If you're a student, take my advice: stay in school as long as you can, to put off getting a "real" job in the "real" world. It's no fun, and it's a complete time goblin; hence the absurdly long delay between chapters. Sorry 'bout that, folks. This chapter is long to make up for it. Well, that, and I just had a lot to cover in this chapter.
BTW, I forgot to mention something in the last chapter's Author's Notes. Why did the Joker prefer Ozzy to Metallica? You may have heard the story of what Ozzy did to a BAT while on stage...
Again, I want to thank EVERYONE who is reading this story, marking it for alerts and for all comments. Taluliaka, I couldn't send you a PM, so thank you for your review! I greatly appreciate the time everyone has taken to leave feedback. Please feel free to do so, I respond to everyone. :)
Apologies for typos and sloppy sentences, I'm a bit sleep-deprived as I post this.
* INTO THE FUNHOUSE *
Chapter 38
. . . . . . .
Betrayal.
No matter how masterful the control of his faculties had become, the geyser of rage that sprang from the well of betrayal always boiled just below the surface.
In his darkest of hours, it drove him to the brink of madness.
Prince or pauper, Brahmin or Outcaste, no man is immune to the seething fury that can poison his thoughts and drive him to vengeful action. Any pretense of control during waking hours is razed by the demons of vengeance when the lights go out.
And the demons came to him, myriad in number, when his eyes were closed.
There is a thin line between passion and obsession; a line so obscure that he wasn't really sure when he had crossed it. His passion, once fueled by a perceived camaraderie, was now an obsession propelled by unalloyed rage. Men who cross that line are forever changed, the sovereignty of free will abdicated, actions driven instead by the yearning for something beyond their grasp.
Riches. Power. A neighbor's wife.
The appreciation of an equal.
The attention of a rival.
Or, when that fails… bearing witness to that rival's downfall. Sweeter still…
…causing it.
All the hours… Jesus, the sheer endless oceans of time he'd devoted… devoted to him… and all he'd asked for in return was acceptance… even a mere acknowledgment. A verbalization that they were brothers, if not in blood, then surely by virtue of the exceptional connection they shared.
They were different than other people. They always had been, and always would be.
But no acceptance had ever come. No matter the lengths he'd gone to, to make him see that they had a special bond, the acknowledgement thereof never manifested.
His admiration had soured into resentment, his esteem curdled into bile, and his obsession with the caped figure had long ago invited the demons to take root in the deep caverns of his twisted mind.
As the steady dripping of water can erode even the most resolute of stone, so can the droplets of resentment erode one's sanity. If people knew how obsessed he'd grown over time with the man, surely they'd call him insane.
Many already had. Of course, the ones who had said so to his face ended up – shortly after said transgression – in the obituary column of The Daily Planet.
A billionaire has that type of power.
Lex Luthor hadn't had many friends in his life. Actually, he hadn't had any. There had been a brief interlude of a few years' time in his twenties when he had brushed with something that was akin to such a relationship, as close as he'd ever come: the short-lived friendship with Clark Kent.
Of course, friendship is founded on trust, and Lex had long suspected that Clark was withholding a secret from him. Over the course of what he was desperate to believe was a mutual friendship, Lex had presented his friend with every opportunity he could, to allow Clark to entrust him with that secret.
But Clark never did.
Lex had discovered Clark's true identity after years of surreptitious digging and investigating, courses of action he never would have been forced into, had Clark only come forward and told him outright who he was. Initially Lex's quest was to prove to himself that Clark was above reproach; that Lex himself had an actual friend in his life, someone not interested in his wealth.
But that quest to validate Clark's virtue as a friend took a turn, and instead became a search to unearth the secret that Lex knew was buried, proof that Clark was just another wolf in sheep's clothing.
Perhaps even something more dangerous.
The eventual revelation that Clark Kent was Superman wasn't half as jarring to Lex as was the irrefutable evidence that Clark had never actually been his friend at all. Raised in the elite fringe of society, Lex had learned to spot a false friend from a good distance. His father Lionel had warned him that people would come to him with smiles painted on their faces, while knives were hidden behind their backs.
Lex had been able to spot all of the pretenders. Except for Clark.
Which was why the revelation of this secret was a betrayal that stung incessantly.
They could have conquered anything together. They could have ruled the world. Instead, they were bitter rivals.
Superman had become Lex's sole purpose for pushing his way through the perfunctory duties of his days, enduring tedious executive council meetings at LexCorp so he could lock himself in his office to track the activities of Superman that were documented on the news. He saved every newspaper clipping and bookmarked every online story.
Lex Luthor was a man of great patience. It had been over three years since he'd found irrefutable proof that a man he once called his only friend had deceived him; posing as an ordinary man when he wasn't acting as the savior of Metropolis.
Yet Lex revealed his discovery to no one. Not even Clark himself was aware that Lex Luthor knew his secret.
Three years.
Lex knew better than to act in haste.
In those first two years after he discovered who Clark Kent really was, Lex thought of nothing but killing Superman. Armed with the knowledge of Superman's secret identity, he combed through the archives of Smallville's newspapers with a renewed sense of purpose. He hired people to unearth anything they could on Clark's past, grilling even the students Clark had called classmates in high school.
For two years, the search had been futile. Clark had covered his tracks well, leaving scant traces of a most unremarkable life behind him.
But it was at the end of the second year of renewed searching when Lex made a discovery that would entirely change his plan for Superman's doom: Lex discovered the existence of a very rare, very precious type of rock.
The discovery coincided with a happening in Gotham.
A happening known as The Joker.
