Thanks for all the reviews! You guys are fantastical.
Theatre-gypsy: Pun-ishment. Not bad, not bad at all!
SendMoreParamedics: I think if the Scarecrow knew about half the stuff that's popped up in fanfictions about him, he'd burn down the Internet. Don't ask me how. He'd find a way.
Well, I have my laptop back, but all my files are gone. I'm depressed over that. Oh well.
111111111111111111
"I want my mask."
"Keep your eyes on the road. I'm taking care of Spooky Junior right now, so you just watch where you're going. We don't want you hitting any blind pedestrians or old ladies." The Joker said.
"It's twelve thirty at night. All the old women are home, asleep. I wish I was home, but I no longer have one thanks to you and your limitless stupidity." Crane replied.
The Joker inserted his hand into the mask, and began another routine. The Scarecrow's skin crawled in revulsion. He was never, ever going to be able to wear that mask again. He'd have to remove the air filters, always assuming he still trusted them, and burn the burlap. Then he'd have to start from scratch. It really was going to be a burden, considering he was going to have to remake his entire costume. Maybe he could do a few adjustments, make it scarier, update the look. Or maybe he should stop trying to see the paltry silver lining on the destructive Category 5 hurricane and accept his life was pure garbage.
"Spooky, why'd you leave me? I missed you, and I know you missed me! I'm the only friend you've got. Without me, you'd be just a nerd playing with his chemistry set. Oh, that's it, isn't it? You've fallen in love with that alchemist whore! How could you trade me in for beakers and university text books? And why didn't you give those books back when they fired you?" The mask wailed.
"I hate myself and want to die." Crane moaned.
The frightening burlap sack poked him in the head. The Scarecrow grit his teeth against the pain that raced eagerly through his skull. The Tylenol had apparently not taken effect. He knew he should have taken more.
"No, Spooky! If you die, Mister J will be forced to go back to bothering Harley and that's not as much fun. I love that Joker because he's all the fun you're not. If I wasn't so attached to you, I'd run off with him and live happily ever after, at least until a hyena ate me."
"Goddamned traitor. After all the times I stabbed myself sewing you. Wait, why am I talking to the mask itself? Joker, damn you, leave my mask alone. It's literally all I have left." The Scarecrow said.
The Joker threw a friendly arm around the Scarecrow's bony shoulders and pulled him over. Crane barely maintained control of the steering wheel. "Come on, Mop Man. You've got me, and Harley, and those mutts like you well enough. Oh, and this truck, you've got that. Minus the holes in the windshield, and the damage you had to do hotwiring it, it's a pimping vehicle."
"If you ever use the word 'pimping' again, I'll snap off the windshield wiper and jam it down your throat."
The Clown Prince laughed. "All right, Johnny. If you don't like the slang of the African American community, let's all talk like pirates. How about that?"
Harley squealed with joy. "Let me go first! Uh, arrg, Mister J, this be one sturdy ship. Yo-ho, yo-ho, where's the rum?"
"Arg, me bonny wench, you don't get any rum." The Joker said.
The two clowns turned to Crane, obviously expecting him to join in the swashbuckling fun. The Scarecrow growled under his breath, though that didn't do anything to dissuade Harley or the Joker. Neither of them could understand how a man wouldn't want to talk like a pirate; it was perhaps the greatest imitation a person could ever learn to do.
"Come on, Professor, it's fun. Just try it. Arrrg! See, it's easy." Harley said.
"Never. I'll retain what shreds of dignity I still possess, thank you." The Scarecrow said.
The burlap mask latched onto Crane's face like one of the spider-like face-huggers from the Alien movies. Totally blind, unable to watch out for those little old ladies the Joker had warned him about earlier, the Scarecrow yanked the steering wheel violently. Harley shrieked, the mask was mercifully dislodged, and Batman's unconscious body was knocked into Lou. The hyena snarled and snapped at the Knight's armored fingers.
"Are we still alive?" Harley asked. She patted her body, confirming she still had her feet, legs, tummy, ample chest, shoulders, neck, head, and pigtails. Convinced that she hadn't died, Harley let out a sigh of relief. Then, realizing how close the truck had come to careening into a mailbox and earning them all the eternal wrath of the United States Postal Service, she reared up like a hydra and let her Puddin' have it.
"Mister J, we almost got killed because of you! Give the Professor back his mask right now and keep your hands to yourself. Jeez! I know you don't like bein' bored, but I don't like havin' to go to the ER."
Properly chastised, the Joker handed over Spooky Junior. Crane snatched the burlap sack from the clown's hand and barely resisted the urge to beat the Joker's head against the dashboard. What kind of mentally impaired, sick, deranged fool covered the eyes of a man who was driving? Did the Joker want to know what it was like to be a road fatality? If so, the Scarecrow would kindly offer to run him over and then back the truck over his corpse a few times if the lunatic wanted extra lessons.
