Gotham v. Joker, 1894 (Chapter Fourteen)

Recap (SPOILER ALERT): An alternate universe take on The Killing Joke. Joker escapes out of Arkham Asylum and kills Barbara Gordon. Batman and Catwoman face-off against Joker in Amusement Mile during the midpoint of the story. Joker is apprehended and permanently damaged in some ways. Just as Bruce returns home, thinking that the case is closed, he is visited by Harleen Quinzel. Harleen confesses to breaking Joker out of Arkham. She struggles to reconcile her feeling for Jack (Joker) and her job as a doctor. In the end, she makes a choice. Now, we are inside Blackgate Penitentiary where Joker is being held.

Joker wakes up. He feels like rubbing his eyes but realizes he can’t move his hands. They’re tied into a straitjacket. He looks around: the room is mostly full of shadows but there are rays of light coming from somewhere behind him, possibly a wall ventilator, creating a vague shadow of his head and upper body on a wooden table whitened by dust. His head is still a little buzzy but some things instantly return to him. He recognizes the room. Gordon and his cronies have used this part of the facility to “interrogate” him for the past few days. His cheeks and stomach still hurt from yesterday’s questions. His chair is made of metal, rusty and squeaky. Very uncomfortable.

“Hell is empty,” he says, as if to his own shadow. “And all the devils are here. I’m one of them, of course.” He tries to laugh, but it feels wrong, fake and disturbing. That’s how it has been since the day of the confrontation at Amusement Mile. He tries to laugh again, more forcibly and loudly, and then screams. The cuts and bruises on his face start to ache from the muscle usage. It seems to him for a moment that he can hear the pain originating from his cheeks. It sounds like a buzz saw raging against human bones. Is he imagining it? “You’re losing it, boy,” he thinks. “You’re done.”

The metal door of the interrogation room screeches open, finally. In walks Commissioner Gordon. He is not wearing his glasses or his usual dark brown overcoat, conveniently. Joker stretches his head and strains his eyes to get a glimpse of what’s outside but there isn’t much to see. Just the same old white wall of the hallway and two men in black uniform. The staff usually drug him to sleep before bringing him to this room and by the end of almost every session, he passes out from the hits, meaning that the white wall is where his knowledge of this side of the facility ends. Gordon signals the two guards to scoot and closes the door.

“Good day. Here to rough me up some more?” Joker says.

“Now why would I do that?” Gordon replies, half-smiling, as he unbuttons his sleeves and folds them up.

“What a relief.” Joker leans back, eyes closed, bracing for an immediate jab. “Let’s get this over with.” But no punches are thrown. All he hears is a laughter, natural and proud. He looks up at Gordon, teeth clenching in jealousy.

“You want this over fast?” Gordon asks.

Joker nods ever so slightly and then lets his head droop like a wilted flower. He has never felt to humiliated.

“How about this: tell me a joke.” The commissioner rests his back against the door and folds his arms. “Make me laugh. You do that and I’ll grant you an early-out.”

“You’re cruel.” Joker spits at him but it only goes as far as the near-edge of the table.

Silence ensues as Gordon stares at him like a basilisk.

“Fine, that’s my fault.”

“Yes, it is.” Gordon lets his back slide down. He sits on the dusty and uneven floor, the right knee arched and supporting an arm. “You owe half the credit to me for your comfy days in the asylum. The Bat got to me, indoctrinating me with his unrealistic plan for a better Gotham. He is the biggest clown of all in this city and I’m the biggest fool. Anyway, had I intervened, you’d have been thrown into this shithole years ago. But did I do it? No! As stupid as it was, I believed in you lunatics.”

“And then I killed your daughter,” Joker says, his head drooping lower.

Gordon sighs. “And then you killed my daughter,” says he, voice cracking to hold back a sob. He presses his hands on his head like he is in pain. “Why’d you do it?”

“About time this room witnessed some literal interrogation,” Joker says it monotonously.

“Answer me!”

“I can’t.”

Gordon breaks out laughing so hard that he bumps the back of his head against the metal door but it doesn’t stop him. “You’re not lying, are you? You probably even had no motive! If there was ever to be a man crazy enough not to need a reason to kill, it’s you.”

“You’re wrong. The Man in Black made me do it."

“Yeah?” Gordon says, sarcastically. “Who was that anyway? You never told us.”

