The chilling air was one of the things I hated most about Gotham. It bit my cheeks red, and seemed to be ever constant, always followed by the smell of cigarettes. Or that may have been my friend Paula, who leaned her back against the red brick wall, and released a large lungful of smoke.
We were stood outside of the nightclub she worked at, in the alley so she could have that smoke break she most desperately needed, without being hollered at by the people waiting to get into the club. I didn't really mind that she smoked, my family always had, albeit I never got into it myself.
"Tell me why I smoke these things, Harl." she scoffed, inhaling the last of the cigarette, before dropping it and stomping it out. She was a tough faced young woman, and more than I could hope to be in street smarts, and a quick tongue.
I smirked. "Because you're an idiot." I joked, unmaliciously, and she gave a laugh.
"You right," she responded, pushing back her permed hair which replied by falling right back where it was. "We hardly getting pennies between the two of us, and here I am smoking it up."
I punched her lightly on the arm. "Don't say that, people will start thinking we're poor." I replied, grinning. The air blew harshly past us, drawing attention to the nicks in my pantyhose I had tried to fix with nail polish. In response, I pulled my black coat further around me.
She kissed her teeth. "Shiiiit you right. Far as they know, we got plenty, and we don't live in the Narrows." she fired back.
I nodded in encouragement. "Yeah, we live in the Old Gotham suburbs with those Waynes and the Elliots."
She winked at me. "Course we do, sister."
Before she could continue, Ken, one of her coworkers - a big, burly rough but kind sort of guy - exited into the alley through the side door. Paula seemed to already know what he was going to say before words even left his lips.
"Boss says you've had enough time for a smoke break, he needs you back inside." he grumbled, taking a cigarette from his back pocket and slotting it between his lips.
Paula rolled her eyes. "I'm sick of this damn job, the boss never gives me more than five minutes!" she hissed, folding her arms around her black uniformed body. "Can't he at least give me my reward for attracting a bunch of new customers?"
Ken chuckled to himself like he'd just heard a joke. "Don't kid yourself, it's chaotic enough in there as it is, with some of the staff taking to night off to go to those clown protests." he replied.
My eyes widened slightly. "Clown protests? Like those ones against the rich and everything?" I asked, pulling away from the brick wall I had been leaning on.
Ken nodded. "My cousin went out this morning with one of those plastic masks on with a bunch of his friends, and the fool's only seventeen. Now I get that the rich are assholes and everything, but he's gonna get his ass whooped, and then what do I tell my ma? That it's Thomas Wayne's fault?"
"I've always wanted to join a protest, maybe this is my time." Paula added, smirking.
I laughed. "If you go in there and start attacking cops, you're gonna look an even bigger clown then any of the guys in masks. Or even that clown killer."
Paula playfully smacked me on my side, and proceeded to remove a cigarette in order to smoke it. Ken caught this, and lighting his own, threw her a sharp glare. "Paula, get your ass in there before you get fucking fired, dayum." he laughed, gesturing with his hands.
She rolled her eyes once again, and put the smoke away. I gave her a grin, and slung my small handbag over my shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, Pauli." I told her, as she headed for the side door.
She quickly turned around, her dark hair following her movements. "See you, Harl, take care of yourself." she responded, before returning to the building.
I sighed, giving a leaving nod to Ken and receiving one in reply, and left the alley. The club was located in Burnley, whilst my apartment was a few blocks East on 35th street, but it was a calm enough night that I could walk. Of course Paula and I lived in the poor part of Gotham, but that's all we could really afford at this point in time.
We weren't people that hadn't made something of our lives, in fact we were dearly trying to - I was studying in the field of psychology, whilst Paula was in Geography, both at Gotham University. That had been were we'd met actually. Both of us were Gotham born and raised, and there was just something about this city that bred interesting people. Some good, but a lot of bad.
And something in me was just so drawn to those kind of people.
I walked the streets the way I'd memorised, but my eyes became more agitated as I saw they weren't as they usually were. There was the flickering of fires and cracked windows, though they were absent of people, like they had caused their madness and moved on. This part of town wasn't the best but I'd never seen it this bad, with shattered glass littering under every single shop window, the fronts bare of stock and valuables. The neon lights on the local strip club had even been trashed, and now lay on the stone ground, disfigured and vacant of light.
It was then I began to hear screams from a block across. Screams of pure rage, from people who were causing shit as opposed to being victims of it. In response, my hand roamed around my bag to check the pepper spray and flip knife was still there; if I was in Gotham, I couldn't be too careful. The streets were vacant, and so I was out in the open, I took the time to make sure I was covered up, and traded my black work heels for black flats. Buckled up so they wouldn't come off if I needed to run. Content at last, I continued on, and took glances in each shop as I past. Each one seemed worse than the last, though from the licking of the burning fires and the fairly untramppled glass, this looked to have taken place not very long ago.
