Chapter 6: SLEEP DEPRIVATION
After the makeup episode it takes some time for them to re-establish their routine, and even after doing so their relationship, or rather the stage it had reached prior to the episode, would not revert. True, it was still strained, but it was now strained in a different way, and Martha could not decide which was more disturbing; knowing less about The Joker, or more. Even trying to contemplate the logic he used in his decision making, trying to guess as to why he did certain things, what made his sick mind work the way it did seemed like a math equation far to complex for her to be able to solve. She doubted even a trained psychiatrist could make anything sensible out of his actions.
But at the very least, things went back to normal. As normal as they had been prior to the makeup, and the story about his scars.
While he comes to meet with her regularly, he never comes predictably. There is no set schedule and he arrives as randomly as a bolt of lightning strikes the earth. She's almost certain he's doing it on purpose. Another bit of psychological torture designed to keep her on edge and nervous.
Nevertheless, as a kind of established routine again emerges she becomes used to seeing him, and while the fear that he brings with him – the constant knowledge that he could fly off the handle at any point in time, and for no real reason – still cause her anxiety, she starts to want to interact with him. At first she can't understand why, but through careful consideration she rationalizes that it must be because he is, and has been, her only real social contact in what must be weeks now.
She starts to look forward to their meetings.
She imagines it must be the way an abused pet still wants to lick the hand of its owner, or the way a child becomes friends with its demented mother that keeps it locked in the basement all day. In this dark, damp place he's the only thing to look forward to. She is terrifically surprised, and a little bemused, when she finds the courage to ask for more place-mats to draw on and he complies (provided he show her every scrap of artwork she produces).
"I'll hang the best ones on the fridge." He tells her, laughing as he throws a dozen or so crayons at her and walks out the door.
In the days that follow the make-up episode Gotham 1st National is brought back up as the main topic, and her artwork also becomes part of their daily meetings. First the pleasantries, then the bank, and then the drawings. Nice, neat, simple. She is startled by the order of it all. He stares for several minutes at her pictures. She had never been an artistic person but now, with all other manner of escapism closed off to her, she figures, why the hell not draw? Most of what she shows him are simple drawings. Depictions of items found around the wine cellar, a quick sketch of her left hand, an odd animal or two – usually a cat as she finds they're the easiest to draw, at least for her. At the end of each meeting he looks her drawings over for what seems like ages and in the end he gives one of two replies. An unimpressed shrug, or a wide, devious grin. There are no comments made regarding her artwork. No critique, no comparison to other artists, and she does not ask for any constructive criticism as she is sure he is unwilling to provide it. He is either pleased or he isn't.
Fair enough, she thinks, and it becomes just another part of their routine.
Odder questions are asked during their meetings as well, with one question in particular striking Martha as unusually specific.
School buses.
He wants to know what time the school rush is. Not only that, but what time the school rush occurs in the case of the streets just outside the bank. While she gives as best an answer as she can, she can't help but ponder his seriousness in asking. He seems very determined to know the exact specifics, as if some crucial part of the heist somehow depended on the passing by of the large, yellow fleet.
She sits with him now at his side on the couch, discussing the buses. She's in the middle of a sentence when he quickly jumps up and claps his hands.
"Boring!" He declares, making her jump. "Pictures!" He yells loudly, clapping again like an enthusiastic child. "Show me your pictures, Martha."
She looks around the room, panicked. She hadn't drawn anything the night before or the morning after, and is at a loss. She looks at him, face denoting a mixture of apologetic dismay and terrified alarm.
"Oh." He says, slumping as his abrupt energy suddenly disappears. "Forget it."
To her astonishment, he seems genuinely disappointed.
She watches in silence as he tosses the room key at her and quickly leaves.
She sits alone in the quiet of her wine cellar cage and contemplates his swift exit, turning the room key over and over in her hands. After a moment she gets up, bends over and reaches under the couch, where her spare place-mats and crayons are concealed. Several seconds later she's sketching a crude version of his face on one of the place-mats. She doesn't know why she feels compelled to draw him. She just does. She thinks about showing it to him the next time he comes in. She thinks about how he might react. She thinks about whether or not he'll be impressed. Will he care? Should she care if he does? It gives her a familiar feeling. Almost like she used to feel the need to impress every teacher that ever gave her a failing grade, or befriend every neighborhood bully that teased her. She sits alone in the quiet of the wine cellar and draws for several hours after that, every picture depicting him in some way or another.
She hides the pictures under the couch and waits for him the next day, nerves a tense bundle. At last he comes, but at the end of their meeting he does not ask to see her artwork. She contemplates bringing it up herself as he heads wordlessly for the door, but decides against it in the end. Following this she immediately withdraws the pictures and tears them into tiny pieces until nothing comprehensible can be formed of the individual tattered images. She wishes she could light them on fire, and a strange mixture of frustration, dissatisfaction, and depression overwhelm her for the rest of the night.
