Joker: The Untold Story of the Man Who Found His Smile.
A dark rainy cold night, the Gotham streets flooded with lights and cars. In an alley next to a dumpster sits Jack Napier alone. He sits in the rain pondering his last few days. He is at a loss of hope. He used to be so happy, always had a smile…but after today he had lost it.
Dana cheated on me, not like I didn’t already suspect it but…it still hurts like hell. I lost my job three days ago after my research was shut down. I couldn’t go home to face my wife, so I went to the bar. I got drunk made a few bets….lost them all. I couldn’t pay them back, how could I? I didn’t have a job now. So they took me out back and beat me for two days straight they said they wanted their money by next week or they’d finish the job. They finally let me go after those two days of vicious beatings, and now look at me. I was a monster; I didn’t know it at first when I decided to go home to Dana. She is pregnant after all. We were having a baby girl…or so I thought.
I walk in and close the door behind me not trying to wake her; it was dark in the house but not quiet. I heard voices in the room. One was my wife Dana, the other…a familiar voice. The door was cracked open just enough and when I peeked in I saw my wife…but not alone, she was in bed with my boss, the man who fired me three days prior. My heart sunk. I just turned around and walked away but the damn floor squeaked loud enough that my wife heard it. My wife came out of the room. SHE was upset at ME for spying on her. We continued to argue until finally she told me that the child isn’t even mine and that I should just leave and never come back then in the slight light from the window she saw my face... she looked at me in disgust. She told me how hideous I looked and she asked me what happened but took it back and told me she didn’t care anymore and told me to just get out. So I left, I walked the streets for hours, what else could I do? I had no money, so I came to this alley and here I sit; alone, cold, scared, and nowhere to go. I looked up from my hands and there I saw it, my monstrous reflection. I couldn’t even imagine living anymore.
Jack looks over at the dumpster next to him. He opens it and looks inside.
It stinks, but at least it’s dry. I’ll sleep in here for tonight; hopefully tomorrow I can find a new job and get back on my feet…but things never usually work out the way I hope them to.
He gets inside, and closes the lid.
He awakes several days later to a small blonde girl looking down at him poking him to wake up.
“Hey, Mr.” She nags “Hey Mister, wake up!” “Excuse me mister.”
He looks up into her big blue eyes and gets angry
“What do you want? Go find your mom or something, go away.”
“I-I’m an orphan.”
He sighs and looks up at her; she couldn’t be more than 6 years old. He sits up in a sleepy daze.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know, you have been here a few days and I was wondering if you needed a friend… ’cuz I’ll be your friend!”
Her eyes sparkle in the sun, but he isn’t impressed
“Look kid I’m not a friend you want alright, I mean aren’t you scared of…this?”
He signals to his face
She looks at him with confusion
“No, I think you’re very handsome Mr.”
He looks at her stunned, yet flattered
“Really, are you sure?”
“Oh yes very much. So what do you say Mr.?”
He puzzles for a minute looking at her cute young face
“Alright, well what’s your name?” He says as he hops out of the dumpster and onto his feet.
“I’m Harley, Harley Quinzel.” She says with a smile. “And what’s your name Mr.?”
“Jack.” He replies looking down at her tiny extended hand.
“It’s nice to meet you Mr. Jack.” She looks up at him as he takes his hand.
“Just J—“ He spaces out looking down at the newspaper dancing in the street, and remembered what had happened what had seemed like only yesterday.
“Well, Alright Mr. J, let’s go!”
She giggles and takes his hand pulling him like a dog going for a walk in the morning.
“Where are we going Harley?” He says looking around.
Through the streets of Gotham he sees the people he passes looking at him in fear of his appearance. She doesn’t seem to notice or really care. She just drags him along as if she wants to show her new friend to the entire world. They arrive at a sandwich shop, and she stops and glances into the window with hunger. She looks up at him; “You don’t happen to have any money do you?” He looks down at her with disappointment, but not in her but in himself. He shakes his head, but she just smiles and walks in and stabs the man with a sharpened pick she must have found somewhere in the street. Jack looks at her in astonished bafflement. He couldn’t believe what he saw. All he could think was that he was still asleep. Before he could blink she was in from of him with two sandwiches. She looks up at him and yells for him to follow her. They run back to the dumpster where they met and hide inside with the sandwiches she stole… He doesn’t know what to say he just sits in silence, until she speaks.
“Okay I think we’re safe now. Here!” She looks at him holding at the sandwich. “Take it!” He looks down at her still unable to understand what had just happened.
“Harley, you shouldn’t have done that…” Her eyes were deceitful, he thought. Such a sweet innocent young girl turned into a corrupt criminal by the city.
“Oh, come on Mr. J. We would’ve starved. I asked politely but he was being a bastard and said no. So I killed him and took them anyway. It’s his fault. Now take it.” She smiles.
At first he was scared of her, but then he smiles. If this little girl can get by after losing everything a child knows, then why could I? He claimed to himself. I think this girl is a blessing; she is exactly what I need. He takes the sandwich from her hand and begins eating it.
“Thank you Harls.” He smiles. “I think we will be very good friends.”
She gets out of the dumpster and brushes herself off. “Let’s get outta here, I want some desert.”
He follows her out of the dumpster and says, “What did you have in mind?”
“Well,” she replies “I really want some pudding and I don’t think anyone saw us there weren’t any people around us so I think it should be okay to leave.”
