Joker
Story One: The Start of a Joke
Chapter Two: Years Unspent
Chapter Two of my favourite story written to date. This one delves a little bit more into the goings on of Arkham Asylum and some of the reasons why all of this craziness is happening. I have had fun fleshing out these ideas which have only faded on paper after sitting on a shelf for several years. This is a project I have enjoyed returning to and I hope you enjoy reading.
"Patient Interview Six." The rusted door creaked open, revealing the small boy and the sentry guarding him, one hand clasped over his shoulder. "Come in, sit down." J was guided to the chair and seated by the guard. The man stood back in a corner but Strange turned to him. "Leave us." The guard obliged and left the room. Strange leaned back in his chair, hands clutching each other professionally, glasses shining in the half-light. "Have you had dreams?"
J nodded.
"They are worsening?"
J nodded.
"How so?"
J didn't respond.
"You will answer me." Strange forcefully urged.
"It hurt." Said J.
"Good. You're opening up. I was beginning to wonder if we'd lost you since...last week's incident. Your mind is a very important thing, not only to myself, but especially to you." Strange had obviously not meant that entirely, neither did he expect J to understand anything he said. "You seem to have made a comrade to help you live and learn from your mistakes. Personally, I predicted nothing of the sort but this only makes this study all the more interesting." Strange moved his notes aside, clearing his throat. "How have you found general population?"
"Ok." The boy murmured.
"You appear to be healing up nicely. Good. I'm sure you will find today's activities to your liking." He leaned in closer. "We're all watching you very closely."
The laundry room was long and filled with lots of machinery. Already the prisoners were working away at various bits of equipment or folding clothes. Some of them glanced at J as he walked past, but none of them approached him while Garber was at his side. "What we do here is wash, dry and fold the asylum's laundry." He explained. "I don't think the warden knows, but if he does he's only letting Strange do this because he's a tight-arse." Garber laughed a little at his own joke, but stopped when he realised J wasn't reacting at all. "First; the water gets boiled by our fine furnace of the fair lady. It stays there until it gets piping hot, steam and all." It wasn't exactly a furnace, more a fireplace with a small vent hanging over it to carry the steam away. Next, he pointed to a long trough down the far side of the room. "That there is where we wash the clothes by hand. You get your piece of soap and...and...whatever this thing is." He was holding a board with gaps in the middle. He shrugged and dropped it back into the soapy water. "I never bothered to learn its name. Then we take 'em over to this dryer." Garber moved J over to a weird machine with many different layers. "First, we reel the clothes through this squeeze-y thing which gets all the excess water out. Then it goes into this barrel which whips the clothes around until they're dry. You pull 'em out and chuck them on this." He patted the lid of one of the machines. "This is the linen press. It steams the dry clothes until they are neat and flat. Once they are, you bring the clothes over here to this table and fold them, stack them and a few of us stay behind to pack them away. Any questions?"
"What do I do?" asked J.
"Wash duty then fold." Answered Garber immediately. "Nothing in between. Have fun and remember that I'm always watching you." He ruffled J's hair and left him at the trough of soapy water. Watching the other prisoners as they cleaned their own clothes, J quickly learned his own technique. After a time, he felt a warm sensation in his stomach. His face stretched out into an expression he had never felt before. Even the people around him were lighter than before. Some of the men at the trough splashed water his way and he would splash it back. Before he knew it, the day was over and he was back in his cell, all alone once again. But every day after, he went back to the laundry and smiled with his friends. The days turned into weeks and a month had gone by faster than ever before. The prisoners showed him how to whistle, how to click his fingers and even sing a song.
"Well there she was, just a-walkin' down the street singin'"
"Doo-wah-diddy diddy-dum diddy-doo."
"Snappin' her fingers and shufflin' her feet singin'."
"Doo-wah-diddy diddy-dum diddy-doo."
"She looks good."
"She looks good."
"She looks fine."
"She looks fine."
