Disclaimer: Batman © DC comics
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The Heart
Part 03 —
love and heart lards
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"I see the sun
She dawns, she burns
She grows, she feeds
She spews, she dies
Above us
And builds the shadows
Which faces myself
She drives me
Into the black hole
The doors opens there
The skin opens there"
Soap&Skin — The Sun
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The three little pigs.
The fairytale was played on the radio on his way to Arkham Asylum, in between pop songs about sex and police broadcasts featuring corrupt politicians and dead mob members.
Fitting, Batman thinks as he walked up the stairs. He looks quite like the big bad wolf, with twigs and shurikens stuck in his outfit (after an unforeseen run-in with a joke of a teen ninja), eyes smouldering, mouth gritty with concrete dust. Snow creaks underneath his heavy boots. The clock is 05:03 and the sun isn't up yet. The intense heat during spring and summer had resulted in a freezing winter. Gotham is never kind.
But he must get the answers to his questions.
The doors to Arkham Asylum open, inviting in the winter wind.
"I'm here to see the Joker."
The awaiting guards feel it blow through their souls.
"He's not here anymore." A flaxen haired girl sat behind in the check in, so to speak; a small box with large windows and brighter furnishing than the outside. She thinks she's safe inside it. "I don't know anything. I really don't."
The first little pig built a house of straws.
Arkham poisons his soul. He goes over to her, tapping on the glass. Bulletproof. She still thinks he can get through it, somehow. Fear dawns on her. "Then who does?"
"Raymond! He does, he's a nurse y'see. 'E's just down the hall. Cleanup duty 'cos of some mishap." Her accent comes forth when she's anxious. "Real sorry sir."
He nods curtly and travels further into the madhouse. The guards make no move to stop him, it's too early in the morning for that. Batman touches the walls as he walk. Just beneath them rests the precious exterior of the mansion; cold, wet rock. If you lay your ear against them you'd hear running water, or perhaps even scratching, despite the plumbers and carpenters swearing that it wasn't possible. 'What exactly is buried in this place?'
"Fuck!"
Someone has shit themselves all over the floor. A few empty bottles of air fresheners lie beside the spot, resulting in a strong scent of chemical carnations with just a touch of urine. Raymond—or who Batman assumes is Raymond, anyway—is scrubbing at the floor on all fours, cursing every god known to man. "Goddamn loon can't control her goddamn bladder..."
"Raymond. I want to know Joker's location."
The man freezes. Looks up. Spit drools from his face from his little tirade, and he dries it with his shirt arm, scowling. "He isn't here anymore. We cured him. But you already know that, huh? We know you've installed surveillance cameras all over the place."
This little pig built a house of sticks.
"I want to know his current whereabouts."
"This is a hospital. Not a Roman coliseum where we throw people to the dogs. We rebuild ill people, not further breaking them with our fists." 'Not like you do, you madman.'
"This..." Thing. Beast. Being. It takes a moment to recall that the Joker is made of flesh and blood and muscle. Human, like the rest of them. "...man is responsible for hundreds of deaths. And you're releasing him into the streets."
"He was a very, very sick man."
Batman breathes through his nose like an angry bull. He's memorized each victim. Each direct consequence of his failures. "Yes. Very sick. So sick that he has, in fact, escaped from here a hundred times. What makes this time different?"
"We recreated him," Raymond says proudly. "You should've seen him. A changed man. This isn't a second chance! This is rebirth!" He looks like a mad dog. "We burnt it. Burnt it all. Files, documents, clothing, personal assets... Gary said something rustled as he set fire to the face."
"Tennyson, shut up." Jeremiah Arkham enters the scene. He speaks in a very neutral tone, arms folded behind his back. "Get lost or I'll have you to more scrubbing." Raymond's malevolent, prideful expression evaporates. Steam. Jeremiah is a harsh man, but there is a fire to him. "I'm sorry, Batman. Let's go to my office, shall we? There's a significant change of an IQ drop if we stay longer."
