CHAPTER 12: MONSTROUS
In the tiny, dirty space of the wine cellar, The Joker sits on the couch, totally naked, the taste of Martha still on his tongue. He would have had her again if it weren't for the onset of exhaustion.
He shuts his eyes, worn out. Opening them a second or two later he sees Martha Aiken, alert and almost muscular in her pose on the cushion beside him, holding a gun and aiming it precisely at his face. With the addition of the weapon, she looks ravishing.
The gears in his head come to a screeching standstill, and for a moment The Joker can not think.
He should be outraged. Ordinarily, any joke played at his expense would send him overboard with homicidal thoughts, but in this case, all he can see is the funny side. Well played, Martha Aiken. Well played. He has to admit, he admires her bravery. He looks at the gun and can't help but laugh.
"Do you even know how to use one of those?"
He goes to poke the barrel and she cocks the hammer, pointing it directly at his nose.
"Any moron can shoot a pistol, Mr. Joker." She remarks smoothly, "The question you ought to be asking is, can I aim?"
He is both shocked and impressed by this snarky response. He grins, nods, and shuts up. She allows him to put his trousers back on, not wishing to cause too much embarrassment to the man who has just given her what she surmises was probably the best sexual experience of her life. Without prior command, he casually tosses her his shirt (apparently with the same courtesy in mind), and she puts it on one-handed, making sure to keep the gun on him at all times. The shirt is short, but baggy enough to cover her adequately. He has to confess, he likes seeing her wear it, something about an item of his on her touches him in a selfish, sweet sort of way.
She rounds him and pushes the barrel between his shoulder blades.
"Wow, was I really that bad, Martha?" He jokes.
"You and I are going to walk out of here, Jack. We're going to march right out of here to the nearest car, and then we're going to drive. You're going to take me to the outskirts of Gotham, and then you're going to let me go. If you don't, I'll blow your fucking head off. Understand?" She whispers, frighteningly tense.
"Oh, terrific! You've lost your mind!" The Joker exclaims gleefully, twitching with excitement. "Good for you."
"I learned from the best."
"You know I can't let you go, Martha."
It's sad, the way he says it. But she feels like she can't trust that solemn touch of sincerity in his voice. He's tricked her so many times before, it's all one big joke to him and she braces herself for the punchline.
"You're a maniac." She whispers angrily, and her words have a severe sting to them.
He twists in her grasp so that he can flash her a garish grin.
"Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage." Explains The Joker. "By that logic, you're the crazy one, Martha."
"You fucking asshole!" She screams, enraged by his lack of fear. "Do you think I want to be doing this? Do you think I want to be threatening death? You turned me in to you! I have no choice! You're a fucking monster!"
"Exactly!" He roars, matching her intensity.
Silence.
His grin widens, cracking lips parting to reveal both rows of dirty yellow teeth.
"Exactly." He says again, less hysterical but still clearly unsettled.
She doesn't say a word. Nothing comes to mind that's worth saying now.
"I can quote them for you – all the ones that are supposed to make you feel better. Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. Einstein. The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. So if your three best friends seem okay, then you're crazy. Rita Mae Brown. The reason I talk to myself is because I'm the only one whose answers I accept. George Carlin. There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I –"
"–erased this line." She finishes, adding "Oscar Levant."
His eyes narrow, and she can't read him any more after that.
"Nobody seems to get it." He begins calmly, "Nobody understands. We're all mad here, Martha. I'm mad, you're mad. We're both just as out there as everybody else, but I'm okay with it. I'm not trying to hide it. In fact –" He points rigidly to his painted skin, grinning so that his scars stretch grotesque. "I go to terrific lengths to put it on display. Obviously."
Her mouth remains tightly closed, she knows better than to speak now.
"Normality is all one big joke." He cackles. "The way they try to hide their natures. It's hilarious. Everybody's just as sick as I am. The only difference is that I'm not afraid to admit it. I accept the madness, and the chaos, and it makes me smile."
For all her remaining sanity, and there is very little left now, she beseeches him, desperate for a credible answer.
"Why?" she pleads. "Why me? Why couldn't you just let me go? What couldn't you just pick somebody else to help you with the bank?"
Giving a mocking pout, The Joker leans back on his heels to test her balance before cooing, "It was never about the bank, Martha. If you think me so simple even now, well, then you never knew me to begin with."