"She looks good, she looks fine and I nearly lost my mind." Chorused the laundry crew. They all burst out into laughter, all of them happy and content. J knew now what it was like to have a bit of joy in his life as he laughed along with the men around him. This was happiness.
"Man, this kid is on fire!" chuckled Olufsen. "He catches on quick."
"J ain't no world class singer yet." Said Garber.
"Oh, and I suppose you think you got Frank Sinatra going on here." Retorted Hatzi. "Whoa, whoa little man." He said, straightening out a shirt J was folding. "You gotta make sure there's no dent in this shit."
"Yeah." Agreed Olufsen. "If Strange sees that, he'll go mental."
"Like he isn't already there." Joked Kline. "What happened to the last guy?"
"Strange took him down to his special vault." Explained Olufsen. "All he did was talk to the guy. Next time I saw him, the man was eating his own-"
"Whoa, not in front of the kid." Stopped Garber.
"Frankly, what he's doing to the little man here is sick." Continued Olufsen. "This is no place for a kid."
"Just be thankful he's in here with us and not-" Kline whistled. "It could have all been much worse." The day went on just like any other in the laundry; slowly, as the workload declined, the prisoners left until only J and Garber were left to pack away the clothes into storage.
"You've left an impression on those guys, you know." Said Garber. "They like ya."
"Do you like me?" asked J.
"Of course."
"Why do they only like me now?"
"They just didn't know you like I do." Answered Garber. "Making friends is a good thing here; the more friends you have, well...they're just good to have. They're the next best thing to a family."
"What's a family?" The question so shocked Garber that he didn't know what to say. "A family is..." he began, trying to pick his words delicately. "Well, you got a mother and a father and they have children."
"Did you have children?" asked J. It's not that Garber couldn't answer this question, it's that he almost didn't want to. He was thankful when Hatzi returned, out of breath.
"Garber, need your help!" he called. "Trig and Murrell are in a tussle in the rec area and it's getting bloody."
"Damn! J, stay here!" ordered Garber. He and Hatzi ran from the laundry, leaving J to put away the clothes. He didn't mind, he'd seen the others do it all the time. It was easy enough and pretty soon, all the clothes were tucked neatly away.
"Nice digs you got here." Came a hauntingly grating voice from the door. Apone strode inside, closing the door behind him. "This is where you go to get away from me? Now we got this whole room to ourselves." J backed up against the wall, moving along it, trying desperately to feel for another exit, but he knew there was none. "Don't be going mental on me." He said in a disturbingly calm voice. Apone's eyes stared longingly at J and this scared him. J started throwing soap at him but they just bounced harmlessly away. "Whatcha tryin' to do? Clean me to death? Come here!" Apone leapt for J, but he was too quick. J ran for the door. Just as his hand was inches away, Apone wrapped his arm around his stomach and pulled him over to a linen press. J struggled but the huge bulk was too strong. "That's it." He said. "Stay calm. It'll all be over soon." J was bent over just above the searing heat of the linen press. "You stop me, you get hurt more than you need to." Warned Apone. J heard him unzipping his trousers and feared what would happen next. With a last ditch effort, J reached up and slammed the boiling lid of the linen press, smashing it into Apone's bald head and searing his skin. Released from his grasp, J ran from the room and down the hall straight into another man. J didn't care who it was, he hugged them for dear life. He just wanted them to make Apone go away. He arrived a few seconds later, blaring and shouting; "Wherever you are I'll-" but he stopped.
"You'll what, Apone?" asked Clemens. It was he whom J had run into. Standing behind him were two guards, each armed with a cattle prod. "I'm waiting."
"Nothin'." Said Apone pitifully. "I wasn't doing anything."
"Yes, well I hope you realise that actions speak louder than words and from what I can tell, you were doing something." He turned back to one of the guards. "See that the prisoner gets escorted straight into his cell and locked tightly inside."
