The Interview pt. 1

[tinhuviel]

Okay, then, this story has been in the works for a while. It's a collaborative fic between myself and dandyxrandy. All the Jessica Striker bits are her, and all the Joker bits are me because dandyxrandy believes I am just *cracked* enough to convincingly "play" J. The narrative in between the dialogue is something we tried our best to merge our two styles into a seamless kind of stream of thought. Considering there's a considerable amount of years, miles, and chinks of sanity that separate us, I think we did pretty well. You be the judge.

Part two of this interview will consist of questions posed by a variety of Joker fans here on LJ and elsewhere. All questions will be credited to the persons who asked them. That'll be a load of fun, trust me. In the meantime, here's hoping you have fun with this one. dandyxrandy and I most certainly did.

The Interview
pt. 1

Jessica Striker checked her watch periodically. It was just like a man to be late, again. It didn't fail, really, and it didn't surprise her when the clock hands struck twenty after seven. He even suggested the time, making it most convenient for himself and less for her, but it wasn't like she had anything better to do on a Saturday night at seven o' clock. Even if she did, she would drop it to listen to the musing of this man's mind. The Joker's mind. It was a special treat for any reporter, and a dangerous one at that. Jessica wasn't afraid of anything that he may do to her while she sat across from him, her tape recorder taking in their voices as she scribbled away down on her paper. No, she was more afraid of anything he won't do and let her do for herself. He worked oddly like that, like the unseen power of God.

Finally after the hands moved another ten minutes a loud knock was heard on the other side of the small wooden door. Jess, in a calm manner, got up from her perch on the couch and made her way to the door, grasping the knob to let whoever was on the other side of the door, hopefully him, in. And she did meet that ever smiling face. The Joker himself.

“Hi there,” he said, smiling sidewise, the bottom lids of his eyes lifting in a studious squint. His shoulders were bunched up around his ears, but didn’t deter from the fact that the man was more than a little comfortable in his skin. He wore his trademark violet overcoat, open to show the green vest and Zoot Suit chain resting against his thigh. He surprised Jess in that he was a little shorter than she would have expected. Maybe it was just his larger-than-life lifestyle or his giant personality that shone through in those terrifying home movies he’d made for GCN, but she’d expected a much taller man.

"Well please come in." She ushered, all but grasping him by the jacket to pull him inside her small, but cozy, apartment. She closed the door without another word and then gestured to the small living room area, a glass coffee table set between the couch and a easy chair. On the table were several small snacks, cheese, crackers, strawberries, along with two glasses of water. Mandatory stuff.

Joker perused the spread before him, admiring the journalist’s simple class. He turned back to her for a moment to measure up this woman who’d have the cajones to invite him to her home and offer him finger foods while they talked. She was of average height, maybe 5’5”, her hair was a dirty blonde, very soft-looking, well-conditioned. Her eyes, wide with a commingling of fear and fascination, were sky blue and her skin was well-scrubbed and make-up free. Hm. How interesting.

He sat down across from Ms. Jessica Striker, musing at her name and wondering if she’d appreciated its latent hilarity. It was dangerous what he was doing, coming out of the shadows to do an interview of all things, something not even that jerk of a GCN journalist Mike Engel got, even though he’d desperately wanted an exclusive. He got an exclusive all right. The man looked so much better upside-down. But back to Ms. Striker. She was fearless, this one. He liked that. Fearlessness was akin to madness, or so it was purported. You had to be crazy to do so-and-so or attempt what-not! So Ms. Striker wasn’t too very unlike himself. She rolled her dice, she took her chances, she played the hand dealt her. Funny thing is, the hand she held had a Joker. Lucky her!

He’d not been long out of Arkham, discharging himself as he had a habit of doing. He hadn’t even had a date since he’d been out. Maybe Jess Striker would be even luckier than she already thought she was. Nah. He wanted this interview done right and it couldn't be done if the journalist ended up dead. So he’d talk to her, answer her questions, and see where it took him.

“Well?” he asked, plopping back in the easy chair she’d offered him when he arrived at her apartment. He took a strawberry and popped it into his red gash of a mouth, green crown and all, chewing enthusiastically. He then took another. Strawberries were good.

Jess gave a small smile, sitting back onto the couch, taking up a pad of paper and pen, her worn finger pressing down on the 'record' button on the tape player.. "I do have to thank you for coming out to do this interview," she paused, offering a slightly better smile, her blue eyes seeming to have a small twinkle in them as she did. Even though the woman could come off brash and more superior than others, she did have a good heart and best interest in mind. And manners, not to mention. "I suppose prolonging anything wouldn't be too wise since I'm not sure how long I may have you." Her eyes cast to the clock on the wall behind The Joker as if proving her anxiety. The Joker, on the other hand, just shrugged and grabbed a purple glove full of Cheez-Its.