"Okay, Mister J, remember. Hands to yourself, just like in kindergarten and no more takin' what doesn't belong to you." Harley said.
"I don't remember if I even went to kindergarten." The Joker replied.
"Do you know your ABC's and how to count to ten?"
"Yes."
"Then you went to kindergarten."
While Harley and the Joker tried to puzzle out what schooling he may have had, Crane eased the truck away from the mailbox and into the street. Thanks to the lateness of the hour, there were no cars to watch out for. Certain sections of Gotham, the ones that housed the dance clubs, the mob hangouts, and the majority of the hookers, never slept. The more suburban parts did tend to cool down once the sun set.
"I want to know where we're going. Give me anything, no matter how specific or vague. Any spare hideouts you've got, any henchmen with their own apartments, anything." The Scarecrow said.
"Uh, Spooky, no offense to your lovely chunk of gray, boring America, but if I had any other place on the entire planet, I would be there now! Really, all my hideouts: dust. My henchmen: prison or the grave, and I don't want to share an apartment in either of those places. And I'm never staying with Harley's grandma, either." The Joker said.
Harley sighed, and then snapped her fingers. "Oh, oh, I know what to do! Let's go move in with someone like, uh, who's not in Arkham right now?"
The Joker counted off his fingers. "Let's see here. Last I saw, before the TV died, Two-Face had escaped. But there's no way I'm living with him. He probably smells like burnt hair and that coin flipping thing makes me nauseous. Croc, he's still caged, and there's no way I'm rooming with Godzilla. I never liked the Riddler; he's always been too close to stealing my shtick."
"What about the Mad Hatter? I don't think they caught him." Harley suggested.
Crane snorted and shook his head. Share a house with Jervis Tetch? Those two had no idea of just how weird the Hatter could get. He did, and it was a memory he had tried without success to repress.
"No, you don't want to even consider Tetch unless you find the idea of sleeping under a Jabberwocky, which remotely resembles a gargoyle from a Sci-Fi Channel original movie, or next to a walrus, incredibly appealing. Tell me, what kind of man wants to sleep next to a walrus?"
"Goo, goo, g'joob! Get it? Walrus? That song… You don't get it, do you?" Harley asked, visibly stricken by her riding companions' lack of comprehension.
The Scarecrow shrugged his shoulders. He had a vague inclination of what Harley was talking about, but nothing leapt out at him. The Joker just stared, before bursting out into laughter so loud it rocked the truck. "Harley-baby, I never know what you're talking about, but that one just beats all!"
Sinking into a black depression she wasn't sure she'd ever rise from, Harley turned and looked out the window. Jeez, what was the world coming to? People could tell you what in the heck 'fo-shizzle' meant, but nobody, not even Professor Crane who could give a lecture on okra, heard of I am the Walrus? And all because everyone was clueless or musically dead, the whole joke had been ruined. It had sounded downright sharp inside her head, but there certainly hadn't been blank stares in her imagination.
"I don't like walruses, myself. Something about the whiskers makes me uncomfortable. So, I guess we can scratch Hatty off our list."
"Why don't we forget about being parasitic for awhile? It isn't even like anyone's going to invite us in. We'll be lucky if we aren't just shot and killed on the doorstep. It's what I should have done with you to begin with, clown." The Scarecrow said.
"That's not a very nice thing to say, Johnny. On the bright side, no matter who we end up with, they're bound to be friendlier than you. You weren't hugged often as a child, were you?" The Joker asked.
"No, I wasn't." Crane confirmed.
Something on the side of the road caught the Scarecrow's eye. Without bothering to use his turn signal, he crossed the center lane. The Joker, curious as to why they were now driving into opposing traffic, asked, "Spooky, you do know that line's there for a reason, right? It's to keep us over there, and them over there, so there's no smashing."
"Don't tell me how to drive. We have to make a quick pit stop, and the convenience store is on the other side of the road. Ergo, I need to be here momentarily." Crane said.
"Why do we have to stop? I'm not making some glorified bodega my new hideout." The Joker said.
"There're several necessities I hope to get, and, to make this as clear as possible to you and your simple mind, I need to piss."
"Oh."
Crane parked his truck next to the solitary gas pump. He took a quick glance at the advertised price of fuel, and nearly gagged. This was one more reason not to own a car: it took more to feed a vehicle than it did a child! Weren't they fighting wars over in the sun-baked deserts of the Mideast to get the prices down? Not for the first time, the Scarecrow wondered if he'd be executed or hailed as a hero if he gassed the Senate with particularly virulent fear toxin.
"Don't touch anything, clown."
