The Barrens & Others (37 page)

The last thing I remember of that night is vomiting.

10.
Aftermath

I awoke among the Razorback folk who'd found me the next morning and watched over me until I was conscious and lucid again. They offered me food but I couldn't eat. I walked back up to the clearing, to the bald spot.

It looked exactly as it had when Creighton and I had first seen it in August. No lights, no wind, no purple glow. Just bare sand.

And no Jonathan Creighton.I could have convinced myself that last night had never happened if not for the swollen, tender, violet bruise on my chest. Would that I had. But as much as my mind shrank from it, I could not deny the truth. I'd seen the other side of the veil and my life would never be the same.

I looked around and knew that everything I saw was a sham, an elaborate illusion. Why? Why was the veil there? To protect us from harm? Or to shield us from madness? The truth had brought me no peace. Who could find comfort in the knowledge that huge, immeasurable forces beyond our comprehension were out there, moving about us, beyond the reach of our senses?

I wanted to run...but where?

I ran home. I've been home for months now. Housebound. Moving beyond my door only for groceries. My accounting clients have all left me. I'm living on my savings, learning Latin, translating Jon's stolen book. Was what I saw the true reality of our existence, or another dimension, or what? I don't know. Creighton was right: knowing that you don't know is maddening. It consumes you.

So I'm waiting for spring. Waiting for the vernal equinox. Maybe I'll leave the house before then and hunt up some pine lights – or
lumens
, as the book calls them. Maybe I'll touch one, maybe I won't. Maybe when the equinox comes, I'll return to Razorback Hill, to the bald spot. Maybe I'll look for Jon. He may be there, he may not. I may cross into the bald spot, I may not. And if I do, I may not come back. Or I may.

I don't know what I'll do. I don't know anything anymore. I've come to the point now where I'm sure of only one thing: Nothing is sure anymore.

At least on this side of the veil.

foreward to "Definitive Therapy"

So here it was September and already I'd done three stories this year with Marty Greenberg involved. Then he called, looking for a fourth.

Martin H. Greenberg could be considered the novelist's Satan. Not that he's an evil man. Far from it. He's a good natured soul with boundless energy, a sharp mind, and an endless font of ideas for collections of stories. And that's the problem.

Picture this: There you are, toiling away on a novel, wrapped up in the characters and the plot, riding the flow, building the momentum. Suddenly the phone rings. It's Marty. He's got a contract from Avon for an anthology about haunted woodstoves – going to be the definitive haunted woodstove anthology – paying a dime a word, with a deadline in four months. Can you come up with something? You say, Sorry, I'm up to my lower lip in overdue contracts and unfulfilled promises and no way can I squeeze out another 5K of fiction before the end of the year. Marty displays his characteristic equanimity and accepts this without the slightest squawk. You make small talk about the kids, the biz and sundry other matters, then hang up and go back to your novel.

But over the course of the next few days and weeks Marty's proposal nibbles and gnaws at you. Haunted woodstoves…hmmmm. You remember how Grandma's used to look like it had two glowing eyes. What if…? Before you know it, you've got a story bouncing off the inner walls of your skull and if you don't write it out now and send it to Marty you'll never sell it anywhere else because Marty's anthology will be definitive, without question, the very last word on haunted woodstoves. So you break off from your novel and write Marty's goddam story.

Yes…the novelist's Satan.

But I had no one but myself to blame this time. Marty had edited
The Further Adventures of Batman
the year before and at one time or another I'd taken him to task for not asking me to contribute. He said he'd assumed I never read comic books. Never read them? Hell, I've
written
them. So when he got a contract for
The Further Adventures of The Joker
, I was on his list of writers to call.

It wasn't a good time for me to write a short story. I was knee deep in
Reprisal
, rewriting and restructuring everything I'd done the preceding winter. I needed to focus myself completely to get this right. But the Joker… one of my all time favorite villains… I couldn't resist. I put
Reprisal
aside.

But I wanted to do
my
Joker. I disliked Jack Nicholson's portrayal 1989 almost as much as Ceasar Romero's back in the sixties. Sure, the bizarre murders, the bad jokes, and psychopathic clowning were all there in abundance, but no sense of anything truly evil beating beneath the surface. I decided to take the Joker out of his element, drain off some of his control, make him a prisoner/patient in the notorious Arkham Asylum. Here we would see a subtler, less flamboyant Joker, but more deeply and darkly evil… coldly maleficent. Batman would not appear. I'd offer no prose equivalent of comic book splash page action. My Joker would chill instead of thrill. My story would be a table top psychomachy.

People who've read the story have written to say that my Joker was the basis for Heath Ledger's interpretation in
The Dark Knight
. Who can say, but I can see the parallels. Do you?

Definitive Therapy

ARKHAM ASYLUM

Medical History

NAME:
"The Joker"
DATE OF BIRTH:
Unknown
MR#
20073

ATTENDING PHYSICIAN:
Dr. R. Hills & staff

CHIEF COMPLAINT:
Committed to life internment by court order. Returned to this facility after the most recent of his periodic escapes.

HISTORY OF CHIEF COMPLAINT:
A career criminal with a long, well-publicized, well-documented history of antisocial and sociopathic behavior in the guise of a self-created public persona known as "The Joker." Convicted of multiple murders. Multiple escapes and readmissions to this facility. See old charts.