"Let's get down to business, shall we? I do have two sets of questions, mine and then a 'viewer's choice like thing. I had taken several requests from people all around Gotham and piled their questions up into our interview. Some, or mainly most, aren't as serious as mine, and a bit playful even. I do hope you don't mind, because they do get a little more personal and might hit too close to home. You can choose to answer them or not. Your choice."

When Joker said nothing, she cleared her throat, looking at her pad, then glancing up to catch his dark gaze with her own blue. Despite his smaller-than-expected stature, he did seem a bit more intimidating when he came through that door, and he still held that air of superiority when he sat across from her. She couldn't deny the fast beat of her heart. He could easily kill her right now yet, here she was, interviewing one of the most wanted men in Gotham.

"Where did you originate from?" She asked, a question any would like to know. Was his madness just caused here in Gotham or did he move to cause this mayhem?

"Well, where does anyone originate from? It's not like I'm a product of parthenogenesis. It's not like I was beamed down by Scotty or chanted out of a secret pyramid by a gaggle of Thelemites. What sort of question is that? Are you serious?" He looked at her with honest curiosity. Is she really serious? He thought. Better question still, did she think he was?

Jessica shook her head slowly, her smile slipping into an almost frown. "That's...not exactly what I meant, but it'll do." She had to remind herself not to argue with the man. Not for her safety but mainly to get all the facts she needed. The reporter loved to have a good debate, a good argument, when the time was right.

"How did this all begin. How did you begin?"

He smiled and tapped the side of his nose. "Nosy little thing, aren'tcha?" With raised eyebrows he looked at her, the smile broadening to the point of the absurd. Jessica couldn't hold back her own smile as well.

"I can be." Her pen returned to the paper as she reached forward to take a sip of water. "Alrighty, on many accounts you have told different versions of how you obtained your scars. Why are there so many?"

She paused, looking down at her pad to scribble a few lines down before continuing. "Do you know the truth yourself?"

"Every scar demands a story. By the same token, every story demands a new scar. That's why there're so many because one always feeds the other. Of course I know the truth. But I ask you, are you brave enough to bear the scar in order to hear the story?"

That caught her off guard almost instantly. What would she do to know the real truth beyond his scars? Curiosity did kill the cat. "As tempting as that sounds, no thank you. I shall have to pass. I do wish to live another day." The Joker giggled at her answer, watching her every move. Her pen continued to write down notes, her tongue sticking out slightly as she did so, concentrating.

"How do you view the people of this world now?"

"Chattel. Slaves. Tools. The hordes that delight in the blood I spill as they sit in their dark living rooms and watch on TV, but the first to condemn me when the sun comes up and the Bat has been lauded as ‘saving the day.’ You know. Hypocrites and knuckledraggers who would see an original idea flying at them like a brick and stand there to be brained to death by it rather than try to catch it or dodge out of the way. All it would take is three days of no electricity, maybe even less than that, to reduce our enlightened civilisation to the depths of Witch-burning depravity that would put the Auto-da-Fé to shame."

Jessica couldn't bite her tongue this time, her love for humanity not letting her do so. Even though she knew their world was crumbling, falling apart, she tried to stay a decent person in an indecent time.

"I don't think you give us enough credit. Sure, some may be like that, mind droning sheep, but some others aren't. There are still hard working, believing, people in this world. The ones who strike out and break away from the cult."

“And I don’t think you’ve lived enough to even be a decent judge of the matter. Tell me, Ms. Striker, have you ever seen the inside of a barracks? Or the inside of…of an insane asylum? I’m not talking about the approved tour that, say, Jeremiah Arkham would lead to show how wonderfully everyone is doing. I’m talking about the dim, roach and rat-infested dungeons underneath the tourist trap going on upstairs. Have you ever seen an orphanage for poor children? Have you ever witnessed a man beat his dog because it was just being a dog? Or-or have you ever read your history books, filled with atrocity after atrocity, with only tiny shreds of decency thrown in to lull the human mind into a vague complacency so that people won’t go completely mad from realizing what we truly are and the horror of which we’re capable? Tell me, Ms. Striker. Tell me the truth. Don’t you think we’d be a lot better off now if humanity were ever capable of rising above the squalor of its collective consciousness? No. The only thing for it is to laugh your ass off at the absurdity of it all.”

Jessica shook her head, sighing. His points were valid, but her hope didn’t diminish. Silence was what she kept at that moment, knowing very well that if she didn’t keep her trap shut she would be the main story on the Gotham City Times, her face plastered on the paper and the headline ‘Jessica Striker found dead.’ She didn’t want that, not yet.

