had convinced Gordon to discontinue restraining the Joker with those god awful chains. Don't ask me how I did it, I don't even know. What I do know is, there was much debating, yelling, and several cups of bad coffee involved. But, I had done it, and every session, I would walk in, and there he would be, comfortably seated against one of the walls, mindlessly doing something. Sometimes he was picking at his fingers, sometimes he was staring at the ceiling very intently, and other times he would resemble a man deep in sleep, then he would surprise me by striking up a conversation, eyes still shut. He was never caught off guard when I came. And sometime within the passing weeks, he had started to call me Harley. Apparently, I hadn't noticed or cared.
Another thing I realized about him was that this mask, this hard shell he wore was virtually impenetrable. He was engulfed in the Joker, and seemed to have lost whoever was there before. But again, I had experience with these kind of people. They can always be broken. You just have to find the right tool. For some, it was a sound, a sight, a smell. It happens in cases where the patient experienced something terribly traumatic, and becomes ignorant of everything the memory entails. Everything, of course, except for that one thing. I just had to figure out what. I knew it had to be related to the scars. Nobody endures something that does that to a person, and escapes mentally unscathed. And since he just kept making up stories, I brought the hypnotist.
His name was Daniel Pax. Again, I have no idea how I got someone who had seen the news reports on the joker during his 'reign of terror' to take the job. I guess he was just as curious as I had been. He was a somewhat handsome man, tall, brunette, very professional. He wore a dark gray suit, usually with a colorful tie. Today's was a deep forest green with black stripes on it. He said it was fun but still professional. I was just worried the Joker would choke him with it.
"And um, don't fall for his mind games," I said as we stood in between the two doors leading to Joker's cell. "He'll play with your head, convince you into conclusions that you don't even agree with."
"Don't worry about me," he said, straightening up his tie. "With any luck, he'll be hypnotized for the duration of my stay anyway."
That's what I'm worried about, I thought.
"Oh, and one more thing," I said, pausing with my card key just above the reader. "Once you get him… whatever-ed, the first thing I wanna know about is the scars. He's made up stories thus far, and I want to hear the truth. Then we'll move on."
Pax nodded, and I swiped the card through. The door clicked and hissed, and slowly creaked open. The Joker was at the complete opposite side of the room, leaning against the padded wall, arms crossed across his chest. His head was bowed, and if I hadn't spent the last few weeks studying him, the position might have been frightening. It spoke countless emotions; power, supremacy, bloodlust. I chanced a wayward glance at Pax, and if he was at all disheartened, he masked it perfectly. His face never changed as Joker looked up, licked his lower lip, and grinned.
"My name is Daniel Pax. Ms, er… Dr. Quinzel has asked for my assistance. I am a hypnotist," he said confidently.
"Well, you can call me the Joker," Joker replied, still grinning one of his evil grins. I knew what he was doing. He was testing Pax, like a dog tests a fence for weak spots; seeing if he could be intimidated. So far it wasn't working.
"Pleased to meet you," Daniel's strong, booming voice said.
"No," Joker said, pausing. "No, you're not."
"Well, we'll just see about that, then, wont we?" Daniel replied, and turned to smile at me. I didn't return the gesture. Perhaps I had misguided him. I told him not to fall for Joker's mind games, not return them ten fold. If you do that, he'll work up a batch of Joker's finest whoop ass. And I was starting to get an eerie feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Daniel then turned to me and put his hand on my arm, gently turning my back on the Joker so he could talk, supposedly privately, with me.
"Now, I have had some patients turn violent when I do this, so just be aware," he said in hushed tones.
"What d'you mean 'violent,'" I asked. I wasn't terribly familiar with hypnotics; all I knew was that the patient was in a somewhat conscious, sleep-like state. A trance of sorts.
"Well, some people's resistance to hypnosis can vary. If the topic or memory we talk about is sensitive, their mind may try to… protect it. Which usually results in physical, sometimes violent action. But don't worry, if he does, he'll target me, since I'm the one performing the questioning."