Along with the rest of Metropolis, Lex had followed the news of a man the papers had dubbed 'The Clown Prince of Crime' in their sister city. He had to give this clown credit – the Joker's methods were genius: fostering fear and brushes with anarchy using simple and cheap theatrics. Lex had found detached amusement in the derelict's over-the-top actions, taunting Gotham itself with terror and chaos, all in a quest to bring down the city's hero known as The Batman.
Bring him down, but not kill him.
Shortly before the Joker was apprehended and thrown in Arkham, Lex had obtained an unofficial transcript of the Batman's only known interrogation of the Joker. The transcript was the only one that existed. The exchange had been documented against the commissioner's direct orders, by a Mob-backed, corrupt Gotham police officer named Ramirez. Ostensibly, she had hoped to sell the transcript to the highest bidder to help pay for her mother's hospital bills.
Lex Luthor was the highest bidder. He paid $5.2 million for a single piece of yellow tablet paper, which he knew bore only a fraction of the true happenings inside the interrogation room, written hastily in sloppy form by a guilty hand.
The moment he held the paper in his hands for the first time, Lex knew: it was the best investment he had ever made.
Ever.
One could make powerful deductions from what was written; but there was one part of the transcript that was more salient than the others: the Joker's reply to Batman:
"I don't want to kill you. What would I do without you?"
The clown saw The Caped Crusader as a player in some sort of cosmic game he envisioned in his head. It wasn't about killing the Batman, it was about bringing him down, for sport. Corrupting the incorruptible.
Damaging him from the inside out.
From the inside, out.
That night, an epiphany was born.
The Joker's actions cast Lex's pursuit of Superman's demise in a new light. Thanks to inspiration from the clown, it could play out even better than he had ever hoped for.
Armed with a crumpled piece of tablet paper, Lex changed his strategy.
And for the last year, he planned.
Now, he sat in silence, in the protective cocoon of a bullet-proof limousine. The last three years had been leading up to this night. All the work, all the planning… it all hinged on what would happen in the next ten minutes.
After three years, Lex Luthor's thirst for revenge might finally be slaked.
From the darkened interior of the car, he raised his cell phone to his ear and spoke. "Is he still there?"
A crackle of static sounded through the earpiece. The man on the other end of the call leaned backward to peer around the corner of the makeshift cantina wall, viewing a hulking Daily Planet newspaper reporter in profile. "Yes, Mr. Luthor."
Lex nodded, pleased with the confirmation he sought. He looked out the tinted window to the deserted street corner, scanning for passers by. "All media outlets still silenced?"
"Yes, sir, no internet connections, satellite calls or news broadcasts have been allowed at the station."
"Good. Stand by. I will let you know whether to proceed. Be on the ready."
"Yes, sir."
Lex cut off the call, and turned to the man sitting next to him. An open laptop rested on his knees, with a proprietary software program running. Lex handed the man his cell phone.
"Do it."
The man nodded in obsequious silence, connecting the phone to a USB port.
Lex cocked his head to the side and watched the man's fingers dance in a flurry of movement across the keyboard. Lex drew a deep breath slowly, in a concerted effort to control the quickening of his own heart rate. He raised his hand to the breast pocket of his jacket, drawing solace as he traced the outline of the concealed gun.
It wasn't often that Lex Luthor felt excitement, but this was one of those rare moments. Depending on the outcome of the next phone call, revenge on the man he'd once known as a friend could be within his grasp.
In fact, he was on the precipice of altering history itself, not unlike Alexander the Great, for whom he was named.
His namesake had bent history to his will with the might of swords forged from iron ore, a massive cavalry and legions of dedicated soldiers.
Lex Luthor would also alter history.
Yet for all his money, wealth and influence, he would do so with the might of something so unassuming: a single rock fragment, no bigger than a dime.
Without words, the Batman grabbed Jones' arm, retrieving him from the kitchen pantry of Flesh For Fantasy where he'd been hiding. The Batman had returned from his search for Wallace. Jones knew the fact that he'd come back alone didn't bode well.
As they exited the building, Jones nearly stumbled down the stairs to the alley. The man in black ahead of him was striding with purpose, dragging him along in tow. As they headed toward the back of the alley, Jones saw an ominous black vehicle obscured by a dumpster. The Batman was dragging him toward it.
"W—what happened in there? Where's Wallace?"
The Batman said nothing until they were out of sight from the building. He stopped at the side of his vehicle, and turned to look down at Jones. He could read the fear in the man's tired eyes. "Your friend is dead."
Jones swallowed. He had suspected as much. "How did they—I mean, what happened to him?"
The Batman narrowed his eyes. "They didn't leave much of his face to be identified, but the body I saw was your friend. It looked like his death was quick, but he suffered before he was killed."
Jones felt his stomach knot up. If I hadn't abandoned Wallace in there, I'd be dead, too. Being a spineless coward is what just saved my ass. He felt hollow.
The Batman crossed his arms across his chest. "I overheard that Vincent Maroni's daughter was murdered this evening."
"Oh my God." Jones' eyes grew wide, perceiving an accusation. He held up his hands in front of him and backed away. "It wasn't me, I swear to God!"
The Batman shook his head. "I know it wasn't you. It was the work of Sergei Kruzynski."
Jones' mouth dropped open. "The Belarussians murdered the daughter of Gotham's Mob boss?"
A single nod from the large figure. Jones shrugged his shoulders. "Why would they be bold enough to do that?"
Before he could reflexively shield himself, the Batman grabbed Jones by the shoulders and slammed him against the side of the vehicle. His voice was coarse and accusatory. "Because the Belarussians wanted revenge! They believed that the Mob had double-crossed them in an arms deal. But it wasn't the Mob – someone else stepped in and stole the weapons. Know anyone bold enough to do that?"