"If it's not for money, not for power, not for control, then what is it all for?" That was a question she dearly wanted answered because unlike any man, he didn’t want any of those things. Jessica hadn’t need for it either, maybe the money, but morals and values made up the short woman. Cheating and lying to get something, murder and destruction, she frowned upon it all.

"Like I told the Chechen,” the Joker began, a sing-song lilt to his voice. “It's about sending a message. This world we live in, this little hamster wheel of a world....it all seems so meaningless, don'tcha think? Everyone gets up at the same time, depending on what shift they're assigned, they eat the same bland breakfast while being told how unhealthy it is for them, yet very few make enough money to buy the foods we're told are healthy. Then everyone grabs their chosen mode of transportation or the mode chosen for them, and off they go to do their mindless little jobs and to what purpose? The more sane everyone pretends to be, the crazier everyone is going. For a society so enamored of freedom, it seems to me that everyone is pretty much a slave.

“I am not. I do as I please, when I please, and how I please. Now..now you can either learn and live by my example, get out of my way, or die trying to stop me. Your choice."

He really did catch her game with that answer. He did seem wise beyond any years that one may gain a human life span and she found herself finding truth and justification in his words. This interview was becoming more philosophical than she’d intended, and not on her end either. Her mind was now racing, this time with more questions for him, but only mainly for her benefit. She had to remind herself that she was doing this for the people and this was nothing more than a job, not a pleasure-seeking voyage.

"Some view you as a monster, some view you as an anarchist, some may even view you as a person with idealistic views, how do you view yourself?" Her fingers tapped against her pad of paper idly, her chin propped in her hand, waiting.

"I see myself as someone who is not afraid to come to grips with who he is or what he is. Humans so often try to lift themselves high above what is considered the baser life forms, but I submit that humanity is the basest life form on this ball of mud. Why? Because we don't want to associate ourselves with our true animal roots. We pretend that we're above your basic day-to-day savagery and, by denying this truest of our natures, we find ourselves perverting who we are and becoming the very worst of what we so very desperately deny. Therein lies the greatest joke to me. The ones who decry me the most are the ones who are, by far, guiltier than I'll ever be and of much worse crimes.

“I'm a human animal. We all are. The difference is, I know it and the rest of you don't."

Jessica reached forward towards the tape recorder, pressing the 'stop' button. Obviously she wanted this off the record. She leaned in, setting her pen and paper aside."Animals don't think." She blurted. "I mean, yes, they think. But they don't actually make right and wrong decisions. I agree with you, we are all animals at some degree, but what separates us is our humanity. We are compassionate, we work together, we keep ourselves sane. There is a good and a bad to everything. The bad may out rule the good now, but what comes around goes around. If you call yourself a human animal, what am I?" Because Jessica knew she wasn't a part of the mind-enslaved cult. But then, she wasn't like him either. And he knew that too.

The Joker cocked his head at her as he listened to her diatribe. Oh, did he strike a nerve? He was guffawing on the inside while, at the same time, kindling a burning rage. He couldn’t let this one go. Leaning forward, he picked up a square of pepperjack cheese and popped it into his mouth with flair. He chewed slowly, swallowed, took a gulp of water, cleared his throat, and began.

“Ms. Striker, what makes you think animals don’t think? Because some teacher somewhere told you so? Have you ever noticed that a dog understands more of our language than we do of its? What does that say for human intelligence and the capacity for human thought? What does that say about a dog’s ability to think and process information? Just because he doesn’t speak your language doesn’t mean he’s anywhere near stupid. Animals rarely go to war with each other or kill just for the hell of it. It’s all about survival with them. It’s about their connection to the planet and how they understand that connection. With humans, it’s all about how we can change the environment to our liking. Do you know what else does that? Viruses and cancers. And they’re mindless expressions of uncontrolled growth or replicating cells, by far inferior to any animal. And, before you retort with ‘but you kill for the hell of it’ bullshit, just try to think. Nobody really knows why I do what I do. Not. Even. You. And I’m not going to let you in on the joke until the punch line has been delivered, so don’t try to cajole it out of me. All humans are animals, Ms. Striker. Most of you have just forgotten your better half.”

“No. We haven’t forgotten our better half. We have evolved from it, whether it being God’s will, or some force of nature. We have built up democracies, kingdoms, bills and rights. Yes, all of it was achieved through blood and war, but then there were the few who took it a step up, didn’t sink down to mankind’s level. You, what about you, hm?” She cocked her head to the side, her brow furrowing. She had left the paper aside along with the pen. She was crossing a dangerous threshold now. “No, I don’t know why you do it, but honestly, what do you think you are going to accomplish? Yes, one man can change the world, hell, look at the men who began any World War, but because the love and the caring of people were those obstacles overcome. The hate and disgust is what began it. Love and humanity ended it.”