"Yes, sir." The guard shoved Apone with the butt of his stick. "Move it." Clemens knelt down to J's level.
He was about to return a comforting hug when J said two words; "Thank you." They snapped Clemens back into the reality of the situation, why he was here and everything he was working for. As much as it broke his heart, Clemens pried J away from him and held his arms down at his sides.
"You're safe now." He assured simply.
"He'll be back, won't he?"
Clemens sighed; "Not if I can help it."
"Request denied." Strange leaned back into his chair, unmoving in posture and resolve. Clemens tried to regain the strength he had used to ask his previous question.
"A personal guard is all I am saying." He tried, though his words were hindered by a lack of air. "Even you can see that he doesn't have the same chances every other prisoner has in here. He has no way to defend himself; he doesn't understand this place like we do."
"We've been over this a hundred times." Strange pronounced loudly. "We knew from the beginning that the child would know nothing. You were fine with it then and you should be fine with it now."
"Then it was a theory. Now it's a reality." Fought back Clemens. "Haven't you gathered all the information you need? When will this end?" Strange stood up, rounding his table and towering over Clemens.
"You do realise, Mr. Clemens, that if I can make pregnant women from a hospital disappear without a trace that it would be no challenge to do the same with an insubordinate doctor!" he bellowed, flecks of spittle hitting Clemens' lenses.
"Is that a threat, Hugo?" he asked, returning Strange's unbreakable stare.
"I don't threaten, David." Mocked Strange. "I only tell you what to expect. No. Special. Treatment." He waited to see if Clemens retorted once more, but his mouth was sealed shut. Strange sat back down in his seat, victorious. "Have J taken to E.I. Cell Three." Clemens' eyes widened, but he dared not speak. "You will monitor and report back. Be thankful I don't order you to join him." With that, he spun around and blocked the doctor from his world. Clemens took J for a walk to a part of the compound he had never been to before. The doors of the cells looked different; armoured, bolted and more secure. Before he could ask where they were going, Clemens stopped at one of the hatches marked with a large painted three. The guard removed his shock stick and held it at the ready while Clemens opened the door. He basically pushed J inside.
"Wha-" Slam! The door was sealed shut. It was pitch black in here. Even his own cell had a small bit of light that cleaved the darkness, but this room didn't even have a flicker. All he could hear was his own intense breathing and his hand sticking to the door because of all the sweat. It was then that he became aware of the other set of lungs breathing almost as fast as he was. J wheeled around uselessly to try and see who else was there. "H-Hello?" he called quietly. No one answered. "Hello?" he tried a little louder.
"Hello?" mimed a sickly high voice. J froze. He figured as long as he didn't move, the other thing, whatever it was, couldn't find him. This was true, until the lights were turned on. J hadn't noticed that only several inches away was a man unlike any other; he was deathly thin, wearing a mask about his mouth that clamped his jaws tight and the raggedy white remains of trousers. He screamed horribly as the light stung his eyes, the pupils dilating immediately. In pain, he knocked J to the ground and crawled around the cell, barking and howling in blind madness. The child locked with him lay in the corner, scrunched tightly into a ball and screamed too, clear and concise pleas to be let out. Pleas that only fell on deaf ears. As the minutes slowly ticked into hours, this gave J time to think to himself. He thought about how the one good thing about his life here had been snatched away, why he was constantly experimented with and whether there was a better place away from these cold walls where he could be free.
Garber walked through the Recreation Hall, looking around at all the inmates working out on the various equipment lined up around the room. He had been searching all morning; the last time he saw J was yesterday when he left him in the laundry. When he had returned, there was no one there. All the clothes had been packed away so he naturally assumed that J had gone off to the Mess Hall for dinner. When J hadn't shown up there, Garber figured he was already back in his cell. Today, no sign whatsoever. "Hey, you guys seen J?" he asked a group of prisoners. They all shook their heads. Garber continued on to his mates from the laundry, all of them unaware as to J's whereabouts.