The office is a small room, with an oak desk and several shelves of the same materal. Books are piled up in there, mostly psychology, and some history books. Untitled documents are sorted after publishing date, along with a bundle of Psychology Today. No decorations on the walls safe for Jeremiah's framed doctorates and other certificates of merit. Very impersonal.
This little pig built a house of bricks.
He sits down in the leather chair.
"We are in dept to you. You're the one who, perhaps a bit brutishly, bring our patients back home." Home. It sounds like a punch line. "That is why, instead of throwing you out like a wild dog, I'll answer your demands to the best of my ability."
"A name, an address and a security number."
"Those aren't mine to give. Having a man dressed as a bat asking things he doesn't know about would do more damage than good. He's one of us now." 'Not your kin, not anymore.' "He's just a regular citizen."
This is what Batman hears:
The Joker can be anyone.
"We've cured him, Batman. The Joker is dead. Give him up."
Giving him up is the exact opposite thing of what Batman does.
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"...sir? Sir!"
Batman shakes his head. "Sorry, Alfred. What is it?" His gloved hands clutch the wheel. He speeds through Gotham City, manoeuvring through back allies.
"Commissioner Gordon has called. He requests your presence. I'll send you the coordination. The sun shouldn't be up before two hours, so don't worry about being sunburnt or becoming ash as the first sunray touches you." There is a worried note in the old butler's voice, masked with sarcasm. Lowest form of wit, highest form of intelligence. "He mentioned something about a ritualistic murder. Right up your alley."
"On my way there now."
Perhaps strange rituals can get Batman's head out of the gutter. All he imagines is running through the city and catch a normal looking citizen staring right at him, grinning shrewdly. The thought of not knowing—and having the information right under his nose—makes his blood run cold.
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"Alright alright, move away boys. If you see one of those fancy cars, tell me."
Commissioner Gordon does not mean to inspire hatred for organizations above their station, but it is the only way to get them to look the other way when Batman's around. Even a lawless vigilante isn't as bad as the stiff, arrogant guys from FBI. They have the biggest sticks up their asses and they only pull them out to beat people with it.
"Didn't think you'd show up," Gordon says and lights a cigarette.
Batman brushes past him. He does not flinch when he sees death staring back at him.
(His life is funded upon death, remember? Bang, bang, in an alley at night. Blood and pearls on the pavement. Mommy's dead, Daddy's dead, Brucie's dead—'I shall become a bat.')
It is a man, nailed to the wall. Muscular. Naked. Caucasian skin tone. Has a tattoo of a big breasted woman on his chest. What is left of his hair is blonde. It'd be easier to see hadn't someone used a whetstone to erase his face, leaving a chunk of blood and bone. Flowers decorate the ground; big bouquets with all sorts of species.
In memory of Charles is written bellow in green spray paint. PS: I let his lower parts remain untouched in case you want another illegitimate child, Diane.
"We managed to recognize him because of the tattoo and the name. He's an old acquaintance of the police. Dropped out high school, been hanging around causing trouble ever since. He must've pissed someone off good. A jealous boyfriend, perhaps? ...Batman?"
The vigilante is crouching on the ground, studying a bouquet. There is a cold feeling in his stomach. Green spray paint, flowers and mutilation. It points to someone who's supposed to be gone.
"You seem preoccupied."
Batman jumps. The commissioner means no harm, but he is standing closer than Batman prefers. His first instinct is to fall back; to growl and hiss like an aggressive, wounded animal, refusing to display weakness. But that wouldn't be fair. "Yes. Preoccupied." He's quiets for a moment. "I need you to stay silent about this. My relationship with Arkham is strained; I wouldn't want to further complicate it. ...The Joker is gone."
Gordon only freezes for a second. Then he sighs out cigarette smoke. "How long?"
"They won't tell me. And he hasn't escaped. They let him go."
Gordon's expression gains a sharp edge. "Why?"
"They say he's cured."