“Because I didn’t think you’d believe me. I’ll tell you now though. Whether anyone believes me or not doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m not dumb—I keep having to tell people that for some reason. I know why I’m in Blackgate and I know what you’re planning. I know how my life ends. On the gallows. I’m smart enough to know I can’t escape this fate. Nothing really matters anymore.”

Gordon smiles, practically gleaming in joy at Joker’s misery. “Sure. Tell me. Or don’t tell me. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

“He isn’t real,” Joker begins. “The Man in Black is just a figment of my imagination.”

Gordon goes silent, probably processing the information. “That’d mean you broke out on your own.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Joker lifts his head and grins—it’s the furthest he can go since the head injury.

“I guess it wouldn’t be,” Gordon says, bitterly. “But what about the guards? They saw the man too.”

“They saw what I told them to see. Suggestion is a powerful thing when you’re under the effects of Jonathan Crane’s drug.”

Gordon seems like he is about to ask another question but there is a knock at the door. The commissioner curses as he stands up and then rubs and hits away most of the dust from his clothes. “What do you want?” he yells.

No verbal answer from the other side. There is simply another knock. Gordon opens the door. “I told you people not to--”

Joker’s eyes widen and hearts rate accelerates, seeing who is here. He actually smiles, not as widely as he used to but it’s an improvement nonetheless.

“Who are you?” Gordon asks, surprised.

“I’m Dr. Quinzel, from Arkham. Here to conduct a session with Jack Napier?” Harleen says, smiling. She is wearing a brown long-coat over a white apron.

“That’s not happening. In fact, you’re not allowed to be here, miss.”

“Oh!” Harleen blushes. “Yes, yes, I understand that.”

“Then please,” Gordon says, trying his best not to flip out, it seems to Joker, “leave.” He swings the door to close it but Harleen grabs the metal rim.

“Sorry, I should’ve explained earlier. Just give me a moment.” She reaches into her handbag and gropes around, looking for something. “There it is.” She brings out a square-shaped card. “I have an entry-pass signed by the warden of the asylum, Dr. William Sharp. He instructed me to give this to you, since you’re de facto in charge of this facility now.”

Gordon takes a look at the pass and then raises his eyebrows. It seems to check out. “He should’ve told me you were coming. My apologies.” He sounds more irritated than sorry.

“It’s okay. But you should know that I’m on a schedule. So if you will…”

“Of course, of course.” He rolls down his sleeves in preparation to leave. “Should I send in a guard for security? I could stay myself if you--”

“Thanks for the offer but it won’t be necessary. He is wearing a straitjacket; not that he has never been hostile to me. Plus, having a third party present in the room would only be detrimental to the therapy session.”

“Alright, you’re the expert,” Gordon remarks as he steps out into the narrow hallway. "My guards will be outside if you need anything."

***

Batman arrives at the gates of Blackgate Penitentiary, two grey horses neighing in front of his rusty old barouche. The road in front of the prison’s tall and wide presence is full of grass, mostly drab. There are big and small constructions on both sides of the facility and on the both sides of the road. Some of them used to be shopping complexes and restaurants before Blackgate was founded three decades ago. But soon after, residents of the division started moving away. Safety concerns, despite the facility being high security and practically inescapable—probably attributing to a stereotype people put on prisons and prisoners. The businesses all fell apart. Now the division is just a ghost town with a purgatory at its heart.

“Stop right there!” Two gatekeepers scream in unison, both carrying truncheons. Immediately, fifteen to twenty black-uniformed guards swarm into the spot, some from the flanks and some through the gates, all carrying rifles. “Leave at once!”

“I must speak to Gordon.” Batman raises his hands above his head and begins to slowly step out of his carriage. “Allow me to explain myself.”

The guards will have none of it. “Leave!” they demand again.

“At least answer a question then. Did a woman named Harleen Quinzel enter the facility today? I can describe how she looks so it’s easier to--”

“We’re not authorized to reveal information about who goes in or out of the facility,” they announce. “Last warning. Either you leave or we shoot.” They pull at their rifles’ bolt handles in unison and take aim. His hands tremble. He can’t die here, not yet, not like this. Twenty pairs of angry eyes aiming down twenty iron-sights. Batman can think of only one way of dealing with this situation. Part of him knew it’d come down to this one day or another. He patiently puts his hands on his neck, making sure his movements are not sudden and then, in one pull, takes off his cowl. He drops it face first into the ground. Twenty-two mouths gape in unison. They aim their rifles at the grass at once. “No way,” one of them says. “Makes sense to me,” says another.

