I have over 50 reviews! I'm immersed in a ball of fuzzy joy!
Elizabeth Tudor and Lauralot: Exactly. Vampires do not get the respect they deserve, and a huge amount of blame rests with Meyer.
SendMoreParamedics: I'm glad I'm providing a service and feeding your brain useless pop culture references.
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The ideal vehicle, a white, over-sized, made-in-America pickup truck, turned out too good to be true. Crane put his hand on the driver's side door, only to have at least 90 pounds of snarling German Shepherd throw itself against the window. Far better than any burglar alarm, the dog would tear any would-be car thief to shreds. The Scarecrow shouted obscenities at the dog, which only made the mutt angrier. It gnashed it fangs and bit at the window. When Crane realized the dog was actually putting cracks in the glass, he decided to stop antagonizing it and get the hell out of there.
Not far from the pick-up and its possessive passenger, Crane spotted an SUV with more than enough space for an entire football team, plus coach and trainer. He actually got as far as opening the door this time. As soon as he did, a feminine voice shouted from the back.
"What the hell are you doing? This isn't your car! Jesus Christ, what do you have on your head?"
Crane looked back and noticed a blonde girl, an ear-bud dangling from one ear. Even at this distance, he could hear the rap music she had been listening to.
"I'm the Scarecrow."
"I don't care if you're the Real Slim Shady! Get out of here!" The girl demanded.
The Scarecrow retreated without another word. He was not going to wrestle with a teenage wildcat. Especially not one with such a bad attitude. He had been clawed by women with acrylic nails before, and had no desire to repeat the experience.
Wasn't there one car in this entire parking lot that didn't have an abandoned dog or kid in it? Crane lugged his cart, piled high with a pyramid of groceries, over to another SUV. This one was mercifully empty. Unfortunately, it was also locked.
There were two options: break the window and open the door, or forget about it and find a car owned by someone more negligent or naive. The parking lot was expansive, but Crane had suffered enough bad luck. He turned his head to avoid any shattering glass, forgetting his mask would also offer at least marginal protection, and elbowed the window.
The only thing that broke was the Scarecrow's elbow. He cursed, kicked the car door, and set off the alarm. The car began to emit terrible peeping sounds. Still swearing, Crane kicked the evil vehicle again. Now it felt like his toes were broken, as well.
Limping now, and cradling his right arm, the Scarecrow gave up on the SUV. He hobbled a few cars down, contemptuously let his cart strike a tiny Volkswagen, and arrived at a purple pickup. He had never, as far as he could recall, ever seen a purple pickup. The truck made no attempt at violet, or indigo. It was proudly, staunchly, flag-wavingly purple.
"Fascinating driver, I'm sure. Either a very masculine woman, or queerer than a three dollar bill." Crane said.
Whoever the driver was, they weren't smart enough to lock their doors or to own a beast of an attack dog. Crane, with only a little help from his dominant right hand, haphazardly threw the groceries into the back of the truck. Since he was still able to at least move his elbow, he probably hadn't broken it, which was a relief. He knew how to pop in a dislocated shoulder, knew how to pass out as soon as the shoulder was back in place, and knew how to steal prescription medication to deal with the lingering pain. When it came to how to fix a broken elbow, though, the Scarecrow came up mostly blank.
Once the cart was empty, Crane set it free. He was not going to walk an extra ten feet to the cart corral. He wanted the runaway cart to scratch up the side of someone's car.
The driver, asides from having questionable color judgment, was also very clean. There were no cigarette butts, fast food wrappers, bloodstains, or little baggies filled with various pills. During his jaunts as a car-thief, Crane had encountered all manner of nasty things in the stolen vehicles.
Half of the Gotham populace probably knew how to hotwire a car. For all Crane knew, they taught it in schools now. He desperately wished he had a screwdriver; that would have made the process so much easier. Prying off the ignition cover with nothing but his bare hands and nearly nonexistent fingernails was going to be a pain.
Six minutes later, the ignition wires were clumsily mated, the engine was rumbling, and the Scarecrow was outside, screaming and kicking nearby vehicles. While twisting the wires together, he had received his third nasty shock of the day. His fingers tingled and he didn't trust his stupid hands to drive a car until they recovered. Abusing the cars that had the great misfortune of being parked near him wasn't helping his hands feel any less pins-and-needles and neither was the shouting and swearing. On any normal night, a maniac shrieking out in the parking lot like an urban banshee would have gotten quite a bit of attention. Tonight, however, thanks to the fear toxin, screams were the norm.