The Joker wiped his bleached white finger down the windshield, leaving a streak on the glass. A violently throbbing vein appeared on the Scarecrow's forehead. If he ever got the chance, he was pushing the Joker down a deep well where either rats or drowned, creepy girls could eat him.
Donning his mask, and trying to forget the clown had ever defiled it, Crane headed for the store. From what he could see, no one was perusing the aisles and only one clerk was on shift. That was incredibly lucky, because if anyone wanted to be a hero and get a shiny plaque from the mayor, they would have any easy time of taking down a desperately wanted fugitive. One good tap on the head would probably render said fugitive unconscious. Crane just had to hope the clerk wasn't one of those men who kept a gun or a baseball bat under the counter.
The Scarecrow shoved open the door, and the clerk's head whipped up. He was a young man, college-age, and he was desperate to get rid of something. Curious, Crane approached the counter. The clerk began to babble and tried without success to hide something under the cash register.
"What's the hourly wage for reading pornography?" The Scarecrow asked.
"Oh, shit! Oh, crap! Scarecrow, man, don't experiment on me! I did enough drugs in high school!" The clerk wailed.
"I'm not going to experiment on you. But, I do need your assistance. Grab three of those plastic bags and stop whimpering. Are you a man or a toddler?"
When the kid had complied, Crane took a look around the mini-mart. Its most prestigious display was a wooden magazine rack. Most of the magazines were covered in shrink-wrap and had stickers informing that their contents were strictly for those above the age of 18. Asides from dirty magazines, it also featured two coolers stocked with beer.
"I need you, my new friend, to find several items for me. The first item is Advil, since Tylenol is every bit as effective against pain as banging my head against a wall. The second item is duct tape, rope, clothes line, anything you have that could be used to restrain a man. Don't cry, I'm not using it on you. Thirdly, fill that bag with anything you think a clown might like. Candy, animal crackers, cigarettes, I don't care."
The clerk nodded. "And, uh, what're you going to do?"
"I'm going to use your restroom. Where is it?"
The clerk pointed, and Crane followed the line of his finger. "It says employees only, but you can pretty much ignore that. My friends use it all the time, anyway."
The bathroom, despite its relatively exclusive use, wasn't any better than a putrid truck stop restroom. Whoever the clerk's 'friends' were, they knew how to properly destroy a place. Graffiti, most of it involving bodily functions or ex-girlfriends' sexual skills, covered the walls. Some dolt had punched the mirror, and traces of blood were obvious in the ruined glass. A single beaten sneaker sat in the sink like a dead cockroach. Speaking of which, one of those floated in the toilet.
By the time Crane returned from the cesspool that served as a bathroom, the kid had stuffed all three bags to bursting. The Scarecrow was impressed; he liked efficiency. Eager to get the villain out of his store, the clerk eagerly handed over the bags.
"You want me gone, do you? All right. One more small thing. If I suddenly find police pursuing me, I will return and do things to your mind you will never recover from."
The kid, already sweating, went so pale his freckles stood out like embers. "No cops, I got it."
Leaving the clerk to figure out a course of action that wouldn't end in him shrieking and clawing at himself in a hidden laboratory, Crane hauled his bags outside. He was halfway to the truck when the horn started blaring. The Joker and his two second attention span had struck again.
"Come on, Spooky! Hey, what's in the bags?"
Instead of returning to the driver's seat, the Scarecrow stepped cautiously to the back of the truck. He peered over into the bed, wanting to be sure the Bat was still out cold before he got too close. Bud and Lou were completely relaxed, and Lou had taken to using the armored hero as a doggy bed. The hyena perched on Batman's chest the way a cat would snuggle its sleeping owner.
Satisfied that Batman wasn't going to sit up and attack like a not-quite-dead horror movie fiend, Crane lowered the tailgate and began sorting through the bags. He had told the clerk to round up anything that could be used to bind a man, and now it was time to see how he had faired.
At first, it looked like he was going to have to renege on his promise, recruit the Joker, and torture the clerk. The useless, work-shirking punk somehow thought twine was strong enough to immobilize a man. Crane wouldn't trust a kite made out of newspaper to the string. The pair of shoelaces he pulled out next weren't a great deal more encouraging. Just as he was about to give up on America's youth, he found the duct tape. Much, much better.
Dredging up the memory of waking up to find himself bound in his own bed sheets and yards of duct tape, Crane began to unwind the fresh roll of tape. He scooted Lou off the Batman, and then wound tape around the Bat's wrists. After everything from the elbow down was hidden in a thick layer of silver tape, the ankles got the same treatment. Going a little crazy with the tape, the Scarecrow tore off several strips and stuck one on the Bat's mouth, and another over the eye holes in the cowl. If not for the necessity of breathing, Crane probably would have taped Batman's nostrils shut, as well.