Time passes, and Martha does not see how accustomed to her captivity she is becoming. Her need for control is slowly dissipating, but she does not realize it. She does not realize how much she has come to depend on him, to rely on what he does for her. The Joker is her source of food, her source of cleanliness, and in some cases, her source of entertainment. Although she refuses to admit it, some of his antics begin to grow on her. While she still finds him terrifying in almost every other gesture and joke, sometimes she manages to spot the tiny glimpse of surreal, insane irony he hints at with his sense of humor. Sometimes, rarely, she finds herself trying to suppress a giggle and almost always afterward she is mortified and guilt ridden by the comprehension that, yes, she is changing and yes, she is learning to understand a mad man and yes, she is loosing her old self more and more with each passing day.
Normalcy is lost on her as she begins to forget the commonplace and conventional. She remembers, vaguely, the details of her old daily routine. Her original life. Get up at the obnoxious request of the alarm clock, shower, dress, eat, sit in traffic (the radio's a trustworthy companion), arrive at the bank, do several tedious hours worth of mind numbing work, sit in traffic again, return home, eat (cheap microwaveable meals fill her freezer), fall asleep watching the news, get up at the obnoxious request of the alarm clock and do it all over again. She remembers taking great care to plan her daily activities out in advance, the way she would plan most aspects of her life up until now. Picking out her outfits for the work-week every Sunday, scheduling what she would eat for lunch on odd and even days. She absentmindedly recalls her hobbies; how she would sometimes jog, sometimes being the key word. She would shop on occasion as well, make a habit of looking at lovely dresses through the shops of windows and convincing herself they were not her style or far too expensive for her menial salary. Now all she wears are ghetto rags procured by her captor using unthinkable methods.
Soon her past seems to drift away until it seems like a dream, like her life before this was just some elaborate fantasy and that this current life has been and always will be the correct one. All she knows now is the wine cellar and while her captivity slowly crushes her spirit, in a strange way it also frees it because she knows she doesn't have to think for herself anymore. She doesn't have to guess or worry about the future. It's a great relief because she knows she'll be taken care of just so long as he keeps asking about the bank, and just so long as she can cooperate and provide the information he requests.
She starts to dream about him.
Mind, recently she has dreamed about him every time she's gone to sleep, but this is the first dream that hasn't been absolutely horrifying. The first dream that has not sent her starting awake and shrieking at the top of her lungs in the blackness of the wine-cellar. The first dream that has not seen her checking her chest and torso for bullet holes or stab wounds. Or cursing her demented, regrettably twisted libido.
The first true dream that is not a nightmare is a simple one. She is at Gotham 1st National, serving a long line of customers. She has her eyes on deposit slips and when she looks up he's on the other side of the counter, without his makeup, dressed in a plain black suit and tie. He looks like another banker. Nothing is said between them. He simply hands her a large bag marked with a dollar sign like something out of a cartoon show. She nods, takes the bag, and opens it to see hand-drawn money colored with crayons. The scenario abruptly ends as she rouses.
She has her first opportunity to calculate the time after he takes her to the bathroom one morning and she see's that she's bleeding. Her first menstruation while in captivity. Judging by that, it's been slightly more than a month since her initial occupation of the wine-cellar. She accepts this fact with bland recognition because she knows that if she starts counting, that if she addresses the length of her captivity full-on, the depression will devour her. So she makes a point to purposefully ignore it. Not uncaring, just careful not to bruise her already-fragile psyche.
She doesn't tell him. He doesn't ask. But when he returns her to the cellar she finds a trio of painkillers left on the coffee table for her. While they are recognizable as a trusted brand, her paranoia advises her not to take them. Even still, she remains both quizzical and slightly touched at the gesture.
The dream is reoccurring, although each time a little bit more is revealed. After being handed the money he holds up a cardboard sign with a large question mark painted across it's front. Another cartoon character antic. She simply points across the bank to the vault.
She does not tell him about these dreams, and she has not drawn in days now. Not since her attempts to draw him. She can somehow sense that the two are connected. It made some sense that she should dream about him, just as it made sense that she should dream about the bank. After all, their meetings were the only constant in her life at the moment. And what did the meetings consist of? Him, and discussing the details of Gotham 1st National. Case in point, to dream of him and the bank were not necessarily bazaar.
She begins to grow concerned. It was understandable to dream about him in a threatening way, to see him in her dreams as he was in real life – dangerous, erratic, sinister. But to dream about him acting so ordinary, it disturbed her. Whereas she had initially tried to avoid analyzing that first nightmare (she refused to wander down that trail of thought), she spent long portions of her days trying to figure out the meaning of the reoccurring dreams – just why he was in them and acting so placid. Perhaps it was her subconscious mind trying to protect her from him by placing him in a more wonted light. Perhaps it was her mind's attempt to ease her worries by putting him in a situation that was her's to control. In every dream it was the same. He was always the customer, she was always the employee, and she was always the one he was asking for assistance and advice. Please take my money? Please show me where the vault is?
She is thankful for the total lack of disturbing elements, and took special note of the fact that in these continuous fantasy exchanges there was no violence, torment, or kissing. But the mystery continues to plague her.
