Love, Lust and Explosives

This is my second attempt at fan-fiction, reviews are enormously appreciated!!!

Chapter One: This Place Sucks

This was an “in-ter-est-ing’ place; this psychiatric “hospital” for the criminally insane. If by interesting, you meant dismal, dark, and depressing (which he usually did). In fact, it sucked and, so far, the Joker wasn‘t enjoying himself much. On the up side, however, there were some bizarre and fairly intriguing people here. He was certain he could manipulate quite a few of them without much effort. That was useful.

It was pretty obvious that everyone hated this place, inmates and staff alike. His first clue had been the frequent wails, screams, curses and occasionally, the sobs that seemed to permeate the very air. Of course, he didn’t give a crap about how anyone there felt or why he or she was here. He knew he would be checking out early. He simply had to be patient (which he also hated). Arrangements had been made long before his incarceration.

The Joker had been an inmate at Arkham Asylum for about six months. The legal process, following his arrest, had been aggressive and swift, and that had suited him fine. There had been no question that his plea would be insanity. His lawyer had not even asked. Kind of funny, really. If they wanted crazy, he could supply it, in spades.

The case against him was almost impossible to argue for obvious reasons. First, the evidence against him was overwhelming; there were bodies, debris and devastation out the wazoo. Secondly, most of this carnage had been captured on video or witnessed by large numbers of people. Almost the entire city, including many of its criminals wanted him dead, and the Joker considered this a rousing success.

It didn’t help his defense that there were no records on him….none, nada, nil and nothing, period. The Joker was a man without an identity. He did not intend to reveal anything about his past to anyone, much less to his slick, ambitious lawyer. The lawyer had asked about his history on several occasions. On the final occasion, Joker had had enough and felt obligated to help his persistent lawyer get the message. A few broken ribs seemed to make his point. The lawyer, who was too terrified to quit the case, wisely, never asked again

The main argument had been that the defendant must have been the victim of a tragic and abusive childhood, one that, thankfully, he did not remember. And it was an accepted fact that only those, who suffered from the worst forms of abuse, were robbed of their memories. This poor, tortured and abused soul could not possibly be held accountable for the atrocities he committed. He was himself, an atrocity. Society had failed to save him, and he had no choice but to take his rage out on that society. “Yeah, yeah…what-ever, “Joker thought, chuckling to himself. “Only those who understand the true nature of the world and the people in it are willing and able to make the real choices.”

The Joker sat in the court decked out in his purple finest, definitely a stark contrast to the somber suits and faces of those around him. He was thoroughly bored most of the time, but he managed to find ways to amuse himself. One of his favorites was to stare unblinking at individual jurors, dissecting them with his eyes and making them squirm in their seats. More than one had begged to be dismissed from duty and they were running out of alternates. Frequently, during the more “picturesque” testimony, he broke out into bouts of hysterical laughter, earning him startled looks of disgust from the jury. When things really got dull, he actually dozed off a few times.

He refused to look repentant and full of remorse, and his lawyer (who still found it slightly difficult to breathe) knew better than to make the suggestion. This legal crap really made the Joker sick. He hated lawyers (and laws, of course), talk about real crooks. He spent most of his time in court fantasizing about slicing the throats of everyone around him. It helped to pass the time.

In the end, as he expected (and planned), he was sent to Arkham - a life sentence. He was locked up on the maximum-security level, in the basement (of course) of the ancient structure. However, he was given several benefits. He was allowed to wear his “war-paint”, as his lackeys called it. His lawyer and numerous hired experts testifying on his behalf argued that taking this away would be like taking away his very identity and would be detrimental to his physical and mental wellbeing. It could even lead to a psychotic break, and no one wanted that, for goodness sake.

He was the asylum’s newest and most feared celebrity. The Joker was confined to his cell the majority of the time, while numerous rabid psychiatrists assessed him and reassessed him and his potential influence on the asylum population. He was a source of great fascination and fear for the staff and the inmates.

Several of the counselors appeared to have ambitions of analyzing him and gathering enough dirty details to write a book of some kind. To their surprise (and at times horror), he answered most of their questions by telling them dirty jokes or by exposing their deepest darkest fears, as if they were blatantly obvious to anyone. Before long, only one or two would even attempt to communicate with him, and then for only very brief periods.

He played nice the majority of the time; this was the difficult part of the plan. Except for inciting a little violence here and there, tried to keep his temper in check and his brilliant philosophies to himself. Oh, but the urge to educate these sad, mislead idiots on the diseased nature of humanity and its need for an injection of chaos, was sometimes completely overwhelming. Even he was amazed at his self-control.

For those first few months, he spent a lot of his time setting up a set of contacts within the institution through bribery, manipulation and intimidation. His little network consisted of guards, hospital workers and inmates, who had been given various duties within the facility because of their “good behavior”. The mentally unbalanced had always been drawn to him, and he played them like a maestro. With a little creativity, he managed to get pretty much anything he wanted.

Despite his best efforts, the reality of incarceration in this facility was a bit trying for a man of purpose, who possessed fierce intelligence and boundless energy such as himself. Playing with the simple minds of the staff therapists was hardly a challenge. He wasn’t allowed out enough to cause the kind of mayhem that he thrived on. This place smelled like mold, beef stew, and urine. He was already horney and bored….very bored. And, the Joker’s boredom had the potential to be extremely dangerous. However, just when his self-restraint was wearing thinnest, she arrived.

She was brought in during the early morning hours, which was somewhat unusual. Most of the inmates were asleep at that time of night. He rarely slept. Footsteps echoed along the ancient tiled hallways that catacombed beneath the old Victorian building. He peered through the slot in his cell door in time to catch a glimpse of two bleary-eyed guards escorting a pretty, young woman with a strangely serene expression on her face, past his door. Her pale skin glimmered in the overhead fluorescent lights, and her long dark wavy hair flowed wildly over her shoulders. It almost looked like the ends of her hair were singed. As he strained his ears, he thought it sounded as if she was…humming! The guards stopped at the cell adjacent to the Joker’s and, with the clanking of locks and metal, this strange new inmate was introduced to her Arkham home.

Joker drew back into his cell. He was slightly puzzled. The expression on her face was…..unexpected, captivating. When morning came, he knew had something different to occupy his thoughts for a little while and he chuckled. “Hmmm a girl, in the cell next door…..thisss has po-ten-tial” he reflected and smiled to himself. He lay down on his bunk and, for once, he felt relaxed enough to drift off to sleep.


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