PAST HISTORY:
Little available besides what is in the public record. The patient relates a history of juvenile delinquency which meets the criteria for Severe Conduct Disorder, undifferentiated type (312.90)

ALLERGIES:
None known.

MEDICATIONS:
On no meds.

PREVIOUS HOSPITALIZATIONS:
Many to this facility. See previous charts.

FAMILY HISTORY:
Unknown. Patient uncooperative as historian.

SOCIAL HISTORY:
No external stigmata of alcoholism or drug abuse.

SYSTEMIC REVIEW:
According to what little history can be gleaned from the patient, he has been in generally good health for most of his life. He has a past history of facial trauma combined with toxic chemical exposure resulting in permanent disfigurement of the facies, the integument, and its appendages. No history of hearing loss or visual impairment. No thyroid disease or diabetes. No asthma, emphysema or chronic lung disease. No heart disease or hypertension. No history of ulcer or colitis. No GU infections or past disease. No seizures or strokes. His psychiatric history has been exhaustively explored and documented at this facility. His facial/chemical trauma was once posited as the source of his psychopathy, but the patient relates a long history (undocumented) of criminal antisocial behavior since his early teens, long predating the trauma.

DICTATED BY: Harold Lewis, M.D.
SIGNATURE:________________

ARKHAM ASYLUM

Physical Exam

NAME:
"The Joker" (legal name unknown)
MR#
20073

ATTENDING PHYSICIAN:
Dr. R. Hills & staff

VITAL SIGNS:

BP:
122/78
P:
82
R:
10
T:
98.6

PHYSICAL FINDINGS:
A thin, facially disfigured Caucasian male, apparently in his mid-thirties, alert, well-oriented, in no distress. The head is normocephalic with slight evidence of proptosis. Neuromuscular paresis and cicatricial disfigurement of the facial tissues have resulted in a permanent rictus. Ears, nose and throat are negative. The neck is supple, the thyroid is negative to palpation. The chest shows a moderate pectus excavatum. The heart is normal in size and rhythm with no murmurs. The lungs are clear to auscultation and percussion. The abdomen is soft, no masses, no organomegaly, no tenderness. Normal uncircumcised male genitalia. The lymph nodes are negative. The limbs are intact and freely movable. The deep tendon reflexes are +2 bilaterally, the pupils are equally reactive to light and accomadation. The skin is markedly pale. Its appendages – the hair and nails – are green. This does not appear to be factitial since there is no sign of natural color under the cuticles or at the roots.

PROVISIONAL DIAGNOSIS:

1. Antisocial Personality Disorder (301.70)

2. Probable Delusion Disorder, grandiose type (297.10)

3. Rule out Bipolar Disorder, manic, mood congruent with psychotic features (296.44)

4. Rule out Intermittent Explosive Disorder (312.34)

DICTATED BY: Harold Lewis, M.D.
SIGNATURE:________________

SESSION ONE

He was painfully thin, and taller than I'd expected.

I remained standing as the guards led the gaunt, manacled figure into the interview cell.

The Joker's appearance is positively shocking at close range. I'd seen his face before. Who hasn't? But to find myself standing across a small table from the man, to have his eyes scan me from a distance of only three feet as if I were some kind of insect, was a jolt. The smile...that was what did it. We've all seen that soulless, mirthless grin countless times, shining at us in black and white from the front page of the Gotham Gazette or in never-quite-true color from the tv screen during the evening news, but nothing in the media prepares you for the original. The smile...the corners of the mouth are drawn up and back, fully half way into the cheeks. And the teeth – so big and white. Bigger than Morton Downey's. But they're not as white as his skin. So pale. Not so much in the bleached, albino sense; more like a white stain. I could not help feeling that with a little cold cream on a cloth I could wipe it off. But I knew that had been tried many times. The seaweed green of his hair and fingernails were the garnish on this bizarre human concoction.

During my five years of psychiatric residency in New York's Downstate Medical Center, and in various maximum security facilities about the country, I have encountered mental illness in its most violent manifestations. But I could not remember actually feeling madness as I did in my first seconds in the room with The Joker. Nothing in the media prepared me for the power of the man. In fact, the never-ending stream of stories about him in the press only serves to trivialize him. We've become used to The Joker; we've become almost comfortable with him. We all know that he is a career criminal and a multiple murderer to boot, yet his face is so familiar that he has become part of the background noise of Gotham. His latest outrage does not stir us to as much anger as it would had it been perpetrated by a stranger. Better the devil you know...

My task was to get to know this devil.

With two armed guards watching closely, I thrust my hand across the table.

"I'm Dr. Lewis, Mr. Joker. I'll be–"

"Call me 'Joker,'" he said in a surprisingly soft voice as he stared at me, ignoring my hand. The contrast between his grave tone and his grinning face was disconcerting.

"But that's not your real name. I'd prefer to address you by that."

"That name is gone. Call me The Joker if you wish to have any meaningful communication with me."

I was reluctant to do that. The patient's Joker persona appeared to be the axis upon which his criminal career turned. I did not want to reinforce that persona. Yet I had to communicate with him. I had little choice but to acquiesce.

"Very well, Mr. Joker. I–"

"Just...Joker."

I thrust out my hand again.

"Joker, I'm Doctor Lewis. I'll be handling your therapy."

He ignored my hand and appeared suddenly agitated.

"When did you arrive? I've never seen you before. Where is Doctor Hills? Why isn't he treating me?"