They come running around the corner laughing with success and a handful of pudding. Jack sees a car and decides to get in and hotwire it with Harley in the passenger seat eating her pudding. He finally gets it started and they drove off stopping over by the abandon train tracks. He parks the car and looks at her as she hands him a pudding cup.
“Thanks,” he takes it and opens it. “You know I’m really glad we met Harley, you really helped me through everything.”
“No sweat Mr. J!” she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a picture. “I drew you something.” She smiles as she opens it and hands him a picture drawn in crayon. It has a picture of a female wearing red and black and a jester hat holding hands with a clown. “My mom before she died used to take me to the renaissance festival and circus every month and I always wanted to be a Harlequin. Since my name reminds me of one. And I always wanted to marry a clown they’re so funny, I love to laugh. So I drew this picture. That’s you and this is me.”
He smiles and looks up into her eyes. “You’re my lil harlequin, Harley.” Just then her eyes brightened as she blushed and looked down at her pudding. She giggled and said.
“And you’re my puddin’, Puddin’” she smiles.
The car door opens and Harley is yanked out by her long blonde hair by a man in a tuxedo as she screams Jack too is pulled out by his collar. Before he could look up he takes a kick to the head, before he blacks out all he can see is a group of men taking Harley kicking and screaming to their car.
He awakes in a daze strapped to a chair, blinded by a bright light all he sees is a silhouette of a knuckled fist striking him in the nose, breaking it. He looks up in pain to see the familiar face of the shark that had cut him up the first time. “So you think you can run Mr. Napier Well I’ll show you what happens to men who run from The Roman.” Jack takes more blows to the face and stomach from the knuckled fists each one more brutal than the last. Jack speaks “Please Mr. Falcone, I’ll pay you back. Just tell me where Harley is.” He smiled devilishly “Oh the girl? Oh yeah we got the girl. She was a real fighter Jack, you should’ve been proud.” “YOU SON OF A BITCH WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER!?” He shouts in anger as he squirms trying to strangle him. He looks up and snaps his fingers signaling one of his men to bring in a limp figure wrapped in a blanket and lays it on the ground. As he uncovers it Jack looks down at the small fragile body with glassy eyes. Harley’s body laid their lifeless, naked, bruised, and covered in blood.
“You see my boys here Jack, they don’t have time to go home to their wives so they get a little lonely and who better to help them than your little consolation prize? Don’t be sad, look how peaceful she looks and besides she cleared your debt. My boys decided that instead of money, well just take her instead, that and you do a little job for us. Or else I’ll make you watch this.” He holds up a video tape and talks to him from behind. “You do what I say, and you won’t have to see what we did to her. In fact, I’ll destroy it after too! Jack drops his head, his heart shattered.
What could I lose now? I lost the only thing that could’ve made me whole again.
He looks up with anger and tears in his eyes. “What do I have to do?” The Roman laughs an evil laugh. “Oh I just need a little job done over at the ACE Chemical Plant. Then once it’s done, I’ll give you the tape. You can do whatever you want after that. “Kill you.” Jack says as he looks up at him in anger.
“Sure,” The Roman replies “you can try.” He laughs. “Now as much as I don’t give a damn, to better help you since I am a fair man. I will better protect you identity just in case you run into any trouble at the plant?” One of the men unties Jack and The Roman throws him a long red cape with a red helmet looking thing attached to it. Jack looks at his beaten reflection in the helmet.
He awoke back at the bay where he once was what seemed so long ago.
What the hell happened? He groaned. Something was wrong. He thought. His face burned like hell but he didn’t know why. He looked over in the window of the abandoned building next to him. He begins laughing hysterically, His face was pure white, his lips and scars he obtained from The Roman were bright red, and his hair was green. He shattered the glass.
He opens the door to his house, and closes it quietly behind him. He walks into the room where his wife and his boss were going at it. They hear him laugh and turn around covering themselves.
“Hello Dana, did you miss me?” she looks into the shadows “Jack? What the hell are you doing here I told you to get out!” He steps into the light and both her and his bosses eyes widen in fear. “Well honey, I’ve had a change of heart. I decided I’d kill to be with you.” He laughs as her screams echo in the distance.
In Captain Gordon’s office he sits there at the phone smoking a cigar as Harvey walks in. “Captain the bat got him! He got the Joker; he’s bringin’ him to Arkham.”
In the halls of Arkham the man who was once Jack is now lost. He sits in a cell while Batman and Gordon stand outside his cell talking. “He’s gonna be in there for a long time. Especially after all those people he killed. I still don’t get how he got to those people under such heavy guard, or even how he obtained something like that laughing gas he poisoned them with.”
“I don’t know Jim, all I do know is that there are no traces on this guy, he cut and burned his fingertips off, and there is no DNA in any of the systems. It’s as if whoever he used to be never existed at all.”
“Well whoever he used to be, must have had some really messed up stuff happen to him. This man is psychotic!”
Joker sits in his cell laughing until a small familiar voice calls out to him from behind.
“Mr. J? Hi it’s me.” He turns around and to see the hallucination of a short slender woman in a Harlequin costume. He looks into her eyes. It was his little Harley all grown up; well at least it seemed to him that she was there.
“Did you miss me pudding’?” she says in the memorable voice he had long thought forgotten.
He just looks at her, and laughs he laughs and laughs and laughs some more. He had truly gone insane and at that very moment, Jack Napier was dead and after all that has happened he still managed to find his smile again.