"Bullshit. They won't tell you where he is either, right? Idiots. Why is it that when the good doctors of Arkham do their tests, it's always innocents who die?" It takes a moment for him to cool off. He thinks of Barbara, laughing. He finishes his cigarette, lets it fall and takes it out with his shoe. "Do you think he did this?"
"Not sure."
"Well, contact me if you figure something out. I'll do the same."
Batman leaves without a goodbye. He's brought one of the bouquets with him, and after a quick scan, finds the flower shop where they're from. The chance is small, but perhaps it could lead him somewhere.
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It's 14:00 when he awakens that same day. He feels groggy and dehydrated; a strange lump struggling to come with terms of sentience. He'd almost smirked hadn't there been a certain heaviness to his head that predicts an upcoming headache.
Bruce—because that is what he is now, weak and unimportant, a shell for Batman to rest in—walks into the kitchen and takes two aspirins. That'd do. Alfred serves him eggs and sausage, summarizes the news, and his social plan. Bruce nods and listens. He does ("Unimportant, unimportant, unimportant!" Batman shrieks, pitch too off for regular humans to hear) things like calling up a girlfriend, offering apologies for standing her up again, and arranges a visit to an underground nightclub where people get too high or drunk to remember if he was there or not.
Then he briefly thinks about the Joker and the shell shatters.
Alfred pauses doing dishes. "A day off, Mr. Wayne. You're supposed to pick Alana up at eight. You promised so."
"I still got time for it," the man says quietly. Too quiet to be Bruce. Alfred frowns. His alliance lies primarily with Bruce Wayne, not the black beast that is Batman. But it is hard telling which is which, these days. "I have to check out this lead." 'No matter how small, or unimportant. It is still a clue.' Batman writhers. "Bye Alfred."
Alfred sighs and goes back to the dishes, scrubbing hard to get out any dirt he might've missed the first time.
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The flower shop is squeezed between an abandoned second hand shop and a café. It is a rare neighbourhood; rare as in low crime, mostly because it's full of cafés and old people. Grandma friendly, they call it. There's two competing day centres there, too.
Bruce knew he'd look out of place with an expensive car, so he takes a cab. "They got cheap flowers there," he mutters to get the cab driver to stop staring at him. He ceases after that. Sometimes the arrogant playboy persona is good to have.
DARLING BUDS, the sign says. Pink. There's a bee on a string above the letter i, going back and forth in the wind. Bruce drags the winter coat tighter around him, ruffling his hair a bit and putting on glasses. It seems to work for Superman, anyway.
Some old ladies send kisses at him. He smiles awkwardly, pretending to be shy. In truth, he feels nothing.
Bruce enters the shop. He enters a world of green.
The bell doesn't work. The bald man behind the counter doesn't look up at his entrance, and Bruce has to clear his throat numerous times before receiving a reaction. "Excuse me," he says kindly, "my fiancée got some flowers, and I wondered if you have more of the type, she really liked—"
"Get 'em over here."
Bruce lays them down on the counter.
"Yup, they're ours alright. They're pretty ordinarily though."
"Well my fiancée is anything but, so I guess she has them to balance herself out!" No smiles. Just a deadpanned look. Bruce shrugs, and asks, "Do you mind if I look around?"
"Suit yourself. Just don't touch anything."
Bruce moves through boutique. The floor is in solid stone. Even so, the brown patches of earth are visible. He moves past the summer smells. Flowers buzz around his head. There are a lot of orchids. The busy or the forgetful person's favourite flower. Pretty, colourful, and you don't have to water them a lot. But it isn't orchids he's here for. He moves into the darker parts, among cactuses and dying plants. 'Some flowers bloom dead,' he thinks, and feels something rustle through him. 'Why this rotten feeling?'
Suddenly, he crashes into someone. The person is smaller, and falls on his face, dropping something with a curse. His reflexes kick in and he slams his fist into whatever inanimate object that's being thrown his way.
Only to break a vase and have water splash all over him.
"Shit! I mean, I'm real sorry, listen, I got this apartment upstairs..."
Bruce wipes soaked hair away from his eyes. "Don't worry I—"
And then Batman recognizes the voice.