Even in the dim light, Jones could see the man's eyes behind his mask. They were black orbs of fury. Jones' mouth started to tremble. His voice failed him. He forced a weak nod. Of course he knew someone bold enough to orchestrate that.
They both did.
The Batman continued, "The Mob knows that the Joker intercepted the weapons that they were selling to the Belarussians. Kruzynski's men didn't know about the Joker. They thought the Mob had the stolen weapons, so they burned Maroni's daughter alive in her car this evening as revenge."
"Oh, Jesus…"
"We need to act fast." The Batman leaned his face forward. "Maroni knows that the Joker and… and his men—" he squeezed Jones' shoulders painfully tight to make his emphasis, "—were actually the ones who took the weapons. He's laying the blame for his daughter's murder at the Joker's feet, along with responsibility for the street war between the Mob and the Belarussians. Maroni has put a bounty on the Joker. He wants him brought in alive, so he can torture him. Word is going out to everyone in Gotham's underworld of crime, and it won't be long before it spreads outside the city, if it hasn't already."
Jones stared up at the Batman in disbelief. Everything about this evening was surreal. Things just kept getting worse, in ways he couldn't have dreamed of.
"Jones," the Batman took pains to take the edge off his voice, "you are one of the few people who knows the Joker's location. How many other men work for him?"
Jones looked upward, making a mental tally. "S'about nine, nine of us that I know of. Well—" he looked over at Flesh For Fantasy, thinking of Wallace's body inside. "Eight, now."
"This is important. How many of them are with him now?"
Jones tried to focus. He and Wallace were supposed to meet back around 1:00 am. He looked at his watch and silently cursed. "Wallace and I were supposed to be back there in about five minutes. There should be two others with him." Barker wouldn't have left the lair, and Curtis likely would have returned by now. "Yeah, two at the most. The others are still…" he nodded his head to the side, "… out there."
"Maroni is offering a ten million dollar reward for the Joker. I believe that's a big enough incentive for some of his own men to turn on him. They may team up with others to bring him down, if word of this reward reaches them. Any man greedy or brazen enough to go after the Joker for that sum of money will kill anyone who gets in his way." The Batman clenched his jaw. It was bad enough that Lois was in danger from the Joker's actions, but she could easily end up a casualty of a money hungry bottom feeder looking to nab the Joker for the reward.
"Jones, you need to take me to where the Joker is hiding. It's more important than ever that we get to Lois Lane. You need to lead me to her."
Jones' eyes widened and he blanched. "N—no! No! No way, man! If I show you how to get there, the Joker will know that I've sold him out! He'll kill me! He'll cut me to pieces!"
"No he won't, I can protect you from him."
Jones' eyes went empty, and his voice grew quiet. "No, you really can't."
The Batman was growing weary. "Listen to me. I am asking for your help. I can protect you… but I can't protect Lois Lane. Not unless I find her, and you know as well as anyone what the Joker is capable of. Help me get to her. I promise I will do everything I can to keep you safe from him."
Jones felt defeated. What choice did he have? His conscience was already stained with the blood of everyone on the Gotham Expressway. He couldn't bear another unnecessary death. She wasn't just a faceless person. He'd seen her, up close. He'd seen the fear in her eyes.
"How are you going to protect me if I help you?"
The Batman stiffened, then opened the top of the tumbler prototype. "I'm calling for back up. Get in."
Jim Gordon's pallor had gone completely grey.
After the first signs of the heart attack, Detective Joe Murdock helped remove Commissioner Gordon's jacket and tie, and unbuttoned the top of his shirt to help him breathe easier. Murdock kept an eye on the weakened man, and was more than a little nervous about the situation. Gordon appeared to be on death's doorstep. Nearly an hour had passed since the first signs of distress. Murdock concluded that the aspirin he'd forced Gordon to take must have aided in his condition, but the commissioner clearly was still in a precarious state.
Murdock jumped when he heard a knock on the door, and the doorknob turned from the outside. The door swung open and uniformed men wheeled in a gurney. He barked his annoyance. "It's about damned time you got here!" Murdock stepped to the side to allow the EMT group access to Gordon.
"Sorry, sir, the streets out there are chaos, thanks to all the bombs the Joker has been setting off. Traffic is gridlocked in most areas."
A faint smirk crossed Murdock's face. "You don't have to tell us about that."
Two of the technicians lifted Gordon from his chair and placed him on the gurney. Gordon's eyes were half open. He tried to say something, but only a faint wheezing passed over his lips. One of the medical workers put an oxygen mask on him, noting the glazed look in the commissioner's eyes. He looked over his shoulder at Murdock. "Has anyone contacted a family member for this man yet?"
Murdock rubbed his neck. "No. I didn't know how serious it was, and I didn't want to alarm his wife unnecessarily."
The technician frowned. "Sir, I'd advise that you call his family immediately."
Joe walked over to Gordon's discarded jacket, as the gurney was wheeled out the door. "Which hospital are you taking him to?"
"Gotham Mercy East." They moved Gordon down the hallway fast, past the stunned faces of some of the squad's onlookers. As Joe picked up Gordon's jacket, he could hear a cell phone ring from inside one of the pockets. Fumbling through jacket flaps, he located the phone and held it up in front of his face to read the caller ID display: UNKNOWN. He looked at the phone suspiciously, and let it ring once more. He decided to answer it, doing his best to harden his Midwest accent into something more like Gordon's.
"Yeah?"
A deep voice came through.
"I'm going to need back-up after all. Vincent Maroni has put a bounty on the Joker's head…"
Murdock furrowed his brow. The voice was gravelly.
"…the Joker was behind the Mob-Belarussian arms deal that went south. The Mob found out, and Maroni wants his revenge…"
The voice was distinctive. Murdock strained to recall where he'd heard it before.