The screams seemed to be getting closer, and so I clutched my bag and took up a sort of a jog. I knew the way back to my apartment perfectly well, albeit it seemed as the exact path to my apartment block was the one riots seemed to be occurring in. I could see them closer as I rounded a corner - several men and women were in small groups, some beating in shop windows with bats, some just yelling as causing as much harm to the world around them as possible. Most had those white and green clown masks on, ones I remembered my local corner shop selling for cheap after they heard about the clown riots at City Hall. I never saw the use for getting one.
The scene was grim as my eyes ran over the large neon signs that were getting pelted with rocks, and just sheerly the number of people raging. When I'd heard about the riots I'd assumed around four-hundred people would go, however I estimated around that many people in this street alone. What my luck was for walking into this, little to none.
I recognised one of the rioters as a woman from my apartment block, a black lady with a large Afro, who wore a clown mask around her neck. Regardless of feeling nervous, I approached her as she sent a firm kick into the window of a TV store.
"What's this about?" I asked her, on edge in case she tried to attack me. I wasn't rich so I was wasn't the source of the rioting, but I couldn't trust someone to harm someone else just to add to the chaos. I mean, they were attacking the neighbourhoods of Gotham, this would end up blowing up back in our faces rather than in the rich's faces.
She faltered when she saw me, but kicked the shop window once again and this time it smashed into shards. "Didn't you hear? That clown killer killed Murray Franklin!" she started, stepping through the place the glass used to be. "Everyone started going crazy so I thought I'd join in." Her hands clasped around a rather heavy TV set that was on display, and carried it back the way she came. "Now if you don't mind." She staggered past me with the TV, a smile on her face.
I watched her with still eyes before her words dawned on me - Murray Franklin, the guy whose show my dad used to watch every day after work, and repeat his dumb catchphrases, was dead. Murdered by the same clown guy that killed those three Wall Street guys a week back, which started these riots. There were still TV sets on display, and so I stood over the broken glass to turn one on. The glass crinkled under my sole, just as the set burst to life and revealed the a Gotham news station, which just happened to be playing the story.
"-Murray Franklin who was murdered on live television on his show earlier today by a guest, a man introduced as Joker. We have footage but viewers continue with discretion, the clip you are about to see may be upsetting." the news host introduced, a grey haired man with a clean shaven face and a suit.
The clip played and showed the same set up I remembered from when my father watched the show: the guest sat to the left of Murray, and to the right of the Doctor, on a plush padded seat. Murray on the other hand sat at a desk, on a slight height advantage to his guests. He usually had celebrities on, or simply people that had been in recent news, but the structure was always the same. The guest and the host would banter back and forth, but if the guest couldn't keep up the host would joke at their expense. Usually they were able to keep up, but it seemed as if this particular guest couldn't. The clip showed him sat there in his wine red suit, his face painted white, with blue diamonds around his eyes, and a red grin painted on. His own mouth was pulled down in a frown, and his dyed green hair fell around his face.
"It's been a rough few weeks, Murray." the guest laughed, putting on a voice and scrunching up his aged face. "Ever since I... killed those three Wall Street guys." He paused to let his eyes roll around the audience, waiting for a reaction, but still seeming unsure of whether he wanted to say it.
The audience seemed to hold a collective breath, as I imagined they looked at each other in confusion. There were murmurs, and Murray stared out into the crowd trying to formulate a response.
He settled on: "Okay I'm waiting for the punchline."
The guest changed his tone to a rather dark and dangerous one. "There is no punchline." he replied, lightly. "It isn't a joke."
Murray's face changed as he noticed the director make a gesture to signify he should wrap things up before things got too bad. Nevertheless he ignored him, and Murray's eyes drew fixed on the guest. The audience erupted in boos and jeers, and he sat forwards.
"You're serious aren't you, you're telling us you killed those three young men on the subway?"
"M'hmm."
"And why should we believe you?" Murray was sat forward even further, his mind flickering over how much recognition this could gain him in the media - he had a topic fresh in the news right on the seat next to him.
Joker shrugged playfully and grinned. "I've got nothing left to lose." He turned back to the audience. "Nothing can hurt me anymore." He left out a laugh that felt rather sad. "My life is nothing but a comedy."
The audience booed as he fell silent.
"Let me get this straight, you think killing those guys is funny?"
Joker nodded. "I do, and I'm tired of pretending it's not. Comedy is subjective, Murray, isn't that what they say? All of you, the system that knows so much, you decide what's right or wrong." He was addressing the crowd now. "The same way you decide what's funny or not."
"Get him off!" I heard someone call from the audience.
Murray ignored him, but was starting to feel he wasn't the one in power anymore. "Okay, I think I might understand that you did this to start a movement... to, er, become a symbol?"
The other man scoffed. "Come on, Murray, do I look like the kind of clown that could start a movement? I killed those guys because they were awful, everybody is awful these days. It's enough to make anyone crazy."
"Okay, so that's it - you're crazy, that's your defence for killing three young men?"