She sat back slightly, her chest heaving from the obvious disgruntlement she had just thrown herself into. Her hand brought the glass of water to her lips again, her blue gaze piercing into this brown one almost challenging him to pick up the gauntlet again. Right now she saw them as equals. She held a pen and he held a knife. Who was it that once said ‘The pen, my dear, is mightier than the sword?’ In a way she was just another soldier, fighting only for what was right, keeping the peace in her mind. Her fingers itched to press the record button and she did just that, not sure what question to ask him next. With a mumble she picked up her pen and paper. She clearly thought that the conversation was over.

But then came the burst of laughter, that familiar cackle heard so many times on GCN. Joker was laughing at Jessica Striker. He watched as her self-righteous body stance cringed a little at his dark merriment. “You’re talking about history here, right?” he said, leaning forward and nodding as he sucked in his lower lip just a little, almost making him look innocent. “Oh, how the history books portray us, as the saviors of the world, especially after World War II! Have you ever heard the phrase ‘history is written by the victors,’ Ms, Jess Striker Dead? I think your world view and your faith in humanity might be a tad altered if, say, the Native American populations were ‘allowed,’” and he made quotation marks with his fingers. “Were allowed to write American history books. Hm? Don’t you think, just a little? Hm? If you think you’re going to change my mind about our noble intentions as a species, you’re gonna have to do better than quote history books written by conquerors, rapists, and morons who simply got lucky.”

Without warning the lid of the tape player popped open, signaling that a change of tape was needed if they were to continue. She took out the tape and frowned at the little thing, ignoring theneeding of change. “I do realize that we only gain one side of the story, one side of the people’s view, but some of us out there are trying to be decent in an indecent world. Some try to bring the truth back to the plate.” That was what Jessica strived for. She wanted the world to see the cold hard truth, no matter how horrible it might have been. Her chest heaved with a sigh as she moved from the couch to the side of the chair The Joker sat in, searching through the bag to try and find a new tape.

He watched her in silence, his eyes narrowed. She was a crafty reporter with a steel backbone to be able to challenge him like she’d done. Joker couldn’t help but admire her moxie, even if it was born out of a certain naïveté. She really did believe in what she was saying to him and he couldn’t decide whether he thought that was cute or pathetic. Maybe it was a little bit of both. He looked at the clock. It was 8:30. Maybe he should cut this short before he lost his temper with her completely, as he was already itching to show her how misguided her faith in humanity was. All it would take would be to remind her that she’d invited him in before he told her the story of how he got his scars. And then? Well, she’d have a set of her own, then. Perhaps he should suggest they split the interview in half, the first part being her questions and the second part being those submitted by the “good citizens” of this shithole known as Gotham. He could only imagine the motley collection of inquiries sent into Ms. Striker for him to answer. As far as he was concerned the answer to all their questions was a short, sweet KABOOM. Then again, he couldn’t help but imagine the Bat squirming with rage over the Joker’s burgeoning celebrity, so he’d tolerate these shenanigans for now, if only for the laughs it afforded him.

“I’m quite sorry,” Jessica apologized, standing straight up after a minute or so of frantic searching. “It seems I’m out of tapes. I hope it wouldn’t be an inconvenience to continue the rest of this interview later? We do have yet another half left, the people’s questions. Perhaps next week sometime we could meet up again?”

The Joker grinned devilishly. “Wanting to draw this out, eh Ms. Striker Dead? Should I bring flowers? How about posies next week, same time, same place? I’ll even bring a nibble.”

Jessica gave a sweet smile as she opened the door for him, ushering him out silently. She gave a silent word that she wasn’t going to do anything ‘stupid’. She had to publish the groundbreaking story first. She was more surprised that she was still in one piece after what she had just encountered.

The Joker lingered in the hallway after the door closed behind him. He could just imagine what the questions would be next week, if there was a next week. He’d wait to see what the article was like before he decided for certain that he’d call on Jessica Striker again. It was a wait-and-see game for now, and he just loved playing games.

@2009 Miranda Stahnke and Tracy A. Evans

In memory of Heath Ledger

Comments

[rancid-rainbow.livejournal.com]

OK! I'm gonna read this in depth tonight when I get home and people aren't coming in here bugging me. I've been interested to see how this came out. I scanned the first paragraph, and I know it's gonna be good!

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

::grins:: Getting your stamp of approval is all I really need! Thank you so much.