"I ain't seen him since I cleared out yesterday." Shrugged Olufsen.
"Same here." Dittoed Kline. Garber rounded on Hatzi, hitting him with a heavy stare.
"Hey, man." Defended Hatzi. "You know I haven't seen your boy. I was with you all afternoon. Don't go thinkin' I do anything to a kid."
"Right, okay." Agreed Garber.
"I've done some pretty shitty stuff in my life that I'm not proud of, but I never touched a kid."
"Fine!" shouted Garber, fed up with the constant defence. Realising it was uncalled for, he calmed himself down. "Sorry." He apologised. "I'm just worried about him, you know. He shouldn't be alone. Man, I should have stayed with him."
"Bro, it's cool. Strange probably has him tucked away somewhere, no biggie." Comforted Olufsen.
"Probably in an observation room or somethin'." Suggested Hatzi.
"Garber." Kline stepped forward. "This thing with J...does it have something to do with your own family?" Garber really wished Kline hadn't asked that question. "Is it, maybe you're looking out for this boy, because of what you did to get-"
"Bite your tongue." Warned Olufsen. "The man's personal business is his own damn personal business. If he don't wanna talk about it, he don't have to. We're all in here and there are reasons for all of us. Just cos some of us flaunt it, don't mean the rest are proud of it."
"Oh shit." Breathed Hatzi. He was worried, staring at the entrance to the Recreation Hall where Apone stood. The source of Hatzi's worry; the half grin plastered on his face and the burn mark on his bald top.
"There's only one reason why dead-bolt ever has a smile." Said Kline but Garber was already striding across the room towards the giant, halting before the goliath.
"Where is he?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"Who?" taunted Apone.
"You know goddamn well who. He's done everything in his power to stay away, I've seen to that, and now you wanted him all to yourself. You selfish piece of pathetic inhuman garbage." The other prisoners in the room slowly moved in closer, sensing an imminent confrontation. Even the guards above were changing posts to get a better view. Apone leant down to Garber's level.
"I didn't touch your boy."
"You're lying."
"Didn't have to touch him though, even though I really. Wanted. To." He leant back, the smile had grown. "Last I saw, Doc Clemens was taking the runt past my cell and to Extreme Isolation then I fell asleep, having sweet dreams 'bout having my hands on him. God only knows what they did to him over there...but I bet they enjoyed it as much as I would've." Apone chuckled in the face of Garber. Garber chuckled back, turning to see people were watching, then punching Apone in the gut to no effect except that his grin almost impossibly widened.
"We've had a tussle in the rec hall. Prisoner Garber was injured; he might need stitches." Informed Nurse Chaplain.
"Okay, send him in." said Clemens, putting down his Sudoku puzzle. He stood up and picked a few instruments off the table and turned to see Garber walking through the door. There was a large gash on his forehead and his left nostril was blocked with dry blood. As can be expected, he didn't look too pleased. "Hi there, Garber. Apone made a map of your face, I see-" Whack! Garber right hooked Clemens in the face, sending him to the floor.
"You son of a bitch!" he shouted.
"What the hell did I do?"
"Extreme Isolation! Those people are there for a reason and you let a kid take a walk into one of those cells?" Garber shook his hand which was throbbing from the punch. "There's a circle in hell for people like you and the man upstairs. No, I'm not talking about God. I'm talking about the man who's playing God with all of us! You're worse than he is; you promise you'll look out for him and you put him in the darkest hole you can find!"
"That's enough! Enough!" yelled Clemens, holding his own nose. He picked himself up off the floor and leant against an instrument tray. "Yes. Okay, I took him to E.I. on Strange's orders. He got frightened and after a couple of hours we let him out."
"Jesus." Breathed Garber. "Hours?"
"He just ran. The guard made sure he got out of E.I. and back to general population." He recalled. "Nothing bad happened. I promise." Garber pushed his hair back nervously, agitated.