One of the guards—he is the oldest looking man, hair greying on all sides and his skin noticeably paler than everyone else’s—stands forward and says, “I have respect for the Waynes and all they have done for Gotham but you’re still not allowed to be here, sir.”

“Wayne Foundation owns ten percent of the premises. I’ll make sure I watch my steps.” Bruce tries to walk past but the guard presses against the Bat insignia on his chest and forces him to a stop.

The man sighs, lips sucked in. “Let me run it through the commissioner first.”

“You do that.”

He sends one of the guards to carry the message to Gordon and dismisses the rest. The guardsmen share looks, perplexed, and then do as ordered.

“Why would you dismiss them?” Bruce asks, equally surprised. “What if I attacked you?”

“You won’t. I was a GCPD officer back in the day when you first popped into the scene. Saved my life once or twice. If you were to take it now… well, I don’t think I’d have a right to complain.”

Bruce looks at him like he’s crazy and goes back toward his carriage. There is a medium-sized trunk beneath the seat. He pulls it, carries it over in front of the horses and puts it down carefully on the ground. As soon as he opens the trunk, the horses get a little manic. “A little patience, buddy,” he whispers to them. He picks up a small block of Timothy hay and begins to tear it apart into smaller bits, looking for inedible objects. It’s baffling the amount of time he and Alfred have found old shoes, nails and even dead birds hiding inside the hay.

“Need help?” the old man calls out.

“Not really,” Bruce replies without turning. He takes another block, the last one, and breaks it apart in the same way, letting the hay falls on the grass. The horses lower their heads and graze. “What’s your name?” Bruce finally asks.

“Gerard Kapelput, ex-sergeant.”

Bruce immediately turns around.

“It’s the last name, isn’t it?” He laughs. “Yeah, my nephew has really dragged it through the mud. I hear he is going to be transferred to Blackgate soon.”

Bruce nods. “How does that make you feel?”

“I feel that it serves him right. The bastard deserves the gallows, simply for the hell he has put his parents through. My brother couldn’t take the heartbreak anymore. But more than that the shame and humiliation, I’m sure. And then he… my brother…” Gerard fails to finish the sentence. He takes a deep breath and lets out a long sigh.

“I’m sorry. I heard about it,” Bruce says and then begins to think to himself: “If my parents had been alive today, how would they react? Would it break their hearts to see what sort of a symbol I’ve become?” It’s a counter-factual question, of course. If Martha and Thomas Wayne had lived on, who knows what kind of a man he would be now.

“It’s been difficult but I’d say I’ve been dealing with it pretty well. Blackgate can be a… lively place, you know? There’s always a riot or two to stop and duels to break up. Helps keep your mind off the sorrow.”

It resonates with Bruce. Isn’t that how has dealt with loss his whole life? After the death of his parents, he’d spend hours either reading or working on the stable. Once he was old enough, he dedicated all his time training in the cave with Alfred and learning to fight. Same when Barbara died, forgetting to sleep as he chased leads and ransacked the city looking for Joker. “But then aren’t you just avoiding your grief?” he asks Gerard. “You’re keeping busy, keeping yourself distracted by the everyday hell of the penitentiary. I say it’s not the healthiest thing you can do right now.”

Gerard ponders for a moment, looking away, and then laughs, heartily. “You’re probably right.” He ponders something again. “That’s actually very wise of you. I’d expect nothing else from a Wayne. Your parents would be proud.”

Bruce smiles. “Thank you but I disagree. I think they’d be disappointed. I mean, look at me.”

Gerard’s eyed broaden, as if asking “What are you talking about?” He lets out a sigh. “Tell me something, Bruce,” he says and takes four steps forward where the fallen mask rests. “Tell me.” He kneels down, picks up the cowl and wipes away the dust with his aging hands. “Who are you? Are you Bruce, son of Martha and Thomas? Or are you Batman, the knight of Gotham?”

“The latter,” he says, gazing into the mask and its holes. It unsettles him, the way it would unsettle someone to look at their own face, cut off with a scalpel and tailored into a mask, resting in someone else’s hands—the sheer gore. “No doubt about it,” he continues. “Not anymore.”

“So you have martyred yourself, becoming a symbol instead … an abstraction. Why? Who’d you do it for?”

“For my parents, obviously. For the Gotham they left behind.”

Gerard smiles. “If that doesn’t make them proud, I’m afraid nothing will.” He holds out the cowl. Bruce accepts it. “Put it back on. Gordon will be here any moment now.”

He shakes his head. “What’s the point? You know who I am. So does twenty-odd guards.”