"…I need undercover back up sent to Flesh For Fantasy. Maroni will likely want the Joker brought to him there. One of the Joker's men was just killed there. Name was Wallace…"
Murdock's eyes grew wide as he made the connection, as the voice on the other end continued.
Holy mother of God. It's the Batman.
Murdock scanned the office in disbelief. Gordon. Commissioner-fucking-Gordon has kept the Batman's connection to the Gotham Police Department all this time. After the city declared the Batman a fugitive a year earlier, and the signal light was dismantled atop the Major Crimes Unit, Mayor Garcia had kept an especially close eye on Gordon. He knew that the Batman had collaborated under the table with Gordon's men in an unofficial capacity before going rogue. Garcia would tolerate no associations thereafter. He had threatened Gordon's job, should any continued connection be discovered.
Murdock smiled. If the heart attack didn't kill Gordon, the shame of being booted off the force and arrested for obstruction of justice likely would. The irony was pretty damned funny.
"…I have a man named Jones with me now. He's going to take me to the Joker, so I can move him for his own protection. Every bounty hunter in the city will be gunning for him..."
Murdock stiffened. What? Did he just say, 'Jones'? Jones is collaborating with the Batman to cough up the Joker's location? Oh, that'll go over well. I need to get word to the Joker immediately, so he can get the hell out of Dodge before the Batman and that turncoat Jones show up.
A moment of silence passed. Nothing from the other end. The Batman clenched his fist in concern. Something isn't right. "Gordon."
Murdock answered, too stunned to feign posturing as Gordon. "Uh, no. This is Detective Murdock."
The caped figure's anger flared, cursing himself for speaking before he confirmed Gordon on the line. God damn it! I gave up too much to someone I don't even know. I know better than that. Now Gordon's job is on the line. He wouldn't allow his own weariness as an excuse for dropping his guard. It was time to put it back up again. "Detective Murdock," the menace was back in his voice. He paused before continuing. "Why are you answering Gordon's phone?"
"Gordon had a heart attack. The EMT's just wheeled him away."
The Batman stood motionless, stunned and sickened by the revelation. He collected himself as quickly as he could. "When did this happen?"
I can't believe I'm talking to the Batman on the police commissioner's cell phone. The Joker would shit a brick. "About an hour ago, after the press conference covering the Joker's rampage across the city. He's on his way to the hospital."
The Batman pursed his lips. For this detective to have access to Gordon's phone, they must be working closely together. Gordon must trust him. That meant that he'd have to trust the man, also. With the city going to hell, he had no other choice. "Murdock, listen. I need your help, and Gordon needs your help. Can you get undercover officers to Flesh For Fantasy?"
Murdock bit his lip to keep the smirk from coming through his voice. "I don't know, we're stretched pretty thin with everything that's happening tonight." He was fucking with the Batman. It was fun. The Joker would be proud.
"Do whatever you can to get a team over there, if at all possible. If the Joker is brought there, we need to be able to get to him before Maroni does. And Murdock…"
"Yes?"
"You got this information from an anonymous tip through the emergency lines. There's no need for Jim to lose his job over this."
If he survives his heart attack. Murdock closed his eyes and lied. "I completely agree. I won't tell anyone about this call."
The connection went dead. Murdock smiled, looking at the cell phone in his hand. This night just kept getting better and better. He planned not to tell any of the other officers about the call, nor would he dispatch any undercover units to Flesh For Fantasy, either. One call to the Joker to warn him of the Batman's impending arrival would negate the need for backup at Flesh For Fantasy, anyway. If the Joker were forewarned, no one could catch him to bring him to Maroni.
Murdock did, however, want to ensure that Mayor Garcia knew of Gordon's continued connection with the Batman. Revealing Gordon's concealed collaboration with the vigilante would surely end in disgrace for Gordon.
He decided to make that call first. Joe Murdock dialed the mayor's office, smiling to himself as he envisioned Garcia's livid reaction at the disclosure of Gordon's betrayal.
Barbara Gordon never received the call that her husband had suffered a heart attack.
He licked his lips and nodded, the pink tongue working its way over the smeared red color. "That was question number six of our little game, Loissss. Answer it truthfully."
Lois tried to recoil from his grasp, but he gripped her tighter as he leaned his face into hers. Both of them were on their knees in front of the camcorder, which was extremely painful for her. Her weight was directly on her kneecaps, which she'd hit on the step's edge when she fell on the staircase.
He cocked his head to the side. "Yes? Or no?" He poked his tongue alternately on the inside of his left cheek, then his right, bulging out the scars of his Chelsea grin. "Wanna know the history of 'em or not?"
Her eyes darted back and forth from the left to the right side of his cheeks, then back again to the left. The scars seemed to jump off his face, the relief of them raised high off the otherwise smooth surface of his skin.
He may not have bullets left, but he can still hurt you. Answer him truthfully, Lo. The truth.
Lois cursed herself for a curiosity that had gotten her into more trouble than she could recount. She answered truthfully.
"Yes."
The Joker's faint smile faded. He looked at her, unblinking. His stare was so intense she felt her own face burn in self-conscious embarrassment. He scanned her eyes. There was no trace of guile there. She was telling the truth.
Lois Lane wanted to hear the story.
The wicked smile returned, stretching his mouth to hideous proportions across his face. "Yes, you do want to hear the story. Of course you do." (smack) He nodded for emphasis. "A good reporter always wants to get to the root of any good story."
Oh, I'll give you a story, all right. And not just any story.
You're gonna get THE story, toots.
Lois winced as he tapped the edge of the knife on her bottom lip, her neck still held tightly in the grip of his left hand. "This is a good story, Sweet Tart-ah. And I promise you something." He tipped his chin downward, regarding her with narrow eyes under a knotted brow. He leaned in and whispered in her ear: "I won't leave. One. Single. Thing. Out. I'm going to tell you eeeverrrrrything-ah."