"Nah. They couldn't carry a tune to save their lives." Joker said this in a sort of song like speak, with a smirk on his lips. When the audience booed him, he rolled his eyes and let his head tip back. "Ugh why is everybody so upset about these guys? If it was me dying on the sidewalk you'd walk right over me, I pass you everyday and you don't notice me, but these guys what because Thomas Wayne went and cried about them on TV?"
"You have a problem with Thomas Wayne?"
"Yes I do. Have you seen what's its like out there Murray? Do you ever actually leave the studio? Everybody just yells and screams at each other, nobody's civil anymore!" His tone raised as he began to get agitated. "Nobody thinks what it's like to be the other guy. You think men like Thomas Wayne ever think what it's like to be someone like me? To be somebody but themselves? They don't. They think we'll just sit there and take it like good little boys, that we won't werewolf and go wild!"
Murray was fed up of the control being taken away from him, and so his aged face was stern. "You finished? I mean there's so much self pity, Arthur, you sound like you're making excuses for killing those young men. Not everybody, and I'll tell you this, not everyone is awful."
Joker's face was serious and cruel. "You're awful, Murray."
"I'm awful? Yeah, how am I awful?"
His voice was low. "Playing my video. Bringing me on the show. You just wanted to make fun of me." He was staring directly at the host with pure hatred. "You're just like the rest of them."
"You don't know the first thing about me pal. Look what happened because of what you did, what it lead to. There are riots out there, two policemen are in critical condition and you're laughing, someone was killed today because of what you did."
All the while Joker was laughing and nodding his head. "I know." He smiled to himself. "How about another joke, Murray?"
"No I think we've had enough of your jokes."
"What do you get when you cross-" He began to yell to keep his volume above Murray's. "-a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash?!
"Call the police." Murray muttered, unaware of the danger he might be in.
"You get what you fucking deserve!" Joker spat, whipping his pistol out in an instant and shooting Murray through the head. The bullet pushed out the back of his skull in an instant, and though the feed quickly shut off, I still caught the blood following it, and spraying onto the wooden wall behind him.
Watching the camera finally switch back to the news reporter, I realised my jaw was hanging open, and I abruptly shut my mouth. The man was so captivating that I had hardly paid attention to anything else but the TV screen, but I drew back now, my eyes wide and unable to regain focus. I finally came back to reality when I heard a crash behind me, and noticed there were people causing chaos all around me. Becoming conscious of myself I discreetly slipped out of the way, trying not to draw too much attention to myself, and trying to avoid their attacks on the city.
It succeeded for the most part, as I shuffled past many people, until I came to a split in the road. I screamed and quickly dived back as a police car drove in my direction, but was quickly combatted by an ambulance hurtling down the road ninety degrees to it, at full force. It sent the police car smacking to a halt, and the cops in the front hit the dashboard with a hard smack, most likely knocking them unconscious or killing them on impact. I stared at the wreck with wide eyes, until a taxi slammed into it as well, crooning off at an angle and landing upside down, the driver landing in a way that would seriously maim him.
Men climbed out of the ambulance wearing the white plastic clown masks, and hurried over to the back of the police car. The back windows were smashed, and so the men were able to lift the man inside the car out of the gap, careful not to cut him on the glass. I couldn't draw my eyes away, not even when I realised it was that Joker guy they were saving. In fact I drew closer, watching as they placed him on the hood of the police car. I stared at his unconscious face, relaxed, the red of his painted on brows and lips smudged from the crash. There was a gash on his forehead that now was dripping blood, and ran across his temple as he was laid flat.
His eyelids started to flutter, and I clutched my coat between my hands. People noticed him stirring and formed a crowd around the car, with me stuck right in the middle, leaving me unable to leave, albeit I didn't find myself wanting to leave. Joker sat up slowly, and looked around the crowd in confusion. Immediately people started to cheer and clap, and the longer it continued, the more the Joker's smile began to grow.
His dark eyes settled on me, and I froze. The cheering was loud in my ears but it was overpowered by my mind as it swirled and tried to rationally think. My eyes passed over his very human features, just as his fingers painted a large grin from the edges of his mouth, painted with his own crimson blood.
I let out a short laugh in disbelief. He began to dance to the cheers of the audience, and I felt myself being pulled along with him. I was enveloped by the cries of people around me, but also by this strange criminal, as he swayed and smiled at me. His hands were bloody I noticed, as he squatted down on the hood of the car, and stared at me. A moment later he touched his fingers to his mouth, and extended them to me, stopping centimetres before my face. Without even thinking, I moved my face closer so he could touch me. It felt like a million neurones firing as they danced over my face, and I gawked back at him, trying to comprehend if this was really going on.
He finished and grinned at the sight of me. "What's your name?" he asked, his voice calm and playful.
I couldn't help myself. "Harleen Quinzel." I murmured, grinning dumbly.
He paused. "Harley Quinzel, Harley Quinn, harlequin. Joker and his harlequin, isn't that just a coincidence?" he started, looking over me.
I gave him a shy smile. "Yeah... it really is."