Speaking of screaming, some of the people, both the poisoned and the lucky, had managed to find their way outside. While Crane broke the tail light on a moderately-priced sedan, a group of panicked shoppers ran by. The Scarecrow watched them go, and then did a double-take. By God, the greeter, probably 95 years old and as bald as the day he was born, was leading the pack! He should have been gently rocking on the porch of a Floridian retirement home, and here he was stampeding through a Gotham parking lot.
"Wiley old bastard." Crane said, though not without some admiration. He doubted if he'd ever live to see retirement age, let alone nearly a century of life. He certainly wouldn't live to see next week, not in one whole piece at least, if he didn't get a move on with those groceries. The ice cream was melting while he ruminated on speedy geezers.
The Scarecrow returned to his hijacked pickup truck. He climbed into the seat, slammed the door, and buckled his seat belt. He quickly adjusted the seat, since he found his knees crushed against the steering wheel by the seat's current position. Crane took a peek at the rear-view mirror, not wanting his first act in the stolen truck to be mowing down three generations of a family. The view was clear, except for a man obviously under the effects of the fear toxin. He was attempting to fight off the air, and his expression suggested he was being pursued by something covered in horns and spikes. The Scarecrow backed up slowly, making sure he didn't whack the hallucinating man. He did like the truck, and didn't want it smeared with the blood of the temporarily insane.
The mask was a bit of a hindrance when driving, and made merging into busy traffic a daredevil act. Crane didn't want to remove it, but he needed to regain his peripheral vision. With obvious reluctance, the Scarecrow placed his mask on the passenger's seat. Before he was totally aware of what he was doing, Crane reached over to grab the passenger's seat belt. Then he realized that he was riding with a frightful scrap of burlap, not a human who needed the belt's protection. The Scarecrow didn't know whether to be amused or mortified.
Walking over to the store had taken about 15 minutes. As long as the police hadn't set up any barricades, or no frightened shoppers had been squashed on the road, Crane surmised he could be back home in ten minutes, depending on traffic. He'd have to figure out where to dispose of the stolen car later. The river was always a good option; it was so polluted, nothing living except for maybe Killer Croc would care if a new automobile sunk to the bottom.
The endless stream of cars finally parted long enough for Crane to gun the engine and get the pickup caught in the flow. He stayed with the traffic for two minutes, before making a poorly timed left-hand turn. A van, doubtlessly full of innocent children and an over-worked soccer mom, nearly knocked the bumper off his pickup. A flurry of horns, swear words beginning with 'f' or 'mother', and rude gestures followed the Scarecrow.
Crane had hardly turned onto the narrower street when three police cruisers, lights blazing and sirens blaring, blew past him. He was now infinitely thankful he had removed the mask when he did. With his luck, one of the cops would have been observant despite the speed they were traveling at, and lighted upon the fact the man coming toward them happened to be wearing the Scarecrow's disguise. After all, not all of Gotham's finest could be trigger-happy flunkies. One or two of them had to have a brain, or at least decent vision.
The truck rolled past the Quick Mart, home of ten ice cream flavors that all tasted the same: toxic and inedible. To Crane's surprise, there was quite a crowd gathered around, everyone holding cones or cups of ice cream. It was amazing that no one was on the ground, writhing or vomiting up his intestines.
It was time for a little more fun, Crane decided. He rolled down the window, slowed the truck down to an inchworm's crawl, and yelled, "Don't eat that! You'll get E-coli and spend the next four days on the toilet! Trust me, I know."
Another panicked stampede. Absolutely beautiful. Crane laughed madly, nearly losing control of the pickup. He watched one man, likely a professional wrestler or hit man judging by the ripped shirt and upper arm tattoos, throw his ice cream cone at the window of the convenience store. Two kids had their snacks yanked from their hands by their desperate mother, who threw the Styrofoam dishes on the ground and urged her children back to the family car.
