Author's Note (Well-Wishing): MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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I can see inside you the sickness is rising
It seems that all that was good has died
Oh, no. The world is a scary place
Now that you've woken up the demon in me.
–– "Down With the Sickness," Richard Cheese
Harvey woke up and wished he hadn't.
He woke up staring at the burning whiteness of fluorescent hospital light with one eye and the rustling darkness of gauze with the other. The horrible, meaningless completeness of his right side, and the totality–– the screaming understanding–– of agony that was his left.
The supposed saint attached to the very manifestation of and punishment for his perpetual sin. Treachery. Treachery toward his family as a boy, toward his friends as a politician, toward his city as a man, toward his love–– but what love? which love? and was there–– and was there anyone left to love? She said, the last time he saw her, before their world was blown to pieces, that she would never abandon him. And he, in turn, abandoned her.
Before, he considered wildly, bitterly, there had always been a greater good, a reason to claw his way to the top. Now, it was just him and his demons.
There was a reason they called him Two-Face at Internal Affairs.
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Hour 2
"I really hope you do not recognize the vast implications of what you have just said." I push myself up a little bit in my chair, slowly blinking at a fuzzy image of McClown. He appears worried. I myself am in total shock–– as if one of the Joker's little bombs went off behind my skull. Oooh, pureed brain!
The shrapnel of my discovery is bursting through my cranium. Of course–– every time–– every time Batman was needed, Bruce Wayne would vanish–– he wasn't running for home, he was running for the Batmobile–– a bat-shape cut into a razorblade necklace––he vanished into thin air just as I was wishing I could sink through the ground–– Good Lord, we are the Stupids, reporting here from Gotham. Forecast: city-wide blindness and obliviousness. I mean, seriously. Who is charged with the task of discovering the truth? I mean, other than the police force? That makes me jolt a little bit more. Does Dent know? Does Gordon know? Somehow I doubt it.
Other than this little, busily calculating bit of grey matter, I am frozen. Apathetic. Drained. A list of synonyms for zombie-fied compiled into a small but solid thesaurus.
I cannot quite remember why I am even here.
I know that I am dying.
I know this from the pain that is infused with my entire being. My soul and body, ruptured at the seams, are pulling apart. But I can hold together–– I can stitch myself, patchwork style, to hold for a little longer.
The television sputters and starts as the clock strikes ten, and its tiny tinny speakers fill with screaming. Again. There should simply be a news alert for Joker events–– a megabyte of his customary cackle or an explosion. And then the rest can be muted, seriously. We all know the reaction by now.
"Moments before he left Gotham City Hall escorting young, recently orphaned Johnny Tambling, Luitenant Gordon received an image of the Virgin Mary cradling the child Jesus. An image of Harriet Vince's face, beaten, bruised, and bleeding, had been awkwardly pasted over the holy mother's serene expression, and the infant's face had the Joker's trademark dark circles and red grin. Scrawled about it were the words, 'Do you want to know how the story ends?'" I groan, curling into myself miserably. Not Johnny. Please not Johnny. The newswoman, Marissa Blakely, is relentless, her forehead furrowed as if she's desperately attempting to cultivate some real emotion. I'm suddenly reminded of the song "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley. We got the bubbleheaded bleach-blonde, comes on at 5 / She can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye/ It's interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry.
Was I like that?
"Luitenant Gordon, fearing the worst, asked for an armed guard for the boy's protection, but as they stood on the stairs, a small group of their multitude of protectors turned on them, aiming their fire at the young man. Gordon, using his body as a shield, saved the boy from instantaneous death, only for him be dragged away by his captors into the scrambling, screaming crowds to face who knows what sort of horrific end." An blurry, but unmistakable picture appears upon the screen. The dark and sharp crags upon the cheeks of a hollow-eyed, hunched monster.
