Arkham Daily Life (Part 1)

"Name?"

"Philip Best."

"Alright, Jack."

Joker lay on the hospital bed while Schiller stood beside it with a medical chart in hand. He said, "You’d better bring out that psychologist personality of yours and describe your symptoms. Otherwise, I’ll just make something up."

"Untie my right hand. I want a cigarette." Jack tossed his hair, and Schiller walked over and untied the right hand strapped to the bedrail. Jack made a gun gesture with his hand and aimed it at Schiller.

Schiller fetched a chair and sat beside the bed. Then he found a recorder and a blank tape in the cabinet, inserted the tape, and pressed the record button.

"Alright, tell me about your life."

Jack curled his lip, glanced at the recorder, then at Schiller, and said, "My name is Philip Best. I’m a truck driver working for the Anta Gang…"

Jack rambled on about mortgages and car loans, stocking up at the supermarket on weekends, his neighbor’s house catching fire, and so on.

Schiller pressed the recorder and said, "Alright, next one."

Jack stared at him, and he stared back at Jack. They locked eyes for a long while before Schiller said, "What are you looking at me for? Hurry up and make up another one. I need it."

Jack tipped his head back and shook it, rolled his eyes, muttered a few words in imitation of Schiller’s tone, and then made up another origin story for himself.

After Schiller had Joker invent more than a dozen origin stories, he finally removed the tape from the recorder with satisfaction.

As the saying went, trash was just a resource in the wrong place. The origin stories Joker made up for himself were not only believable and plausible, but rich in detail and vivid besides. With a few changes to the historical background, they could easily serve as elaborate fake identities.

Schiller had not forgotten that Arkham Asylum in Marvel still had quite a few agents he had planted there. These fake identities would come in handy.

Jack turned onto his side and craned his neck to look at Schiller, his eyes wide. "You know, I hate two kinds of people most. One is people who are too ordinary, and the other is people who are too much like me."

"And you—you’re obviously someone a lot like me, yet you’re trying to become an ordinary person. But Jack, the world’s greatest psychology master, is telling you that you can’t do it! Hahahahahaha!"

Before he could finish laughing, Schiller smacked his injured hand with the spine of his notebook. Jack cried out in pain, then burst into an even more manic fit of laughter. "I hit a nerve! I got you where it hurts! You’ll never become an ordinary person! Hahahahahaha!"

Schiller took a deep breath. "Once today’s consultation is over, get the hell into the regular ward. Do you know how valuable beds are here? Stop getting in the way of me making money."

"Money? Hahahahahaha!" Jack laughed even harder, making the hospital bed tremble. After a while, he choked on his laughter and began coughing violently. Then he held out his hand to Schiller. "Water, thank you."

Schiller did not hand him any. Jack did not seem to mind. He stopped laughing and sprawled on the bed, gasping for breath. "That joke was funny, wasn’t it? If there were a movie theater where you could really buy tickets with popcorn, I’d buy tickets for an entire week straight and watch all the movies I never got to finish."

Then he suddenly grew somber and sighed. "They’re so ridiculous, chasing money, aren’t they? Even more ridiculous is that the money they chase isn’t any different from popcorn…"

"And the most ridiculous thing is, hahaha…" He began laughing again, his whole body shaking. "The most ridiculous thing is that there’s a madman who knows money is just popcorn, and still chases after it. Hahahahaha…"

"Why? Because he’s crazy! He thinks… he actually thinks that if he chases fame and fortune like ordinary people do, he can become an ordinary person. Hahahahahaha…"

Seeing Schiller watching him in silence, Jack grinned. "Why so serious? Back at the theater, weren’t you laughing happily?"

"Because Hell jokes are funny only when it’s someone else’s Hell." Schiller stood again. "Watching Batman make a fool of himself is certainly entertaining. You think so too, don’t you?"

Jack wiped away the tears he had laughed out with his freed hand. He did not seem as crazed as he had in the theater. If anything, he looked perfectly normal, which only made him stranger.

"Seriously, I never expected you all to be such a great audience. I absolutely love this place!"

"You should thank the Court of Owls. Their endless rain affected the people here one way or another—all of them. Even if they didn’t get wet, they inevitably inhaled moisture from the air when they breathed. So everyone’s a little crazy."

"I know, of course I know… Otherwise, why would I announce my plan on television? I knew someone would come. I knew a bunch of annoying people would come…" One second Jack was gritting his teeth, and the next, he adopted a groveling tone. "Oh, no, I mean esteemed audience members. Surely someone would honor me by coming to see the comedy performance brought to you by this poor Joker…"

"Except Batman. He didn’t want to come. I was the one who insisted on bringing him there."

"That’s exactly what I hate most about the Court of Owls. They made rain that can drive people mad, but it doesn’t work on Batman alone. What a pack of idiots." Jack spoke viciously.

"You’re lying again. If that rain really worked on Batman, the Court of Owls would be a thousand, ten thousand times worse off than they are now."