A few minutes later, the Scarecrow pulled into the driveway of his house. He noticed that all the windows were still wide open. There wasn't any smoke he could see, and no unfortunate soul was hanging like a piñata from the stunted maple in the front yard, so Crane surmised the Joker had behaved himself or at least limited the destruction. That was almost a miraculous occurrence.
Bud and Lou heard the rumble of the pickup truck's engine long before Harley or the Joker did. The two hyenas crowded the front door, yipping and wagging their tails. The Joker looked on with undisguised disdain.
"They love Spooky more than they love me." He complained.
"You're probably right, Mister J. Maybe it's 'cause of that time you threw me out and forgot to feed them for five days and they were all skinny by the time I got back." Harley said.
"I tried to feed them. They growled at me and almost ate me." The clown replied.
"That's 'cause they were hungry, Puddin'. Really hungry. You can't even go a day without food before you turn into a big baby." Harley said.
"I am not a big baby!"
"Boo-hoo! I'm Mister J, and if I don't get some food right now, I'm gonna shrivel up and die! Harley, feed me! Lou, feed me! Professor Crane, feed me!"
"Harley…"
Harley sighed. "And here I thought you had a sense of humor."
Before the Joker and Harley could get into a spat that almost certainly would end with her locked outside and miserable, Crane opened the front door. Bud and Lou were instantly on him, jumping up and down, pawing at him, and trying to lick him. With effort, the Scarecrow held the eager mutts off long enough to slip inside.
"It took you long enough, Johnny." The Joker said. "Did you stop at the comic book store on the way home?"
"No, I planted chaos in two different locations, frightened young children, and re-established my reputation. It was all quite productive. I'm sure I'll make the headlines tomorrow. If the television wasn't as bullet-riddled as Kabul, we could all enjoy my exploits on the news." Crane said smugly.
The Scarecrow walked past the Joker, the hyenas bouncing along at his heels. He headed into the living room and flopped down on the couch.
"Hey, Spooky, you've still got to carry the food inside. I'm not in the mood for a picnic." The Joker said.
"My debt is repaid. You never said anything about actually putting the groceries away. If you don't want the New York Fudge Party, or whatever the hell it is, to melt, I suggest you bring in the bags. Oh yes, they're all plastic bags, so make sure they get recycled. You wouldn't want Red to get upset." The Scarecrow replied.
The Joker's hands snapped into fists. The nerve of the spineless sack of straw! If he wasn't so weak from hunger and lack of sugar and caffeine, he'd do something awful! What exactly that was, he'd need a minute or two to puzzle out. The cream-filled-cake deficiency he was currently suffering was obviously starting to slow his brain and his creative processes.
"You're going to be sorry, Mop Man." The Clown Prince warned.
"Same old story, same old song and dance. Fetch your ice cream and leave me in peace." Crane said. He dismissed the Joker with a wave of his hand.
Harley was all ready outside, in the bed of the pickup. The Joker, his arms crossed like those of a petulant child who isn't getting his way, glared at the truck. Though he was loath to admit it, he liked the stolen truck. Its peculiar shade of purple was nearly perfect for a clown-themed vehicle of mass destruction. All it needed was a few bright green stripes, a painted grin on its grill, and a grenade launcher or other piece of pilfered Army equipment. With a little work, the pickup could be twice as mean as Christine.
"Where's my Ben and Jerry's, Harley-girl? I need some caramel swirls and cookie pieces right now." The Joker whined.
"Mister J, there's a gazillion bags here. You gotta be patient." Harley replied.
The Joker was patient, for about three seconds. Maybe for a fruit fly, which only had 24 hours to live, mate, and come to peace with the universe before it died, three seconds was a long time. For a human being, it wasn't. Harley quickly got tired of her precious Mister J and his impatient Thumper foot.
"Puddin', I love you and all that jazz, but if you don't sit still, I'm gonna hit you with this cream pie. That'd be a real shame, 'cause this is a tasty-lookin' pie." The harlequin said.
"Fine, threaten to ruin a perfectly nice pie. Shove over, Blondie-Bear. I need my daily allowance of frozen moo juice, and you're too slow." The Joker said. He climbed into the truck, knocking out a bag full of nachos and chips as he did.
Harley saw the nachos spill from the bag. She clapped her hands excitedly. "Yeah, I got nachos! I wonder if there's any salsa. I think I put that on my list."
