On the Upper West Side of Gotham City, Wendy was standing in the kitchen of her uncle's apartment, making a sandwich. She heard the front door open and looked over and asked, "Uncle Jack?"
"Who else?" He answered.
Wendy went back to fixing her sandwich. She added another piece of lettuce on top of the ham and squeezed from a bottle of mustard. "Uncle Jack, I'm making a sandwich. You want one?" She asked him.
"No, thanks", Jack responded. He took off his topcoat and hat and hung them up. He went into the living room. The television was turned on. "The World Series?" He asked himself.
Wendy turned and went to put the mustard back in the fridge and turned her head to look at her uncle, who was busy checking himself out in a mirror hanging on the wall. That was one thing she noticed about him. He wasn't very handsome, but he did have a sense of style and appearance. He took great pride in the way he looked. He was something of a vain man and he seemed to have a dark aura around him. He rarely smiled, but even when his smile was genuine, there was something very creepy about him. He was very intelligent and was not a man to be messed with. From the moment they first met, Wendy couldn't help but feel there was something gangsterish about him.
Jack poured himself a glass of bourbon and went to sit down on the couch. He picked up the remote and switched the channel to the local news. The anchorman was talking about the rat infestation overpowering Gotham.
Wendy came into the living room and set her plate on the coffee table and reached a hand into her pocket, pulling out an envelope. "By the way, a man came by earlier and dropped this off for you. He said his name was Joe Chill."
Jack looked at the auburn-haired woman and took the envelope from her. There was no name or address on it. He set his drink on the coffee table and opened it. Wendy left him for a moment and returned to the kitchen. Jack read the letter to himself and crumbled it and tossed the balled-up paper over his shoulder. Wendy came back with a beer and set it on the coffee table and sat next to her Uncle Jack. He seemed uninterested in her company.
Wendy helped herself to her sandwich and took a bite. "Anything new?" She asked through a mouthful.
"Just the usual", said Jack, not taking his eyes off the screen. He picked up his bourbon and rested his legs on the table in front of him, taking a sip.
The anchorman changed the subject from the giant rat problem to the ongoing garbage strike, and finished off the eleven o'clock hour with the mention of a campaign for Thomas Wayne running for mayor.
"They've been talking all day about that", said Wendy.
Jack turned his head to her with a raised eyebrow. "You know what they say about him, don't you?"
Wendy scoffed. "So? He's better than the other twelve dozen clowns running for the position. Besides, people will try anything to ruin a man's reputation." She finished her sentence with another bite of her sandwich.
Jack chuckled and said, "You got a lot to learn about Thomas Wayne, kid." He downed the last of his drink and stood up and said, "I need to make a phone call."
Soon as he was out of the room, Wendy picked up the remote and switched the channel back to watch the rest of the game. The game went to commercial and a TV spot for the Murray Franklin Show came on.
Wendy stared at the screen showing the preview of the Murray Franklin Show, feeling a deep, penetrating hatred for the main talk show host. She had never met him before, but there was something about that man that she despised. Her right hand started to squeeze the bread and lettuce into a crumbled mess, the mustard dribbling out of the end. The cold ham squished between her fingers, feeling slimy to the touch. She pretended to be strangling his neck. The next commercial came on, showing an advertisement for a woman's perfume. Wendy did her best to focus on something else other than the ugly-faced, mush-mouthed Murray Franklin. Her ruined dinner now a heap of junk in her lap.
Arthur sat there on the bench in the locker room, hunched over with dark bruises on his shoulder blades and around his torso. There were large bruises on his body from the beating he took the other day. He felt sore, but went on with his day as if nothing had happened. He wore no shirt, but was wearing a pair of dark blue pants that seemed almost too big for him. The strength of his long, thin arms and the grip of his bony hands were choking the nonexistent life out of an over-sized clown shoe. He breathed deeply through his nose, letting go of the anger building up in his system. It wasn't healthy for him.
Just at that moment, a heavyset man named Randall, one of his coworkers, came over and opened his locker to put his clown uniform in it.
"Hey, you okay, Art? I heard about what happened yesterday", said Randall. "Fucking savages."
Arthur smiled a bit. "It was just a bunch of kids that should have left it alone", he murmured.
"You can't let them do that", said Randall. "You let them take advantage of you like that, they'll walk all over you."