"McClown, come here!" My voice is weak, but apparently it carries weight, for bag-head strides over and even kneels, peering into my wan visage. "Do you have a death wish?" If canvas could be stunned it would fit the shocked gasping laugh of my guard.
"I'm not a suicidal man, lady." I shake my head slowly and then, apathetically, feel my skull roll up onto my vertebrae.
"I mean," I murmur with great deliberation, "how… do you wish to die?" There is silence. I tilt my head to better see his eyes. "At the receiving end of the Joker's sadistic wrath...? In Arkham, licking the sheet of glass between you and freedom? Or–– or a lauded member of Gotham society, carefully cared for as a survivor and hero?" The silence deepens. I am trembling, and I attempt to force my hands to be steady, sure, as I reach for his. "If you don't help me–– I'll die." I draw a deep breath, and feel myself become sly, squeezing his hands, hard. "If I cannot save Batman, he dies. And without his protection, McClown, there is nothing between you and a tortuous end. Now, which do you prefer?"
I didn't know I was so good at making threats.
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Harvey reflected. Or rather, half reflected. The other side, he noted, was hidden in shadow, invisible in the mirror like the visages of demons or vampires in old legends.
Maybe half a face, he thought, was better than none. Maybe it was a sign of a chance at salvation–– after all, wasn't the bargain Batman for Harriet? And for a hero without an identity to begin with, even part of his face would suffice. And he would not have abandoned her, or Rachel.
One love to die for–– the other to never part from.
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"If you're leaving, you're going to have to leave in-cog-something-or-other, so here––" I'm handed a tube of well-used lipstick. "Pretty yourself as best you can."
Mary-Kay, enriching women's lives. Well, even with the makeover, the giant, Byrne-esque suit, and the loosely held semi-automatic, my attempt at manly clownishness will utterly fail if I stay in my wheelchair. It could be a gag–– push a hobo clown down a flight of stairs sort of thing (which I sincerely hope will not happen), though I'll probably accomplish that all by myself.
I slowly wheel myself to the door and nod to McClown. "Well, let's get out there––" I look to him questioningly.
"Max." I nod, and continue in my gruff voice.
"Max! Yes, let's go have some fun, shall we?" I can feel myself shaking with the effort of just staying calm in front of McClown. No weakness, little girl, you cannot show weakness.
I stand, stagger against the door, and, using all my energy to throw it open, nearly collapse on the other side. McClown catches me by the shoulder, but for some reason his hands are gentle. Bile and blood swirls up to my throat and my mouth, to the shock of all those who have stopped to watch. Unfortunately, these are all clowns. I attempt to stand, leaning all my weight on the gun–– and my clenching fist shoots a couple rounds into the floor.
There is utter silence. Fear propels the bloody contents of my battered body out of my mouth, and I hear several clowns yell. "What the fuck––? Is that Vince? What the fuck is going on?" The suspicion in their voice is a bit too much for me, and I sink to the ground, coughing weakly.
Well, that failed miserably.
"Lie," I whisper to McClown hoarsely as I cling to him like a baby koala to its mother, "Tell him I've agreed to be a cohort."
"They're not that fucking stupid!" he hisses back, and reaching down with one arm, gathers me up. The others are screaming at him that he's a fucking idiot, that he is going to die. "She's one of us!" McClown is yelling through this burlap, "She's his–– his––"
"Harlequin!" I cry weakly, throwing my arms around his neck, terrified.
"She ain't anyone's Har-lee-quin, you fucking traitor! You can't trust anyone anymore!" One of the men–– a tough in a ragged suit––throws off his mask. A young Italian, eyes red and bloodshot, points his gun at us, trembling. "I killed my friends to become like us, to become part of that nut's 'aggressive expansion.' I'm a fucking shark. She isn't like us–– she can't be––! You can't trust anyone!"
I see McClown raise his giant machine gun. "Close your eyes," he mutters in my ear, but I cannot look away. My pupils are as dilated as they can be. There is nothing but color.
The world dissolves into blood and pulp.