"Why? Why?" she implores, moving the gun up and shaking it against his temple in a crazed fashion.
Looking back at her, with a scornful twinge to his tone The Joker eagerly continues "Man is a wolf to man. Others hide the animal within by acting civilized, and while I won't, I can't be too bold or else the others will turn on me. But to openly hunt the flock, what better way to set yourself apart?"
"So you hurt the innocent to prove what?" Martha retches miserably. "That you're different? That you're the same?"
"That when the chips are down these civilized people – they'll eat each other. I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve." He tenderly clarifies. "It's brilliant, the way it's all been devised. At first they'll all think I'm in it for the money – that I have a singular vision to see the Batman dead and the mob slicing the city up for a profit while the police try and take them down one block at a time. But in the end they'll see – insanity does not exist, because, underneath it all, everybody's crazy. You'll all thank me for it afterward. I promise. Every. Single. One of you. You'll all be laughing your faces off."
She has this instinct that tells her there is some cruel truth to what he's told her, but she refuses to acknowledge it. Hanging her head in defeat, Martha determines that, despite her desperation for logic, she'll receive none of it now, and it is likely that she never will. Aware of this at last, she gives up on asking him any more questions and begins to push him toward the door.
"Come on." She tells him, tone of voice dull, "It's time for my walk."
They approach the door and she fishes the key out from his trouser pocket. Handing it to him she tells him to unlock it. He does so willingly, making sure to go as painfully slow as she'll permit.
"You've thought about this."
"For days." She replies despondently.
"Ummmm . . ." He wriggles under her grip and it tightens, along with her finger on the trigger. "Have you thought of everything, Martha?"
"I've planned it out, if that's what you mean." She winces involuntarily as she says the word 'planned', a reaction forced on her by his hatred of the action. Her abhorrence of him, this miserable confinement, is raw and enlivening in contrast.
Fangs bared, he continues in a tone only slightly less mocking.
"Oh, really? Well, what if I snapped my head back really fast – like this."
The rear side of his skull abruptly collides with her forehead, and for a moment her senses are burning and she can't see. Before she can react he has slipped her grip and somehow the gun has come out of her hand, and when she finally regains her vision she is staring point-blank at the barrel, beyond which is his grinning face, incredibly close and obnoxiously smug.
"Advice for the future, Martha." He quips, "If you choose to plan something out, make sure to cover every angle. You never know what might go wrong."
She looks up at him, wide eyes finding his soulless ones and she becomes momentarily lost in the void, feeling suddenly cheap and dirty. She experiences the first pangs of shame at the recognition that she's let him use her. Another attempt failed, and all the hopes of freedom and normalcy are dashed like crystal against a stone hearth. Her eyes dart away and Martha tries to scramble past him, panic blossoming out of self-reproach. The Joker lurches forward with a startling amount of agility and seizes her by the scruff of her hair. Callous fingers cover her wide, wet mouth (still slick with his saliva), and as he holds her to him he muses, "Aw, now what? Did you really think you were gonna walk out of here, just like that?"
His hollow black gaze bores into her, and her cheeks burn with freshly shed tears. Tracing the gun barrel along the soft expanse of her cheeks to catch the dampness before it can leave her face, he chuckles lightly, complacently sadistic. Half of her wishes he would just pull the trigger, and then all of her worrying would be over, but that part of her that fights and flies and prays for survival can't stand to let her think that way.
"I'll admit, I was expecting a double cross from the get-go, ever since I gave you that nifty little bicycle deck." He reveals contemptuously. "But I was really hoping that you weren't lying, Martha. I was really hoping you'd be the genuine article. Man did you have me going." He adds, suppressing a giggle.
"Some funny joke, huh?" She jibes.
Like an animal she bites his shin, and out of reflex he jerks away to put distance between himself and this wild woman he thought he had momentarily subdued. His first reaction to come after leaping back is confusion. Then, a grotesque grin contorting his face in to one of flashing fury, and just like that he's out for blood – all residue of the soft lover who caressed her so compassionately only minutes ago boiled away by hot anger. Flicking the gun against the supple curve of her lips, Martha is knocked on her back with bloody teeth, and before she can fully rise his foot comes across swiftly to meet with her chest. Her breath comes out of her in one, wounded gust and she quickly slumps to the floor, weight taken up by his wiry arms as he helps to place her in to a position of better comfort.
Softly he purrs a verse from Mary Shelly. "I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."