Cats always land on their feet. Throw them off a building and they will still land on their feet, little girl clowns were an entirely different matter altogether. Selina "Catwoman" Kyle was perched on the roof of the Gotham Exchange around the corner from Third and Main when she spotted a lone figure with a banged up arm standing in front of the Wayne City Electrical Store. Blonde pigtails, sweat pants and a baby tee – one size too small – standing out in the open at 2am in a Gotham winter's morning without coat, gloves or hat. You could always spot Harley Quinn in a crowd; she was the insane one.
The problem mused Kyle wasn't really Quinn herself; it was a combination of Jack "Joker" Napier and Pamela "Poison Ivy" Isley. Napier insisted on dressing her like a jack-in-a-box and Isley insisted on dressing her like some high school senior gym class. Poor kid probably didn't even have a warm coat. It was so easy to lose sight of yourself trying to impress others. Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem. Kyle was herself guilty of that transgression.
A long time ago, before she put on her mask, she was afraid of everything. It started on the day she died. If there had been an obituary, it would have described the unremarkable life of an unremarkable woman. Did anyone know who she was? Nobody. Except on the day after, she was still alive. Suddenly this nobody had a chance to be somebody. That was part of the rule. Never quit. Never let them see you're afraid. Above all never let them see you're hurt. Never let them see you cry. Never.
Of course someone had to be insane in the first place to want to remake herself in the image of the Joker and stick with the murderous psychopathic clown through thick and thin. Kyle had scant respect for a woman who would allow a man to subjugate her so totally in the essential sexuality of male power: of hate, of ownership, of hierarchy; of sadism, of dominance. If a woman was not self sufficient, she had no business being out on her own at Arkham.
Kyle was a thief. Not so much for the prize or the profit but for the art and because she could and because she was good. Whatever her moral virtues, Kyle thought there was no reason for Napier to do what he did. After all, lots of people make bads choices romantically. Its usually not punished with such cruelty and humiliation. It would have been kinder if he had simply thanked the woman for her trouble and her heart and shot her in the head point blank.
Some people say their entire lives that they haven't found themselves yet. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates and after the Joker reduced Dr Harleen Quinzel into a psychological non squinter, he fashioned himself a sick twisted puppy out of the corn mash.
Only it was a sick twisted puppy that was curiously attached to Pamela Isley. Selina Kyle had noticed that Quinn spent an abnormal amount of time with Isley including all major holidays (Christmas, Halloween, St Patrick's Day?) to the extent that even the Joker was known to make a wisecrack on the cost of Harley's day care. The telling of jokes is an art of its own, it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.
Kyle herself had observed Quinn spend an entire evening looking at Isley across the floor at the Iceberg Lounge while playing court fool to her Clown Prince of Crime ("Aw, c'mon, Puddin' -- don'tcha wanna rev up ya Harley? Vroom! Vroom!"). Isley had not once look back at Quinn. She had instead appeared preoccupied with her own male companions and Isley had adequate control of the human male ("Hello, lover. Long time, no see."). But the sexual tension between the two was explicit and unmistakeable.
Show a man what he expects to see, and he won't look beneath the surface. Women pause, watch and listen closely and see the multiplicity of ways in which people mash and hide the truth. Kyle knew how tender Quinn was up close and personal with Isley. It was in the way they spoke to each other or touched when they thought no one else was watching.
She wondered if Quinn knew that Isley was not capable of love. It was in her DNA. Isley's past was even more insane than hers. Someone had dunked her in a vat of chemicals as carelessly as a fat cop with a krispy kreme making her into some kind of plant human hybrid. The change also triggered the manifestation of a massively emotionally unstable personality. Despite everything Quinn was tender all the same, It was sad that we always long for forbidden things, and desire what is denied us.
What was equally curious was how Quinn had managed to evade both Batman and the cops. Kyle had enjoyed the evening's entertainment earlier flashed live on a hundred HD flat screens in the same Wayne City Store that Quinn was now standing in front of. Quinn while competent with gun and spanner wasn't a criminal genius by a long shot. Criminal genius gravitated towards the bright lights of Metropolis. Gotham on the other hand bred madness. Kyle had always figured it was the water. She drank bottled.
What was curiouser was that Quinn was out in the open a few hours after the Bat had busted the Joker and effectively shut him down in Gotham – for the here and now anyway. Kyle did not share her erstwhile romantic interest's belief that he could wash the world clean with blood and tears. Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
If Quinn had any sense she should be on the first bus out to Star City or trying to make her way to Robinson Park for sanctuary.
Isley kept a presence in Robinson Park, which was grudging tolerated by the Bat and his kind. It was next to impossible to patrol 10 blocks of park land complete with undergrowth and canopy cover, even with their wonderful toys, so they had come to mutual understanding. Isley kept the park clean of major criminal activity and the Bats left Isley alone. Kyle wasn't too fond of Robinson Park herself, but she had on recent occasion taken opportunity of Isley's largeness to escape the unwanted attentions of Batgirl and Nightwing. Kyle had not wanted to make an example of them; her relationship with Batman was currently strained and she did not want to force another nasty confrontation with him. That was the problem with teenagers nowadays; they had no respect for their betters. It was the same problem with Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome.
It appeared that Quinn had seen enough of her Mr J being hauled back bloody and broken to Arkham on HDTV and was now making her way back down Third. Kyle decided to follow her for want of anything better to do. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but what's life without a little risk. Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. Live fast. Love hard. Die young. Leave a good-smelling corpse.
Continues in Chapter 4 –