15. The Trapped and the Deranged
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Inside, my heart was breaking, for I was in love with the Joker, and there he stood, telling me that I was his soul mate and I very well knew he meant it entirely differently. I wanted to leave, to prove to him that my love for him was real—was beyond the things he had proposed to me, but I knew I couldn't. Despite what he said about his opinions of me not changing whether I left or not, I knew I couldn't and wouldn't leave him. I was trapped, but just as much as I was trapped by him, he was trapped by me.
It was like a disturbed version of Beauty and the Beast—would the beast ever learn to love? Except my life was far from a fairytale—I was living in a self-inflicted hell—a life and situation that I chose for myself. In that moment I took his hand, I knew that I was no longer capable of leaving him or the life I had now opted for. There would only be pain, longing and chaos—there would be no surprises. Only surprises of chaos and destruction. I guess that's what you have to look forward to when you fall in love with a sociopath, mass murdering clown.
"Very good now, Giada…dear. Let's rig this ferry so we won't…miss… the fireworks later," he stated with a grin. I nodded and turned away from him for a moment, then I turned back to him, raised my hand and punched him across the face as hard as I could. He grunted at the blow and held the side of his face that I hit. He stared at me through wide, dark eyes.
"Just because I chose to join you doesn't mean that killing thousands of innocent civilians sits well with me," I spat at him, cracked my knuckles from the fist that met his face and turned back away from him and opened the duffle bag.
"See, Giada? I always knew you had it in you," he laughed as he kicked the duffle from my grasp.
"Had what in me? The ability to beat the shit out of you?" I asked.
"Exactly! The ability to get so angry with what's been given to you—the choices you had to make based on what others provided—the ability to take those choices and run with them—turn those choices in anger…and in turn…chaos—chaos to redeem yourself from the world that's punished you…punished for the decisions you made but were not followed through because of a wrong turn of events. There are no plans, Giada—only choices. We make due with the choices we are left to make," he stated as he knelt down to my level.
I saw it in his eyes in that moment as to what he was talking about—his experience in the war. He had made the decision to go to the war, but it had turned horribly wrong for him. He had to make decisions that he had never planned on making based on the choices he was given by others. He put me in an analogous situation to the one he was in—and I reacted in the same manner he did. I acted out violently. I turned to unplanned chaos in shooting that gun and then punching him for making me make a choice in which I had really no control over. He was right. I was just like him.
"Now how about we rig these ferries," he said as he stood and held out his hand for a final time. I immediately took his hand and stood to my feet. He then took me in close to him and held onto me firmly, "And don't ever punch me again unless I instruct you to do so," he whispered through clenched teeth into my ear. I ripped myself from his grasp to see that he was smirking at me.
"Yes sir," I smiled and saluted him in a mockery of his past. I could be just as heartless as he if he wanted me to be. All he had to do was push the right buttons. Ignoring my hurtful gesture, he knelt down and removed some things that were in the duffle bag. For the first time since I'd known the Joker, he didn't have anything to say to me in retaliation. I think I hit a serious nerve. I immediate felt remorse for hurting him with what was such a painful and life changing experience. I knelt down beside him in an effort to build up my rapport with him.
"So what now?" I asked.
"We connect these," he showed me some bizarre device, "with these," he showed me another. "Then, we program it into this detonator here that I built," he explained.
"You built these?" I asked, incredulous at the engineering work displayed in the homemade detonators. Most people make homemade pies—not the Joker—he makes homemade detonators to blow up buildings and ferries.
"Yes, I built these. Much to your surprise, I assume, I was in the military as an engineer," he said, with a salute to me as he stood to his feet. Touché. He got me back on that one. I knew he'd put me in my place. Well there it was—he really was brilliant—a genius. Here was a man whose life plan had gone seriously wrong—altered for reasons projected on him by others. Here was a man who was so brilliant that he was a military engineer. It's no wonder he knows so much about rigging buildings to blow! It was what he did—when it was an 'acceptable' thing to do because it was war and not just an expression of unwarranted chaos. Here was a very seriously misunderstood and abused young man—abused by others for his intelligence and skill.
He handed me the detonator and commenced to explain how it works. He explained it with such full detail but not a lot of technical terms so to not confuse me. I had no words to offer him. I was stunned. He instructed me and helped me each step of the way as we rigged the ferry and programmed the explosion time into the detonator.
It was off to the next ship. We repeated the same process until the second ferry was rigged and programmed to blow at precisely 12:00 midnight. A third detonator was also programmed to blow up both ferries, in case the other two detonators failed to work.
We left the waterfront and the Joker turned to me with a crooked grin, "I have a public announcement to make. Feel free to take the rest of today off,"
"Okay, but when should I meet up with you again? When are you planning on meeting Batman? I can help you,"
"This is something I don't need you for. This is just me…and the Batman," the Joker stated with a crazed grin.
"If you don't need my help, then why did you ask me to join you?" I asked, deflated by this letdown.
"I need you in my life just the same. I need your help just as I need to fight the Batman. You don't need to fight the Batman. I need to fight the Batman. And having you there just might…complicate things. You know how the Batman is—trying to save Gotham. He would use you as a distraction—he would try and take you away from me—and well…that just cannot be. I cannot let that happen," he responded as he placed a gloved hand to the side of my face. I was speechless. I didn't know what to say.
"There, there, Giada. Everything will be just…fine. You and I can…take over this city once the Batman is…gone,"
"So you do want to kill Batman?" I asked.
"No! I don't want to kill the Batman—he's too much fun," the Joker giggled.
"So then how can I join you in your battles if you say you don't want the Batman dead? Just gone? What do you mean?" I was so confused.
"Not this time, Giada. Next time," he said, grabbed my face again, firmly pressed his lips to my forehead, and left me there on the street. It was not a kiss of 'wish me luck' or 'I will miss you' or 'I care about you'. It was a kiss of 'you are mine' and 'I need you' and 'we will destroy this city together'. I wanted him to love me, not just feel the need to have me. My heart sank further into my stomach as I wandered through the streets back to uptown where my apartment was. I guess I would just stay there and wait the whole thing out until he was done with his work.
My life would not be a fairytale like Beauty and the Beast, because at least in that story, the Beast found that he could love. No, this would not be my story. Mine was the Trapped and the Deranged, because I was destined to be trapped by my love for him and trapped by his words. He was deranged by his mystique for me—his obsession with the idea that I understood him better than anyone else—that he understood me better than anyone else. We were the Trapped and the Deranged.