The Joker pulled back and looked her squarely in the face. "Everything, Lois. Just for you." He curled in his lips, then turned his head toward the camera, addressing it directly. "And. For him."
He shifted on his knees and took a deep breath, closing his eyes. "Do you know what the inside of a foster home looks like inside Gotham's Narrows?"
Lois couldn't tell if the question were rhetorical or not. He opened his eyes and looked at her. She faintly shrugged her shoulders.
"Well I can tell you, it's not pretty. If you're lucky, the family you're placed with neglects you altogether. If you're not so lucky, they give you special attention. The kind that comes from belts, fists and cast iron skillets. Me… I wasn't so lucky." He narrowed his eyes at her.
Lois scowled. And you want me to pity you for that? "So you were abused by your foster family. That happens to a lot of kids." Lois knew she was treading on thin ice, but she wasn't about to let the trite victim's excuse of abuse conjure any unwarranted sympathy.
"True. But my story isn't about the cracker jack job the social services department in Gotham does, so don't interrupt me again. Got it?"
His eyes went cold. Lois nodded her understanding. The Joker blinked and continued.
"So when you're a kid of about sixteen, and your foster father beats the shit out of you for any…" he fluttered his hand in the air that held the knife, "perceived slight, you look for ways to escape. Figuratively, or literally. I chose literally." His tongue poked forward to swipe the front of his right incisor. "One day, a carnival came to Gotham. I didn't really find my way into the classroom much anyhow, so I decided to pay a visit on a school day. I hopped a fence and snuck in the back of the grounds. A kid named Jasper caught me, a kid around my age. He threatened to have me kicked out, but I told him that if he let me stay, I'd work along side of him for the day. He agreed."
The Joker cleared his throat. "Jasper had dropped out of school and was traveling with this carnival. Came to find out our situations were similar. I decided that if he could do it, so could I." He smiled with mischief. "I never went back to that foster home. Jasper and I became friends, and we stuck together. When we weren't working the carnival's ferris wheel, we worked at the shooting gallery. You know, the one with the metal duckies that go by, and you have to shoot 'em with a b.b. gun."
Lois knew what he was talking about. She could take anyone at that game, hands down.
"So I get to know this kid, and he shows me the ropes. Shows me which of the workers are okay fellas, and which ones… weren't. The, ah, the men who worked the funhouse?" He nodded wide-eyed at Lois. With a small motion, he shook his head. "Not nice guys. Many had ties to some pretty bad people. Criminals. Most of them were ex-cons themselves, and some had served time in prison. One of them for…" the Joker lowered his voice, "touching little girls who didn't ask to be touched. He did some pretty unsavory things to bigger girls, too." Lois unconsciously furrowed her brow. The Joker noticed. "That guy's name was Smitty. He got out of prison on a technicality of screwed up Miranda rights. His drinking buddy went by the name of Vegas. Vegas was a fat drunk with a temper, who'd served time for assault and battery. He also liked to use animals and cops for target practice. We, uh, steered clear of them and the others.
"After a week, it was time for the carnival to pack up and move on to the next city. Metropolis." The Joker cocked a smile on the left side of his face. "Your… neck—" he squeezed her neck tightly, "—of the woods, so to speak. So as Jasper and I were helping the crew disassemble the ferris wheel for the move, I accidentally unscrewed a bolt that shouldn't have been unscrewed. A steel supporting arm came off the ride, tipped over and nearly crushed two men who worked the funhouse as they were walking by."
Lois didn't realize it, but she was completely captivated by the Joker's story.
The Joker shook his head and looked off to the side, mocking a fond recollection of a memory. "And it was just. My. Luck…" he looked at Lois again, "that it was Smitty and Vegas. That close call pissed them off. A lot. So, they came at me. Vegas had a beer bottle in his hand and he broke it, to use it to cut me up."
Lois felt her own eyes widen, as she envisioned a sixteen-year-old kid having his face sliced by a broken bottle. "Oh," she offered in a small voice, looking off to the side.
The Joker shook his head. "No, you don't understand. That's… not how it happened."
Lois looked at him again. "Then what did happen?"
Lois was nearly deafened by the Joker's manic burst of laughter. "Lois! I've been waiting all night for you to ask me that! I thought you never would!"
He curled his lips in, covering his teeth, and his eyes grew wide. He started to rock back and forth, trying to stifle his own laughter. The Joker started looking around the room, up in the air, at nothing in particular. His apparent disconnection was completely unsettling. Lois tried to trace his glance to see what he was looking at, but he held her head firmly in place.
But she did see Barker. He had returned and was standing up against the wall behind the Joker, watching them. No, watching him.
The Joker seemed to be staring off into nothingness, and when he spoke, Lois couldn't tell if it were to her or to himself. "This is a very ironic tale, Lois. The fact that… it… happened in Metropolis. And here you are." His eyes were at half-mast, as if he were in a drunken stupor. He repeated himself. "In. Metropolissss."
Barker made a noise like a whimper. Lois could see him over the Joker's shoulder. He put his hands up on either side of his clown mask over his ears. He shook his head, as if he were a child that didn't want to hear something frightening. Then he slowly slid down the wall until he was sitting in a fetal position on the floor. He started to rock, keeping his hands over his ears.
Something about that visual frightened Lois.
Jesus, what kind of a madhouse is this place?
