CHAPTER 3 – CHEAP LAUGHS
The Joker had laughed himself to sleep. He had no trouble sleeping at night, no sirree. And he didn't even have trouble sleeping in Arkham Asylum. Arkham was a dump, but it wasn't all that bad. He found plenty of ways to entertain himself. And besides, his stays never seemed to last too long.
He was woken up early the next morning by the sound of his door opening. Two hulking apes came into the cell, armed with tasers. Boy, those tasers sure made fun toys. He'd love to grab one of them and stick it in somebody's eyeball. Electro-shock therapy, ha ha!
"Up against the wall, Joker", said one of the brutes, "You know the routine."
"Why yes I do, Harry," said The Joker. He tried to make sure he knew the names of all the members of staff. Plenty of ways to entertain yourself.
The Joker, still in his straitjacket, pulled himself up onto his feet and shambled up to the back wall. The two muscleheads lumbered forward. He was fascinated by the fact that their knuckles came close to literally dragging across the floor. They were like walking cartoon characters. He let out a little chuckle.
The second ape (this one was called Jeff) took out a chain from his belt. While Harry watched The Joker, Jeff attached one end of the chain to a hoop on the back wall, and the other end to a collar fastened around The Joker's neck.
"Sit down," grumbled Jeff.
"Say please, Jeffrey," replied The Joker, his malicious grin growing wider.
There was a moment of tense silence, as Jeff and Harry exchanged glances.
"Sit down, please," Jeff finally grunted.
"Now, we're getting somewhere," laughed The Joker, "No need to forget our manners."
The Joker sat down cross-legged. He'd mastered the art of doing this while in a straitjacket, which is harder than it sounds. He remembered the first time he'd tried it, heh heh, when he wobbled, ha ha, and fell flat on his behind!
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee immediately got their tasers ready, but The Joker smiled reassuringly.
"Don't worry - I just had a funny thought. I'm ready for my breakfast now."
While Jeff stood ready with the taser, Harry freed The Joker from his straitjacket. Then the two apes shambled across to the cell entrance, and flanked each side of the door. They gave a signal to someone outside. Then, a smaller, younger man entered holding a tray, with some toast and milk in a plastic cup.
"You must be new here...Greg," said The Joker, glancing at the rookie guard's name-tag, "I've not seen you around before."
Greg slowly approached The Joker, who noticed that, as he placed the tray down on the floor, his hands were shaking. He let out a sudden burst of laughter, almost causing the kid to knock over the tray.
"Ah, you're nervous. Don't worry: they're all nervous the first time! HAHAHAHAHA! But I know something that will make you feel better. I'm just...dying to tell someone. I have discovered the true identity of Batman."
Greg looked over his shoulder, then back at the man he'd read about, been scared of, but had never seen in person until today.
"Who...who is he?" Greg choked out.
The Joker laughed again.
"Come closer, and I'll whisper it to you..."
The rest seemed to happen in slow motion. Harry and Jeff both shouted "NO!" at the same time as Greg leaned in towards The Joker. But it was too late. The Joker, moving as quickly as a flash of lightning, lunged forward, biting down into the rookie's ear. The kid began letting out a high-pitched scream of agony. Jeff tried pulling Greg away, while Harry thrust the taser into Joker's ribs, charging him full of electricity. But he didn't let go of his terrier-like grip. Not until he had bitten clean through the ear.
Jeff rushed the sobbing Greg out of the cell, off to the infirmary. Meanwhile, Harry pinned the stunned madman to the floor, placing handcuffs on him until they could get him sedated and back in the straitjacket. The Joker spat out the ear, laughing as it landed right in his cup of milk.
"Do you think I can make it turn to cheese? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!"
Plenty of ways to entertain yourself...
…
A few hours later, and The Joker was glad to be out of his cell. Oh, they'd all been rather annoyed about the eerie thing he'd done to Greg. Eerie, ear-ey, ha! Hee hee, but they'd come to expect things like that from him now. Maybe he should try and act sane just to throw them off. Now that would be a hoot!
But he was out of his cell, and in one of Arkham's small interview rooms. Out of all the activities in Arkham, there was nothing he loved more than this. The periodical psychiatric evaluation! Oh, The Joker had a great time with these, running circles around those dunces. It was so hilarious, watching them struggle to try and understand him. And he loved making it really hard for them. Once, he'd gone to a library and looked up the textbook definition of a sociopath. Then, when he was sent to Arkham, he just acted exactly like the book said a sociopath would at his psych evaluation. When he broke loose, he went to a different library (he'd slaughtered the entire staff of the last one) and looked up the textbook definition of a schizophrenic. Next time he was caught and sent for a psych evaluation, he acted like a textbook schizo, just to screw with the bigwigs who'd labelled him as a sociopath. Oh, what fun!
The Joker was above being categorized, being understood, especially by these schmucks. He was a whole different kind of crazy! HA HA!
Now, some nerdy young doctor (they brought people in from the outside to run the evaluations) was asking him the mundane questions that were somehow supposed to cast light into the dark, nightmarish void of his mind.
"Okay...uh, Mr. Joker, could you tell me 10 words that begin with P?"
"Why certainly, doctor," said The Joker, "Pies, poison, psychotic, plague, puppies, pestilence, paranoia, pixies, piranhas and...day."
The doctor looked up from his notes.
"Day doesn't start with a P," he said.
"Well, mine usually does," replied the Joker, grinning deviously.
The doctor sighed, scribbling down something in his notes.
"What you writing, doc? Are you writing anything, or just drawing dirty pictures?"
The Joker laughed at the thought, while the doctor blushed. He fumbled through some things on the desk, and brought out a set of drawings.
"Now, Mr. Joker, I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your head when you look at these pictures."
The first picture was a dog.
"Goldfish," said The Joker.
Second picture - a tree.
"Adolf Hitler."
Third picture - a house.
"Me having sex with your mother," he said, nodding at one of the upper windows on the house, "In that room there."
The Joker threw his head back and burst into whooping laughter.
And the Joker didn't stop laughing until the highly entertaining session was brought to a premature end and he was escorted back to his cell. He could never get over how ridiculous those evaluations were. And he was supposed to be the mad one! Maybe he was sane, and it was everyone else that was nuts! Ha ha, now there's a thought!
But as much fun as he was having here, he was beginning to get bored. It was time to move on, get out of this dump, back out to the big wide world. They wanted to look into his head? Well, when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks right back at you baby, ha ha! Yes, he was going to give the world a little taste of what it was like in his head. It would be so much better if the outside world was more like the crazy little world that he ruled in his mind - it would certainly be a lot funnier!