“I’ll order my men to forget what they saw.”

“Someone will talk sooner than later,” Bruce says.

The man grins. “Well, inevitably. That’s how secrets work.”

“No… I can’t,” Bruce says and falls silent. It was about time he was honest with himself. The Bat is dead. What used to be a symbol of truth and justice is now a symbol of falsehood and favoritism. Gordon was one of the first people to believe in this symbol’s potential and now he has denounced his faith. The Bat did have its moment in the sun. In that period, it worked wonders. Before, the night was a labyrinth nobody wanted to cross. Everything closed up by sunset. Parents used to tell their children the story of the Waynes and how they were shot down in an alley, trying to keep the kids from staying out late. After Batman made himself apparent, the fear that engulfed the innocent began to fade. He gave Gothamites hope, and above all, courage. They knew there was a knight in black looking out for them. What will they do, now that Gordon has revealed that this knight is as crooked as a bat’s wing? He knows criminals will not fear him anymore, not in the same way. What’s the point then? “As much as it disturbs me, I have to leave this life behind,” he says after a long pause.

Gerard smiles. “In that case, I wish you luck. But remember that you are not alone. If no one else, you’ll always have the Kapelputs. After all, our families have been friends for generations.”

Bruce gives him a grateful nod, turns and kneels down to the hay-trunk. He puts down the cowl, now with more respect and grace, amid scattered straws and trusses, and then pulls the trunk lid shut.

Suddenly, he hears someone step outside the gates in a rush. “Batman!” Gordon’s voice calls out from behind.

“What took you so long?” Bruce says as he stands up and turns around.

“Wait—you’re…” Gordon goes mum.

Gerard nods at the two of them and takes leaves. It’s just Bruce and Gordon outside now.

“I know you don’t trust me, but you’ll have to listen,” Bruce says.

“How dare you?!” the commissioner yells. “You think I’ll treat you differently because I know you’re a Wayne? It’s all the same to me. You’re still responsible for my daughter’s death.”

“I am and I don’t expect you to forgive me. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why then?”

“To prevent a tragedy,” says Bruce. “Blood that’ll be on both our hands.”

Gordon folds his arms and clenches his teeth. “Alright, go on,” he bites.

“Did a Dr. Quinzel enter Blackgate before my arrival?” Bruce asks.

Gordon’s eyes widen behind his glasses.

“So it’s too late.” Batman looks to the heavens.

“What’re you talking about?”

“She’s the Man in Black, Gordon. She is the accomplice.” Bruce reaches into a belt pouch and pulls out a folded piece of paper: Harleen’s letter to Joker. He tosses it to Gordon.

He reads it and only gets angrier. “You son of a bitch! How long have you had this? Doing this to me again, holding information … I swear to god … Answer my question!”

“Dr. Quinzel knew my identity and this was my contingency against her.”

Gordon takes a deep breath, probably trying to clear his mind. “You think she’s here to break him out again? Because that’s not happening. Blackgate is inescapable. They’d have to sneak past hundreds of guards who are prepared to shoot to kill if they have reason to suspect an attempted break-out. No, it’s impossible.”

“I know.”

“Then?”

“I think she’s hear to end him.”

Gordon takes a moment to register the information and, struck by a dreadful realization, bolts back inside the gates, running like his life depends on it, and screaming, “Guards! Come with me!” Bruce hears Gordon’s voice fade but his message is clear: “This is an emergency. You have to save Joker! Kill the doctor if you have to.”

Bruce doesn’t try to follow Gordon. He feels weak, weighed down by the knowledge of the inevitable. He just wants go home, or rather, how home used to be when he was still a kid. He vividly remember his father teaching him to dissect a cockroach or telling him about different ways one could bandage a wound. He remembers how his mother used to spend hours outside on the Wayne Manor grounds, working on paintings. She drew him a portrait one time but he hated it. It was too abstract for a kid’s taste. Alfred made sure he preserved it afterwards but Bruce hasn’t looked at the painting in decades. Will he happen to like it now? Maybe he’ll go home today and find out. He can finally do that. He can reminisce and take the time to grieve, now that he’s not Batman anymore. He feels as if he has all the time in the world. But does he, really? If Gordon spills the beans, the whole city might come after him, climbing up the walls and banging at the gates. But he’s Bruce Wayne. He’ll figure out how to deal with it, when the time comes. For now, he just calmly picks up the trunk, places it in its place beneath the seat and prepares to leave.