The Joker found his focus again, and returned his attention to Lois. "Smitty and Vegas didn't do anything that night, after the beam nearly hit them. The carnival manager came running when he heard the crash and intervened before the men could hurt me. I was given a warning about being more careful, and the men were told to keep away from me. The problem was… Jasper. He had a way of making me laugh at inappropriate times. The fat drunkard, Vegas, he was really, really a fat ass. I mean, morbidly obese-kind of fat. I'm guessing he tipped the scales at around 325 or so. Maybe even more. Jasper made a comment" (smack) "likening the guy's ass cheeks to a hippopotamus' smile, and I started laughing.
"They heard me, and turned to see me laughing at them. So Vegas asks me, 'Hey, faggot, what's so fuckin' funny?'" The Joker's eyes clouded with anger. He worked his mouth for a moment, eyeing Lois. "I didn't have a clever comeback. I stopped laughing, but I just couldn't. Stop. Smiiiiling. That's when Smitty told me that if I got in their way again, he'd give me something to smile about."
The Joker licked his lips, and then drew them back, exposing a mouthful of yellowed teeth. They looked more than ever like fangs. He looked like a rabid dog to Lois. Keeping his teeth exposed in a skull-like grimace, he closed his eyes. His voice dropped in register. "And did. He. EVER. Give me something to smile about." He opened his eyes. "I, uh… heh, I was a marked man, so to speak."
Lois' breath was shallow. She was genuinely on edge because of the story. Not just because she feared to hear the inevitable gruesome end, but by how affected he seemed to be by the story. As if he were reliving memories just by telling it. She was so distracted by him that she forgot the throbbing on the side of her head where the bullet had lightly grazed her as it shot by, only minutes earlier.
"And so we went to Metropolis." He cuffed Lois on the cheek with the hand that held the knife. "Your fair city." She flinched from the sensation.
"We opened on a Monday. For those first five weekdays, public schools had arranged classroom field trips. High schools in Metropolis and the suburbs bussed in kids to spend the day at the carnival. Happy kids getting a happy fieldtrip away from their happy schools to visit the happy carnival." A crazed look came over his face. "So many damned happy people. I wasn't used to happy.
"It was sort of awkward, being the same age as the kids who were visiting the carnival, while Jasper and I were school drop outs. But we managed to have a great time. Whenever we'd go on break, we'd follow groups of students around. Y'know, taunt and threaten the boys, and hit on the girls and make them squeal." His smile broadened. "I'd like to think I never lost that touch." He winked at Lois. Her gaze shifted downward uncomfortably.
The Joker continued anyway. "The last day for high school class field trips came on that Friday. Jasper was working the shooting gallery, and I was on break, walking around. I came up behind three students. Two girls and a boy. One of the girls…" the Joker rolled his eyes and shut them, "I mean, WOW!" His sudden outburst startled Lois, and she felt herself involuntarily shudder. "Talk about a knock-out! She was – unquestionably – the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life." He nodded and tipped his had to the side. "In fact, to this day I've never seen a prettier girl. Never. No offense, Lois. You're pretty, but you couldn't hold a candle to this girl."
Lois was surprised at how much that remark stung.
"Let's just say that I wasn't the only one who noticed her. Every guy – boy or man – was looking at her. I could tell that her little blonde friend was jealous of the obvious attention, not just from the rest of the guys at the carnival, but from the big dopey guy who was with them." (smack) "As for the beauty herself? She seemed oblivious, like she was totally unaware of what a stunner she was. Of course," the Joker leaned in, "that always makes a girl much more attractive, when she doesn't even know what she's got.
"So I trail her and her friends around from a distance. At one point, she looked back at me. I smiled at her, and she smiled back." The Joker straightened up, his expression earnest. "Up to that point, it was the best moment of my life."
Then his face fell. "Until I heard them say that they wanted to go into the funhouse."
Lois saw a veil of darkness wash over his face. It was as though someone flipped a switch. His mood grew brooding.
"They stood in line for the funhouse, and all the guys were staring at this girl. Including Smitty. I could see him standing at the entrance, sizing her up. I watched as he walked over to fat ass Vegas, who controlled when the groups could enter the funhouse. Both of them were nodding and smiling as they talked," (smack) "and I can tell you, there was nothing good about their smiles.
"I can see that they're up to something, and they were targeting this girl. Now, see, I'm supposed to be working, and they were out for my blood anyway, so there was no way they'd let me in with the rest of the kids. So I waited until I saw this girl and her two friends enter, and I found a utility door to slip through.
"This funhouse wasn't just distortion mirrors and awkward staircases to climb. It was also part freak show and haunted house. There were scary-looking scenes set up, with carny workers dressed as freaks. Some of them wore rubber clown masks, and stalked through the house, jumping out at visitors to scare them. It was all part of the gig."
Lois' focus flitted briefly to Barker, who was still rocking in the fetal position on the floor, hands over his ears. Wearing his rubber clown mask.
"So I'm trying to stay out of sight, but I'm trailing this girl. She gets separated from her two friends by a revolving door, which is supposed to let some people pass into a hallway while keeping others out. I know where the false door is for employees to get into the hallway that she stumbled into, so I use it to slip into the hallway with her. She's standing by herself looking confused, and then a funhouse worker approaches her wearing a clown mask. He grabs her, and yells, 'Boo!'. She screams. Then she smiles and catches her breath, thinking that it's just part of the fun."
He licked his lips. "But it wasn't, Lois. I could tell by the clothes he wore. That clown? The one who grabbed her? Smitty. All funhouses have hidden rooms where the workers can take breaks or change clothes or whack off, or whatever they want to do. He was going to drag her to one of those rooms that was hidden by a staged horror scene."
Lois could feel herself grow tense. She didn't like where this story was headed, and didn't want to hear of someone getting raped. "Okay, that's enough. I don't need to hear any more of the story."
The Joker froze, dumbfounded. "You... what?"