Jack pursed his lips and whistled twice, as though trying to cover up his lie. He shifted against the pillow and said, like he had found a kindred spirit, "See? You think so too, right? Batman was already a madman to begin with, but he won’t admit it. If some external factor made him crazy, that would be far too boring."

"Tell me, did he really want to laugh during yesterday’s performance?" Jack blinked, his somewhat cloudy eyes filled with longing as his tone became excited again. "I used to hide in alleys and secretly watch him several times, watching him break those robbers’ arms and legs."

"But he’s just too serious." Jack complained. "Can’t he be a little happier? Listening to those robbers scream, listening to the criminals he hates and despises most beg for mercy in his hands—how could he not be happy? And if he’s happy, why doesn’t he laugh?"

The moment Batman came up, Jack became utterly unstoppable. Schiller, however, had no interest in listening to his crazy talk. He tapped the side of his notebook with his pen and said, "I also hate two kinds of people most. One is people who cause me trouble, and the other is people who cause trouble and still act like they’re in the right."

Before Jack could say anything, Schiller continued, "Looks like we’re exactly the kind of people each other hates most. Since neither of us can stand the other, we should see less of each other. Tomorrow, you’re moving into the neighboring ward to room with Cobblepot."

Jack snorted. "You copycat."

At noon the next day, Schiller had just returned from the cafeteria when he found Jack squatting outside the ward, crying. He leaned against the doorframe with his face covered, weeping miserably.

Schiller walked past him without looking aside. Jack grabbed his white coat and said, "My God! How can there be someone so boring in this world? How could you put me in the same ward as him?"

One hand gripped Schiller’s white coat and refused to let go, while the other wiped away nonexistent tears. "He just told me a joke, but even the joke was unbearably boring."

"He actually said he wanted to open a restaurant, you know? And then he said he wanted to put an iceberg inside it. My God…"

"I always thought dressing up as a bat was perverted enough, but there’s actually someone who wants to dress up as a Penguin. A Penguin! Hahahahahaha!"

"Doctor, they’re all crazy! You have to save me!" Jack began trembling all over. "I don’t want to stay with these lunatics!"

Schiller bent down, seized his wrist, and pulled Jack’s hand off his coat. Still bent over, he said, "First, this is a psychiatric hospital. If either you or he weren’t crazy, neither of you would be here."

"Second, it isn’t recreation time. If you dare run out of your ward again, I’ll get Batman expelled from Gotham University and make him go study in Metropolis. Then you’ll never see him again."

Jack scrambled up, dashed back to the bed, lay down, and even pulled the blanket over himself. Humming, he said, "Little Jack is going to sleep obediently now, hmm hmm hmm… Sing me a lullaby…"

He closed one eye, pretending to be asleep, while secretly leaving the other open to peek at Schiller’s reaction.

Cobblepot let out a deep sigh beside him. Looking at Schiller by the door, he said, "Doctor, I suggest you move him to the neighboring ward."

He pointed his thumb at the wall behind him. "Evans would definitely have a lot in common with him."

"More importantly, if this madman stays any longer, I’m definitely going to beat him up."

"Alright. Tomorrow, he’ll go room with Evans."

The next day, Schiller again returned after lunch at noon and found that Jack had somehow climbed up to the observation window high on the wall. He straddled the window awkwardly, shifting his body as if trying to climb out.

Before Schiller could ask what was going on, Evans roared from inside, "You actually like musical comedies!! And you insulted classicism too!! I was so wrong about you! Those new operas are nothing but blasphemy against opera!!"

"You’re the crazy one!" Jack shouted from atop the observation window, waving his fist. "Those Baroque operas are ancient junk! Monteverdi is complete trash! They don’t understand humor at all!"

As he spoke, he shook his head and imitated a few operatic lines. His dry voice and bizarre singing style were all emotion and no technique.

From high atop the observation window, he sprayed saliva everywhere as he tore into the famous masters of Baroque opera and classical opera alike, enraging Evans enough to throw pillows at him.

Whatever else could be said, Evans was quite strong. Standing below, he hurled a pillow straight into Jack’s face. Jack’s arm was already injured, and he could not hold onto the wall. He toppled directly out of the ward and landed in front of Schiller.

Still furious, he tried to climb back up and rush into the ward to continue arguing with Evans. Schiller grabbed his clothes and said, "Do you want to go back in there and get beaten up? You don’t seriously think you can take him, do you?"

Jack was beside himself with anger. "He doesn’t understand music at all, that idiot! Classical opera is nothing but melodramatic whining. Can you imagine it? There are still old fossils who like that stuff now. Only comic opera and musicals are interesting!"

Evans braced himself on the doorframe and leaned his upper body out. "You’re the one with no taste! You damned madman!"

"You’re the madman!"

Schiller stood beside them, utterly speechless. First, because he did not know much about opera. Second, because he did not know much about madmen either.