I sighed, the pit in my stomach crawling up my throat. Something told me this was a bad idea.
"Whatcha talkin' about?" Joker's voice suddenly exploded from right behind us, and both of us jumped. My clipboard also flew out of my grasp as my hands spasmed from the fright. The sound of it hitting the ground echoed around the room as Daniel and I turned to face the Joker.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I scare you?" he said and started to laugh hysterically. "You people really gotta learn to lighten up," he said, waving a finger at us.
I sighed, rolled my eyes, and looked back at Daniel. "Shall we?"
A few minutes later, we were all seated at the opposite end of the room, Joker leaning against the wall, Pax and I facing him. The Joker seemed willing to cooperate, but that knot in my throat kept screaming at me that something was awry.
Joker's laidback manner was creeping me out, bigtime. He was leaned against the wall, eyes comfortably closed, fingers intertwined in his lap. Daniel finally proved he was mortal by sighing somewhat uncomfortably, and a grin graced Joker's face.
Daniel didn't take to long to get Joker into a hypnotic state. He went through the traditional technique, counting from one to five, each number including a step that led to the trance. I didn't pay attention to that, however. I was watching the Joker. And he never changed. He remained leaning against the wall, eyes closed, hands crossed. But what I did notice was his breathing relaxed, and so did he. Did it work? I couldn't tell.
I turned to Daniel, eyebrows raised questioningly. He seemed almost as confused as me, but tried to mask it. He didn't know what to do at the moment. So, I took initiative. I crawled out of the chair, which Daniel had gentlemanly given to me earlier, and approached the Joker. Out of impulse, I reached up, but paused. I just realized I had never touched him. Yeah, he'd nearly crushed my windpipe, but I had never even come close enough to do anything of the sort. I tilted my head, and gently ran my thumb over his scar, my other fingers grazing his jaw line. They truly were gruesome; deep lesions in the skin that I was sure had to have been excruciatingly painful. And they hadn't been well taken care of either, otherwise the scars wouldn't have been so ghastly.
No sooner had I done this than his hand whipped up, so fast I couldn't see it, and grabbed my wrist. It was the same strong grip he'd had before, but this time he wasn't refraining. I swore my wrist might snap at any moment. His eyes remained closed, and he didn't move any other part of his body except that one arm.
"Ow, ow," I said, and twisted in any way to get his grip to loosen.
"No touching," he said, grinned, eyes still closed. He released my wrist, and returned it to intertwine with his other. I looked back at Daniel, who nodded, and I returned to my chair.
"Can you hear me alright?" Daniel said quietly.
"Why, Mr. Pax you truly are a visionary. I'm in a state of hypnosis, not deaf," Joker said, licking his lips, eyes closed.
Daniel smiled sheepishly, and looked down for a moment. I almost laughed.
"Okay," Daniel started again. "Let's talk about the scars. Tell me how you got them. Take your time."
Joker took a deep breath and licked his lips again. Daniel turned to me and mouthed 'does he do that a lot?' I nodded. He wrote it down.
"You and Harley can ask me that as much as you want, and you wont ever get what you want," Joker said, all seriousness.
Daniel looked surprised; like the Joker shouldn't have been aware that he was hypnotized. Like he should have just answered the question without reserve.
"Is he not supposed to know?" I asked quietly.
"Not usually," Daniel replied, writing ferociously on a piece of notebook paper. "But it's happened before. In hyperactive minds, most of the time."
Not a huge surprise. I've already said I knew the Joker was incredibly intelligent. So the fact that his mind was always working, always on; it didn't surprise me.
"Okay then," Daniel said, back to speaking professionally. "How about a few questions? You have to answer honestly."
The Joker grinned wide, but never agreed.
"So, was it someone else who did that to you, or yourself?" Daniel asked, using the whole twenty-questions approach.
"Wouldn't you like to know," he replied, seeming like he wasn't hypnotized at all.
Daniel sighed, obviously frustrated.