Lois' voice faltered. "I—I don't want to hear an—"
Her words were cut off by her own cry of pain, as he brought the knife across her cheek, drawing blood. Not deep enough to scar her like him, but deep enough to give her a serious taste of pain.
"You don't want to hear what comes next?" His breath grew heavy, and he fumed in indignation. "You ask me to tell you how I got my scars, and then you have the gall to interrupt me to tell me that you don't want to hear anymore?"
Tears poured from Lois' eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"
"No. No you're not." He regarded her as a falcon would a field mouse. "You think you know what sorry is, Lois? Do you?"
She curled her lips in, to withdraw them from the knife's blade that had returned to her mouth. "I'm sorry, your story f—frightened me. Tell me the rest, and I won't interrupt you again." She swallowed. "I promise I won't interrupt again."
The Joker grew quiet and regarded her with suspicion. "If you interrupt me again, I'll cut out your tongue."
She had no doubt in her mind that he would. "I won't say anything more until you finish."
He smirked at her. "Ask me nicely to tell you the rest. Say 'please'."
Lois' vision was blurred with tears. "Please tell me the rest of your story."
The Joker leaned forward and stopped when his scarred lips were an inch away from her mouth, his eyes boring into hers. "Say. Please. Nicerrrrrr."
She closed her eyes, and spoke as softly as she could. "Pl—please? Please?" She opened her eyes again.
"Mmm hmmm. That's more like it." He drew back and cocked his head to the side. "Okay… where was I?"
Lois exhaled the breath she was holding. "The guy was going to take the girl… somewhere."
"Oh! Right. So, so I can't let this guy hurt her, and she's far too small to defend herself. So I run up behind Smitty and knock him down. I tackle him, and nail him in the groin with my foot as hard as I can. She's standing there confused, not sure if it's part of the fun or if it's serious. I take her by the arm and tell her she needs to find her friends and get out of the funhouse. I bring her back through the revolving door, to her friends, who were still in the first passageway."
The Joker's eyes widened. "And you know what happened next?" He tightened his grip on Lois' neck. She shook her head in frightened anticipation, the cut on her cheek burning.
"You know what my thanks was for saving this girl from getting raped?" He was practically spitting his words at her.
Lois' voice was a whispered reply of uncertainty. "No?"
"That guy she was friends with? The big hulking meathead? He sees my hand around her arm and gets the wrong idea. He steps forward and shoves me by my shoulders. Shoves me hard. The kid was stronger than an ox. It felt like two sledgehammers hit my shoulders. BAM! Hard, like that. I go down hard and fast. I land on my back and get the wind knocked out of me. I also hit my head on the floor. WHACK!" Lois shuddered again. "I open my eyes, and things are fuzzy, but I can see the girl looking down at me, like she was concerned. But her friends pulled her away. The, uh, the asshole who shoved me, he gives me one last look before leading the girls around the corner.
"I can't get up. Aside from having the wind knocked out of me, the whack to my head gave me a concussion. And…" his voice went completely flat, "it gave Smitty enough time to catch up to me."
Lois tried to withdraw from his grasp, as if distancing herself from him would stop the story. "And he brought Vegas with him. They picked me up and carried me into one of the hidden rooms, where no one could see me. Or them."
A noise came out of the Joker's mouth, like the bray of a donkey. Lois thought it might be a laugh. She couldn't tell.
"So Smitty begins by returning the favor of a solid kick to my crotch. I'm curled up on the floor in agony: unbearable pain in my groin, my shoulders hurt like hell and there's a throbbing in my head." The Joker slapped the side of his own head several times, hard enough to make a noise, to illustrate his point. "I'd gotten used to taking hits from my foster father, but I had never been in so much pain before."
The Joker started to laugh. Loudly and maniacally. He threw his head backward and his shoulders shook. When he looked at Lois again, tears of laughter wet his eyes. "And I had no idea what true pain was." He suddenly gripped Lois' neck with resolve and brought her face in toward his. His voice crescendoed as he brought the knife up to Lois' mouth. "Do you know what true pain is?"
Spittle flew from his mouth and covered her lips. His eyes were wide and feral and they terrified her. If she'd had anything more to drink earlier, she'd have wet her pants from fear right there in front of him. Oh, Jesus! Please don't let him cut me like he was cut!
"True pain, Lois, is having your arms held down above your head as you lie on a metal floor, while an obese man sits on your chest, crushes the wind from your lungs, and cracks seven ribs under his weight. True pain is not having the strength or air to scream as your head is held immobile, while someone places a box cutter inside your mouth."
Lois felt herself shake from fear.
"True pain is watching as your vision explodes in blinding white light of agony as you feel the blade sawing back and forth as it cuts through the nerves inside your cheek, and you feel the flap of your own face fold back and exposed to air for the first time." The Joker's own hand began to tremble, the blade of the knife quivering precariously at the edge of Lois' mouth.
"He laughed as he did it. They both did. They said they'd teach me for ruining their fun, and they'd teach me to laugh at them. They wanted to make sure that everyone I came across for the rest of my life thought that I was laughing at them, taunting them, so I would have the pleasure of countless future beatings.
"And when it was done, and I'd nearly passed out from the pain and the blood loss, they put Smitty's rubber clown mask over my head. Then they took me out of the back room and propped me up in one of the staged freak show scenes. Students walked through – by the hundreds, Lois – and saw me there, but none of them knew what had happened to me. They thought I was a drunk carny worker passed out on the job. Not one of them helped me. Not one."
He leaned in and placed his lips on her earlobe and spoke almost inaudibly:
"Not. One."
Lois was shaking. It couldn't be true. No one could possibly survive injuries that grievous. He had to be lying. It had to be a fabrication.