She starts to go without sleep.
He notices.
One day he arrives to greet her with her tray of food, and as he sits down next to her on the couch he remarks, quite candidly, on the state of her appearance.
"I don't think –" She begins.
"Than you shouldn't speak." The Joker hisses, and she quickly shuts her mouth. "What do you think this is, Martha? A game? Is this a move against me, huh? Just what is it that you're trying to accomplish, exactly?"
He takes the tray of food from her lap and sends it flying across the room. She is too tired to flinch, so she simply sits there, staring numbly at the mess on the floor with tired eyes. The smell will bring flies before some one is sent in to clean it up. He takes her by the base of the neck and leans her backward, hovering over her like an angry parent.
"I got news for you, girly girl," He seethes wickedly through smiling teeth, "If this is your attempt at revolt, it's not a very impressive one. What do you think you're doing? You want to starve yourself of sleep, you do that on your own time, not mine. I need you awake, Martha. Awake and alert. You're no good to me like this. Pay attention."
He says this last word with such ferocity that she quickly snaps out of her stupor and glares at him. It's your fault, you freak. You're the one invading MY dreams. I'd be sleeping fine if it weren't for YOUR ugly FACE.
She tries to fidget free and his grip tightens. Feeling the pain he's inflicting, she hastily relaxes, showing her submission.
"Adda girl," He coos happily. "I've gotta say, though, Martha, your little act of rebellion would've gotten a tad bit more attention if you'd used a knife."
He glances to his collection on the far end of the room and she looks up, eying the blades wearily. Her hands immediately clamp around her wrists to hide her scars.
"Oooor," He continues, "Maybe you weren't that keen on trying to stab at me? Makes sense. If you did I'd have probably survived, and if I didn't add an extra mouth to your face one of my men would have. They're surprisingly loyal."
He pauses a moment for dramatic effect and then, in a low, deep whisper he says "Maybe this is a cry for help. In that case, I'd have still used the knife. Or were you going for something new this time?"
Without another word he grabs at her wrists until he's wrenched one of her hands free. She squeezes her eyes shut, too exhausted to struggle. She lets him look over her self inflicted blemishes until he eventually releases her. She does not scoot away. She sits there, dazed and fatigued.
He slides his fingers smoothly up the scars in a vertical line until she hits the base of her palm. She doesn't react strait away when he asks her "What kind of knife did you use?"
After a moment she eyes him with a strange, ponderous glare. Outraged scrutiny mingled with dreamy exhaustion.
"Don't look at me like that." He replies, hands still on her wrists and tightening. "It wasn't the obvious question, now was it."
She has to admit, it wasn't the question she'd been expecting.
"I'll bet . . ." He continues, glancing down at the scars he's been investigating, "I'll bet it was short. A peach peeler maybe, or a pocket knife? Some little Swiss army antique your grand pappy gave you in his senility."
He is halfway there, and she is beginning to come to her senses. She contemplates trying to move away. It's a grand decision to ponder in her current, sleep-deprived state. So many variables to take in to account, she almost misses what he says next.
"I'll bet it slid in nice and smooth. Did you sharpen it beforehand? Careful thing like you, nice, organized little planner like you – of course you sharpened it." He purrs sadistically.
She makes an attempt – one quick, jerky movement backward. She manages to catch him off guard and slip his grip, but before she can move far enough away he's back on her, hands right where they were seconds ago. Drat. Attempt: failed.
He laughs at her, a low, taunting chuckle.
"I'm only joking." He says cruelly. "I wouldn't care, either way. Just so long as I have the information I need. But we're halfway done with that as it is so . . . You want to kill yourself? Deprive yourself of sleep, cut yourself, piss me off? Go right ahead. I could even give you some ideas, if you prefer. In fact, I offer my assistance, if it's at all wanted. Only stop wasting my time and get on with it."
He's deadly serious on this last sentence.
A beat. And then the laughter resumes. He seems genuinely jovial.
"It isn't the prospect of having to clean you out of this little room here that irritates me, Martha. It's knowing that you won't just go ahead with it. You chicken out at the last second, don't you, and then you waste my time when it comes down to it. How selfish of you."
And with this latest comment something in her snaps, and her eyes glaze over and then everything is calm and bliss and she has done it. She has stopped caring. For how long she can not be sure, she doesn't want to second guess a glorious thing. It occurs to her that she quite literally has nothing left to loose, and thinking she does is an even bigger mistake than taking a crack at suicide was. She takes a moment to study this new-found calm in her and figures it must be how the morphine addicts feel just after an injection. A fleeting rainbow during the hail storm.
She turns to him, smiles pleasantly (how can I help you today, sir? deposit or withdrawal?) and says "It was an apple peeler, actually. Graduation gift from my mother."
This stifles his laughter in a way she didn't think was possible, and when all of his attention is on her, she begins to tell him why she cut herself.
It does not take long to explain it.
To explain all about her attempted suicide
(attempt: failed)
and the reasons behind it.