"And you asked Santa for an okapi last Christmas, but he didn't bring it. You can't expect to get everything you want. Only I'm that privileged." The Joker said.
Harley might have had a few sharp-tongued retorts about how often the Joker got the exact opposite of what he wanted, but she was too enamored with her tortilla chips. She pulled the bag open, forgoing the salsa for now, and stuffed both her own face and the drooling muzzles of her Babies. One benefit of having a human matriarch, instead of the natural hyena, was a very interesting diet.
"Who loves nachos? We do! Come on, Bud and Lou, spell it out! N-A-C-H-O-S!" Harley cheered, jumping around and waving invisible pom-poms.
While Harley pranced around like a show pony, the Joker was beginning to get irate. He had torn though quite a few bags, and was beginning to notice something. Johnny had screwed it up!
The Joker might have been able to forgive a missed item here or there. After all, the Scarecrow didn't have any brains; anybody who watched The Wizard of Oz knew that. What the clown found, though, was far beyond his limited capacity to pardon. It seemed Spooky had neglected half the list. To add to the criminality of it, he had the nerve to get all sorts of disgusting sugar-free food. Who in their right, or wrong, mind wanted chocolate flavored with some weird, ten-syllable long artificial sweetener? Not the Joker, that was for certain!
There was only one chance for redemption: the ice cream. Maybe, if Mop Man got all six flavors, and they weren't melted down into drippy goo, the Joker would show the Scarecrow some mercy. If there was only five kinds, or he had gotten that fruity low fat sorbet, the Joker was going to start removing body parts there were no replacements for.
Underneath a bag crammed to bursting with various kinds of muffins, the Joker found his ice cream. The first pint he pulled out was Chocolate Therapy. Harley would be overjoyed, and would doubtlessly fall asleep with ice cream all over her lips, chin, nose, and clothes. The next tub was that fruity low fat sorbet the Joker hated so badly. Johnny's fate was sealed.
Of the six flavors the Joker had demanded, he received only three. That was a terrible return, a flunking grade, a letdown, an offense before God and man alike. To make matters worse, the three successes weren't even the Joker's favorite of the bunch. There was no New York Super Fudge Chunk, or even a spoonful of Chunky Monkey to be had.
"That straw-brained, useless, soon-to-be-dead nerd!" The Clown Prince shouted.
"Mister J, maybe you should just enjoy the food you have. Look, he got cookies with sprinkles. I know you want some. Oh, this cookie has all green sprinkles. It's practically got your name on it!" Harley said.
The Joker pretended Harley wasn't there. He punted the berry sorbet like a football. The pint went spinning through the air and crash landed on the roof with a thud.
Crane, stretched out on the sofa, was startled out of his mildly relaxed state by an odd noise. It sounded like something had just crashed into the roof. What was it: an errant baseball, a meteor, a fallen radioactive satellite?
"I bet the sky is falling. Yes, that must be it. I finally find a little bit of joy, so the world's got to end." The Scarecrow said. He shrugged his shoulders in total apathy. If the fiery, mountain-leveling apocalypse his nutter of a grandmother had always loved preaching about was finally going to happen, there was no use getting worked up over it.
There was, however, quite a lot to get worked up over when the Joker kicked the front door open. Crane sat bolt upright, all thoughts about quietly enduring Armageddon gone. He didn't mind getting smote down by a lunatic in the sky who thought it was great fun to have three religions kill in his name, but the Scarecrow was not ready to be murdered on the sofa.
"Hey, Johnny, guess what?" The Clown Prince said.
"Uh."
"Wrong. I'm going to teach you a little lesson about Mentos and Diet Coke. And eyeballs."
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Author's Notes: The Real Slim Shady is another name for the rapper Eminem.
Kabul is the capital city of Afghanistan. As an American, I'm pretty embarrassed over how many people don't know this.
Christine is the killer car from the novel written by whom else but Stephen King.
Thumper was a rabbit from Bambi whose back leg was prone to thump when he got excited.
Blondie-Bear was Harmony's nickname for Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
An okapi is a jungle dwelling animal with the striped hindquarters of a zebra, a dark brown body, and a long neck and tongue like a giraffe. It's awesome.