"Okay, lets say, hypothetically, someone else did it to you," Daniel said, thinking. "Was it someone you trusted? Someone you loved?"
Joker didn't reply this time, only sat stark still. He seemed to be waiting for Daniel to continue his hypothetical plotline.
"It was a knife, I presume?" Daniel said, standing and beginning to pace. "That's why you use knives most of the time instead of guns. Because you know what it's like," Daniel paused to look at the Joker's reaction, as did I. I didn't like what I saw.
The Joker's hands were no longer comfortably intertwined; they were gripping each other so hard his knuckles were turning white. And he was grinding his teeth.
Daniel smiled. "You know how much more pain the victim experiences versus the quick up-and-out of a gunshot."
The Joker was beginning to breathe a little heavily, and I tossed Pax a warning glance.
"So what was it, huh?" Daniel continued, his pacing leading him closer to the Joker. He seemed very pleased by his progress. I wouldn't have called it progress; I'd have called it mental torture. "Did you go to a hospital, or did you have to stitch them up yourself?"
Before my mind even registered the motion, Joker had leaped up and taken Daniel down to the ground. He was mindlessly beating at him in the chest, stomach, face; anything he could get to. Taken off-guard slightly, Daniel tried to free himself, but couldn't.
I knew this would happen. I jumped out of my chair and threw my arms around the Joker, trying to pull him off. At first glance, he was kind of a wiry fellow, the kind you'd expect to have had their lunch money taken as a kid. But he proved to be much more at that moment. It was like trying to reverse the momentum of a freightliner; it was pointless. I tried harder, which only won me a shove across the room.
The two guards from outside the cell barged in, and raced to Daniel's aid. They gabbed the Joker by both upper arms, and slammed him back against the wall, where he writhed, laughing as he did.
Daniel stood, shaken but okay. He straightened his now somewhat loosened tie, and looked at the Joker. He was struggling with the guards, kicking at them and laughing. I tried to protest as one of them took out a syringe, but it fell on deaf ears. They gave him the entire dose, and he slowly stopped fighting, and they dropped him gently to the floor, where he lay, panting.
"We're done here," I told Daniel, and turned to walk out, fuming. I'm not sure if he caught my drift. I meant 'we're done with this technique. For good.' He probably thought we were just done for the day, which was quite obvious.
I was mad. No, not mad. Furious. Daniel had seen that the topic was upsetting the Joker, and kept pushing it. You never do that with these types of people.
"Harleen!" Daniel yelled after me as I stormed out to my car in the parking lot. I didn't turn, didn't even acknowledge that I had heard him.
"Harleen!" he yelled again, and I could tell he was approaching me.
I spun around to face him, pretty sure every ounce of rage was showing on my face. "It's Dr. Quinzel, to you, Pax. But you wont have to worry about it for long, because we're done." I turned my back to keep stomping toward my car.
"Hey," Daniel said, gently grabbing my arm to stop me. I yanked away from him. "We were getting somewhere," he said, panting from chasing me.
"Yeah, somewhere dangerous. Didn't you ever watch the news? Do you realize what a violent person he is anyway?" I paused, rubbing my temples. "Jesus, Pax, do you realize what he could have done to you?"
Actually, that wasn't my frustration at all. It should have been. But it wasn't. I was worried about the Joker. I didn't want anything happening to him, mental or physical. I didn't know when or how it happened, but I cared about him. And it scared me. But what scared me more was the thought of not having my weekly Joker-high.
"Aw, come on Harleen," Daniel started to say, rolling his eyes as if I was being dramatic. And I was. For good reason.
"DR! Quinzel. And don't even start. Your check will be in the mail tomorrow. Don't come back," I said, turning to my car, and getting in.
"Hey!" Daniel said, probably about to try to convince me out of my decision. Fat chance. I threw my Sedan into reverse, avoiding Pax as I did so, and gunned it out of the lot so fast the rubber squealed against the pavement and threw up rocks in Daniel's direction.