After taping the hell out of the hapless hero, Crane came to a sudden epiphany. Batman, who nobody had ever identified, was unconscious at his feet. He could unmask the legendary Batman, know once and for all, put all suspicions to rest. He could know the real face of the man who insisted on thwarting him, thrashing him, dragging him back to Arkham time and time again.
Holding his breath, acting as though he was reaching for a package he had good reason to suspect contained a bomb, Crane grasped the cowl. A sharp knock on the rear window a second before he could pull froze him. It was the Joker, and the clown looked furious.
"That's my job, Johnny! Nobody unmasks the Bat but me! Get out of there before I blow your face off!"
The Joker was, once again, pointing his gun at Crane. To the Scarecrow, it seemed like a severe over-reaction. The gun pointed at his face, however, kept him from voicing that wise opinion.
"Fine." Grabbing the bags he had put down, ignoring Bud and Lou's silent pleas for petting and praising, Crane left the Batman's identity a secret. His curiosity would gnaw him like a rat, but he wasn't ready to take a bullet in the head to make it stop. Better to let the rat chew now than never chew again.
Crane handed over the bag full of clown-friendly goodies as soon as he was back in the cab. He hoped the Joker would be too busy digging through his treasures to remember he had just been swinging his gun around like a drunken redneck. No such luck.
"What did you think you were doing?" The clown demanded.
"Securing Batman, since you didn't have the insight to." The Scarecrow replied.
"That isn't what I meant, and you know it! What made you think you had the right to take off his mask?"
"Curiosity, and nothing more."
"Curiosity killed the crow, Johnny-boy. I'm taking off that mask when I'm good and ready, and not a second before."
"There's no reason to be so irrational. I concede. You can take the cowl off now, or on your 81st birthday."
"Exactly! And don't forget it!"
Harley peeked over, around her steaming Puddin'. "Sorry, Professor. It's just that Mister J sorta has this whole thing goin' on with B-man. You know, a rivalry. He's real defensive about anyone messin' with his Bat."
"He's insane, Harley. I understand completely."
That earned him a punch to the shoulder. At least it wasn't a punch to the head. Deciding it would be wiser to ignore the injury and not confront the Joker's childish reaction, Crane got the truck in gear and headed away from the ever-so-helpful convenience store.
"On the road again, driving without direction." The Scarecrow noted.
"Turn left. There, there's some direction for you."
The street turned out to be a kingdom of potholes, cracked pavement, and general urban decay. That was one of the great things about Gotham. One minute, you were in a nicely lit, clean, safe environment, the next you were struggling to keep the holes in the street from devouring your car like a Graboid. Even with his prestigious driving skill, picked up from several high-speed pursuits with both the police and Batman, Crane couldn't avoid all, or even most, of the sinkholes.
While the Scarecrow wrestled with the steering wheel and swore to find whoever was in charge of urban renewal projects and lobotomize them, Harley and the Joker had a merry old time. They found the truck's bouncing and jolting exciting, like a cheap theme park ride. The Joker even put his hands in the air, and ordered Crane to go faster so the effects would be more pronounced.
After rattling through the barely paved side street and emerging back into civilization, Crane loosened his strangling grip on the steering wheel. His fingers had begun to cramp up. He wondered if all the shake-rattle-and-rolling hadn't knocked something lose in the truck. Certainly, it felt like his internal organs had been rearranged by the jostling.
"I'd rather drive down the Road of Death than enter that street ever again." The Scarecrow said.
"There's a road of death? I know there's a Psycho Path, but Road of Death is a close second." The Joker said.
"Road of Death is only a nickname. It's really called-"
Something thudded. Crane cursed again, assuming the truck was entering another rough patch of underfunded road. "When I get my hands on the bureaucratic flunky who's in charge of these dismal streets I'm going to…"
The thud came again, and the Scarecrow realized it wasn't originating from underneath the pickup. It was coming from the truck's bed. As confirmation, Bud and Lou began to growl and snarl. Everyone who wasn't driving turned around to peer out the rear window.
"Spooky, we've got a problem."
11111111111111111111
Author's Notes:
National Talk like a Pirate Day is September 19.
I am the Walrus is a song by the Beatles. From what I understand, it really only makes sense if you're high, but it's fun to listen to even if you're sober. The chorus includes the phrase 'goo, goo, g'joob'.
The convenience store is modeled after my local Sheetz, which sells both duct tape and lots o' porn.
A Graboid is a thirty-foot worm from the Tremors series. In the original film, a Graboid buries a station wagon.
The Road of Death is really named Yungas Road, and is in Bolivia. Roughly 200-300 people die on it yearly. Hence, Road of Death.
Psycho Path is a real street in Michigan.