"And that was the point. They wanted me to be in full view of everyone – for hours – and unable to scream for any help." The Joker pulled back and looked at her again.
In the course of her career, Lois had grilled some of the most polished of two-faced politicians and slick financial sharks. She could spot a liar. There were very, very subtle clues that she knew to look for. Even the best of them had their tells.
But she hadn't spotted one in the entire course of the Joker's story. He was either the best damned liar she had ever seen in her life, and one hell of an actor…
…or the story was actually true.
Maybe it was true. After what she'd seen tonight, she could believe that anything was possible.
"So, that's…." he motioned to his scars, "how I came to be… meeeeeee." He tilted his head to the side. "It's an interesting turn of fate, really. I endure a cathartic change in your city… and you're going to go through a similar change… in mine-ah."
Lois didn't process the hint of what was to come. Her eyes were closed, still trying to process the idea that something so horrific as his story could actually happen to someone, someone so desperately in need of help, in plain sight, yet ignored by everyone… that was one of the most terrifying scenarios she could envision.
Not unlike the situation she was in now. Right in the heart of Gotham, in desperate need of help, but no one could see her.
"D—did…" Lois found her voice had cracked. "Did that really happen? Did those men really do that to you?"
The smile faded from his face, and his visage became unreadable. He tilted his chin down to his chest as he regarded her. He licked his lips, but said nothing.
She was incredulous. "How did you live? How is it even possible for someone to survive injuries like that?"
The Joker dropped the knife to the floor. The clatter of the impact startled Lois, and she felt him grip both sides of her face. He drew in close.
"It's, ah, it's truly amazing what types of physical pain a person can endure. You learn from pain. Pain is the best teacher of them all. And from learning comes growth, Sweet Tart. Always growth."
He leaned his head forward to hers, their foreheads touching. He closed his eyes.
He drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "It's time now, Lois. You're ready to learn. You will learn so much. And you will grow. I promise you that."
Yes, he knew she was ready. It had all come to this.
It was time for her lesson.
. . . . . . .
Author's Notes for "Into the Funhouse"
. . . . . . .
(Aw, crap. MORE to read?)
Like a funhouse has mirrors that distort, I wanted the beginning of the chapter to provide a bit of a distortion, too; to be presented as if the narration were about the Joker, when in fact, it was actually about Lex Luthor. In doing so, I wanted to establish parallels between their characters, different as they really are. Of course, the funhouse reference is a direct link to the Joker's very own personal hell.
I don't explain in this chapter HOW Lex Luthor discovered who Clark Kent really is. It's not pertinent to this story, and I didn't want to go too far off course; this is, after all, a story about the Joker.
And speaking of that... here are my thoughts behind the story the Joker tells to Lois about his scars:
First, the location of the event - a funhouse. In Chapter 11, I detail in the Batman's musings just how similar he and the Joker really are to each other. They think alike and they reason alike. So... given that hypothesis that they are two sides to the same coin... wouldn't it be feasible that both created their "masks" for the same reason: to cope with a traumatic fear by trying to "own" it? The Batman was terrified by bats; it seemed to follow that something would have happened to the Joker for him to choose a clown's countenance. Perhaps that's why he has his crew wear those awful, creepy rubber clown masks... a reminder of the horrible fate he endured, silently suffering behind a clown's mask.
Second, the plot of the scar story - in TDK, we are only treated to two of the Joker's scar stories. (Had he been able to share his story before Batman stopped him at the end of the movie, my theory might be different than what it is.) In the first story he tells Gambol, the Joker is the victim of someone else's hand; in the second story he tells Rachel, he's the one who inflicts the scars. Two different stories, but there was a common theme I couldn't help but notice in both tales: women in his life as victims. In the first, his mother was a victim of his father's rage, and he was powerless to stop it. In the second, his wife was the victim of loan sharks, and he was powerless to prevent her attack, and subsequently, powerless to get her face fixed.
That was why, for this story, I wanted to continue the theme of the scars being the result of trying to intervene in a situation where a girl he cared about was about to be victimized. It seemed like a plausible connection.
My interpretation is that the Joker is genuinely bothered by violence against women, hence the theme of victimized women in his scar stories. True, he's not exactly being a prince to Lois, but he is giving her a HELL of a lot more leeway than he would if he'd kidnapped a man. (If you'd like to go back to read my author's notes for Chapter 10, I talk a little more about that.) He'd have eviscerated a male victim within the first hour. He's had Lois for 8 hours now, and she's still alive. No man would have lasted that long.
When the Joker thinks to himself that he's going to tell her THE story, I leave it up to the reader's interpretation: it could mean, in the Joker's mind, that he's about to tell Lois The Mother Of All Fabricated Stories... or, that it's actually the REAL story of what happened to him.
Likewise, I also wanted to leave it up to the reader to interpret the student characters in his scar story. The Joker recalls the names of Jasper, Smitty and Vegas, but I purposely left out the names of the 3 students he followed around.
Maybe his story actually was completely fabricated; and purely through coincidence, he thought that creating 3 students would lend realism to the story.
Or...
...perhaps the story actually DID happen, and those students really DID exist.
If you choose to believe that this could be the ACTUAL scar story... and you're a fan of 'Smallville'... then you can probably deduce who the 3 students were: Lana was the beauty, Chloe was her friend, and Clark was the protective boy. If you hadn't thought of that while reading it, I invite you to read that passage again with their faces in mind, and see if that changes the story a bit for you, should you choose to believe that this was the actual event that caused his scars.
Wouldn't it be an ironic twist of fate if it were the very hands of Superman that unwittingly led to the creation of the Joker as we know him, when all he was trying to do was prevent someone from being a victim?
Just a possible theory. You can draw whatever conclusion you think fits the story better...
-4ofCups, 2009.04.29