"I haven't seen him. All morning." Clemens' face slowly changed from cool to uneasy. After a moment of thought, he stood up and left the room, followed swiftly by Garber. They quickly walked to the cell block and stopped at J. Clemens unlocked the door, opened it and was met with a terrible emptiness. No one was inside. "I told you," continued Garber, "I've looked everywhere. No sign of him." Clemens bit his finger in deep thought while Garber worriedly paced. "What are we gonna do?"
"You weren't here." Said Clemens.
"What?"
"You weren't here. You never noticed J wasn't present and you didn't come to me."
"Clemens, have you gone nutty on me?" asked Garber.
"If I go to Strange and tell him you've been nosing around, he'll get to J through you." Explained Clemens. "I don't want that to happen. No. I'll tell him I discovered the boy was missing."
"But what if Strange has him?"
"I'll check without raising suspicion, then I'll come back later and tell him J's gone." Clemens made Garber turn around. "You'd better get over to the rec hall. I'll take care of everything." Clemens had no doubt in his mind that Strange could not be fooled by the likes of him. He would give it a try, but the chances of success were slim. Despite the odds, Clemens tried to keep his concerns hidden when he entered Strange's office. "Excuse me, sir." He said politely.
"What is it?" responded Strange, in no mood to be interrupted.
"I was just wondering if you needed to supervise Subject J at the moment." Strange turned around in his seat, gazing at Clemens suspiciously.
"Why?" he asked simply, emphasising the h.
"I'd just like to do a blood screen. See if he's not caught something nasty like cholera." Clemens licked his dry lips. "It would be a shame to have to cut the experiment short." He added, keeping his gaze straight.
"Yes. Wouldn't it?" grinned Strange. "You may proceed." Clemens turned to exit but was stopped by;" But won't that be a little difficult seeing as Subject J is missing?" Clemens dropped his hand off the handle and turned around.
"I don't know what you mean." He said pitifully, already aware that his lies were already transparent.
"I'm not angry." Assured Strange in a not so assuring tone. "The boy brought this on himself."
"Wait. How long have you known?" asked Clemens.
"For a while now." He said simply.
"Why haven't you told us?"
"Because it's all part of the experiment." Strange affirmed. No sooner had he finished his sentence did the ringing of alarms blare above them.
"That's coming from the Asylum!" exclaimed Clemens, running from the room to reach the source. Strange merely looked up and settled back into his chair.
"My, how far you've gotten."
The corridor was in an uproar; dozens of people locked in their cells all barking at the young boy who had appeared so suddenly from nowhere. He himself had never seen a display such as this. Despite their imprisonment, J still felt threatened by the howling shadows from inside their cages. All the times he had heard his friends talk of getting 'up and out', he never expected that this was out. This horrible place, no better than his home. What was this world? He had a feeling that this wasn't all it was, all it could be. That's when it hit him; the light. It was different to the one he was used to. This one had warmth. When it touched his skin, he absorbed it with a great hunger, feasting on it. His face was bright with this bliss as he stared out at the true world. The one beyond the bars, outside the prison. All he wanted to do was to run out and have it all, but it was not to be so. Two men swept him up in their arms and carried him down the corridor, kicking and screaming the entire way back down. The last thing J saw that day were the two guards who had carried him to his cell, closing the door to the light. Even shrouded in darkness, J could still feel the glow of the light on his cheek, the warm touch that had filled him up. He would cling onto this memory, the idea of the outside. His first taste of the world had been a banquet of delight. The thing about a taste...it can start an incurable craving.
Thank you very much for reading Chapter Two. It was originally going to be longer, but I couldn't fit every aspect I wished into the story; e.g. the specific introduction to the Recreation Hall.
If you enjoyed this chapter, I know you will like the next one. This last paragraph should give you a hint as to what might take place next time, but I will try not to spoil it for you. Once again, thanks for reading and don't forget to review or PM me!