Suddenly, Randall looked at Arthur and then reached for something inside his locker and took out a rolled-up brown paper bag and gave it to Arthur. "Here, kid. Take it. It's for you."
"What is it?" Arthur asked him. He unrolled the bag and looked inside, laughing nervously at the Colt .38 handgun and box of bullets.
"For your protection", said Randall.
Arthur looked up at the heavyset man and said, "Randall..." He looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was listening and whispered to him, "I'm not suppose to have a gun."
"Don't sweat it", said Randall. "Nobody has to know. You can pay me back when you can. You know you're my boy."
Arthur smiled gratefully at his older coworker. He knew he could always count on him.
At that moment, Gary walked into the locker room and said, "Arthur, Hoyt wants to see you in his office."
"Okay, Gary", said Arthur, rolling up the paper bag and rising from the bench to stick it inside his locker.
"Hey, Gary, you know what I always wondered?" Randall asked him.
"No, Randall. What?" Asked Gary.
"Do you people call it miniature golf or is it just golf?"
The other clowns and entertainers in the room laughed at Randall's insensitive joke. Gary just rolled his eyes.
Arthur did not think it was very funny, but his condition said so otherwise. A burst of laughter erupted from him as he put on his shirt and buttoned it up. He walked pass Gary, who knew Arthur didn't mean it. He considered Arthur to be a good man and a decent friend, but sometimes he wondered what he might have been like had he not been born with his condition.
Soon as he was out of the locker room, Arthur's laughing stopped and a blank expression appeared on his face. He walked down the hall and opened the door and entered into Hoyt's office.
"Hello, Hoyt. Gary said you wanted to see me", said Arthur.
"How's your comedy career? You a famous stand-up yet?" Hoyt asked him without looking up from some paperwork on his desk. His office was a complete mess.
"Not quite. Just been working on my material."
Arthur was about to take a seat, but Hoyt told him, "No, don't sit down. This will only take a minute."
Arthur obliged and stood there with his hands folded in front of him. He felt like a school boy having been called into the principal's office.
"Look", said Hoyt. "I like you, Arthur. The other guys, they think you're a freak. But I like you. I don't even know why I like you. It's probably that laugh of yours. It kills me. Gets me every time."
Arthur nodded, not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. He thought it best not to ask.
"But I got another complaint", Hoyt continued. "It's starting to piss me off. Kenny's Music Store. The guy said you disappeared. You never even returned his sign."
"Because I got jumped. Didn't you hear?" Arthur asked him.
"Some kids stole the sign? That's bullshit. It doesn't make sense. Just give him back his sign. He's going out of business, for God's sake, Arthur."
"Why would I keep his sign?"
"How the fuck do I know? Why does anybody do anything? If you don't return the sign, I got to take it out of your paycheck...Are we clear?...And let me tell you something else. The other guys don't feel comfortable around you..."
Arthur was calm and mellow, but deep down inside him, he was screaming. Part of him wanted to curse his boss out and strangle him for treating him like he was a retard, but for the sake of his job and appearance, Arthur just stood there and took the verbal abuse, smiling like a Stepford wife. He didn't care if he looked like a moron with a stupid grin on his face. He wanted him to know that he understood. With an unblinking stare, he allowed his boss to vent at him. The raging storm was back, the anger building up inside him again.
By the end of the day, Arthur stopped behind the back alley of Ha-Ha's Talent Booking, thinking of it as the perfect place to release all of his anger and frustration in private. It was raining a bit, a light drizzle. His hood was down, but he wasn't worried about the water falling down from the sky. He was more upset with how he was talked down today by his boss. He was scolded for something he didn't do. He told Hoyt the truth. Why didn't he believe him? He was furious, outraged. He felt like slamming his head against a wall. He walked halfway down the alley where no one could see him. All the pent-up rage and frustration he took out on a dumpster and released a wild animal inside him, something that possessed him to loose control and reach his breaking point. Arthur grunted with each thrust as he stomped and kicked the side of the dumpster. Finally, he collapsed to the ground. Arthur sat there on the ground, hugging his knees to his chest. He didn't care that money was being taken away from him, though it helped a lot. What upset him more than anything was that his boss didn't believe his side of the story. All because he had a mental illness. It wasn't Arthur's fault he had a mental illness. He didn't ask to be born the way he was. All he ever wanted was a little sympathy. Nobody gave it to him.