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“Thank you,” I said, nodding to the Arkham guard who held the heavy steel door open for me, allowing me to step into the small interview room. There she sat, Ms. Harleen Quinzel, recently captured and committed to Arkham Asylum after having been found guilty on several counts of murder, assault, and robbery, due to reason of insanity. All blue eyes and pale skin and pigtails, she looked desperately out of place in her drab prison-like jumpsuit. She was restrained by each wrist to the table with a pair of handcuffs – and the table itself was steel and bolted to the cement floor. Her eyes were bright, alert and calm, but every several seconds, her wrists twisted agitatedly against the restraints. I sighed, and looked at the guard. “Are the restraints really necessary?” I muttered, hoping to save the woman some dignity, but the guard laughed aloud in my face.
“Yes, sir, those restraints are necessary! You don’t know these whack jobs like we do, they’re all lunatics and they’re all scheming to escape at every second. If we don’t keep the crazies under lock –“
“Yes, that’s enough, thank you,” I said firmly, cringing at his insensitive language. “Well, as you know, I hope to speak to Ms. Quinzel several times, so perhaps in the case of good behavior, we may relent on the handcuffs?” I pushed.
He just laughed again. “Good luck with that,” he said, leaving and shutting the door behind him. I stared at it until I heard the thick set of bolts slide into place, making me as much of a prisoner in Arkham as the inmate I had come to interview. I took a deep breath and turned to face her.
Her eyes followed me as I moved toward the table, sitting myself across from her, legal tablet and pen in hand. A psychiatric intern myself, I had become fascinated with Harleen’s case, having followed it first on television and in the papers, and then volunteering to research her case as part of my dissertation. I’d dug into her history – reviewed her court testimonies, spoken with her professors, and reviewed as much of her involvement with the Joker as the police department would release to the public (which wasn’t much, even in light of recent events).
And that was why I was there today; though I had a theory as to Harleen’s mental condition, I was missing two vital parts of my investigation – Harleen’s research notes on the Joker case that lead her down the road of madness in the first place, and her reasoning for her devotion to him. If I could nail down that elusive diagnosis that could explain Ms. Quinzel’s crimes, she’d be able to receive help and maybe even reinstate her medical license one day. I set a small digital recorder on the table in front of us, and clicked record. The red light flashed on and I looked up, asking quietly, “Is it okay if I record this?” Technically, as an inmate at Arkham, Harleen’s rights were waived and I was granted permission by the institution to record, but it still seemed polite to ask. Luckily she nodded, and I took a deep breath, preparing myself to begin.
Her eyes never left me and though her clear gaze was disconcerting, I did my best to meet it. “Ms. Quinzel, have you been told who I am?” I asked her.
Her hands continued to twist. The cuffs didn’t look tight and she didn’t look particularly strong, but she pulled roughly against the cuffs; red welts were already forming on her pale skin. Yet she seemed relaxed, giggling before saying, “Yes, a psych student, investigating me. Gonna get your degree learning about a crazy person?” She cocked her head to the side and stuck her tongue out at me at this last bit, before sitting straight again and smiling. “Ask away, future doc,” she said.
“Well, Ms. Quinzel,” I said quietly, “first of all, I don’t think you’re crazy.” She smirked but said nothing. “But I do have some questions for you.” I introduced myself, letting her know I was studying where she had, and giving her my credentials as was considered professional, before continuing. “Now, I want you to understand that I’m doing all of this in your best interest. While it is for school, true, I also truly want to help you, and help people understand why you –“
“Why I’m such a bad girl?” she said, before giggling and biting her bottom lip like a child trying not to get into trouble. I noted her behavior on my legal pad – the giggling and wrist-twisting – and looked back up at her.
“Why you make the choices you make,” I said. “And yes, I do intend to ask about your criminal choices as well. But please know that I’m not here to cause you distress.”
“Ah, I see,” she said, nodded exaggeratedly. “’Good doc’.”
I chuckled a bit and then dove in. “Now, Ms. Quinzel, I think we can both agree that a big part of your life, and your actions in the past few years, has been the Joker. He’s had a dramatic effect on you.”
Her head tilted back and she sighed, with a smile. “Mistah J, yeah, he’s had a dramaaaaaatic effect on me,” she said. She looked back at me then. “He’s perfect,” she said, with such conviction that I knew that she – at least in this part of her mind – believed it, believed he was capable of no wrong. I noted that, though she seemed oblivious to my actions.
“So, Ms. Quinzel,” I continued, “one thing that I must-“ but I stopped, because she was muttering something. “What was that?” I asked her.
“Quinn,” she said with a sigh and an eye roll – her first sign of true distress, noted. “Quinn,” her eyes looked everywhere but me, “he calls me Quinn, Harley Quinn, Harley Quinn, not –“ her eyes snapped to me, and her expression was serious, “Quinzel.” She said her own name like it was a curse.
I nodded, scribbling notes before apologizing. “Ms. Quinn, then,” I said, “there is something I need from you in order to more fully understand your case, and those would be your case notes on the Joker.” The request tumbled out of my mouth quickly because I wasn’t sure how she would respond – and this world of interviewing actual psychiatric patients was new to me. I was still a student, myself, after all. And really, all I needed from her was the location of her case files, given the whole rights-waived thing.
“You want to see what I wrote about Mistah J?” she asked, with the face of a curious child, all innocence in her blue eyes again. “You want to see what I saw in him?”
“I want to see what you were thinking when you evaluated him, Ms. Quinn,” I told her, “and I want to understand the things that you understand about him.” She bit her lip again, though this time she looked worried, as though she might get in trouble for what her case notes revealed. “Please, be assured, Ms. Quinn, that I want to frame your work in the best possible light. I want to help you, not keep you in here. Besides, my professors care more about my qualitative data on your case, less about anecdotal evidence. I don’t plan to reveal anything… unsavory that I find in your notes.”
Still, she looked anxious. “Mistah J might get mad, he always made me keep that file under lock and key…” she muttered. I was intrigued by this response. Surely she knew what had happened, someone must’ve told her, but even here in solitary in Arkham, in a blank-walled cell, she was still haunted by his ghost and his punishments. Noted, of course.
“But Ms. Quinn, this file will be used solely to evaluate you and your mental state, not his. I’m not looking for information about him, but about you. Surely I can take a read through, for educational purposes?” This, precisely, was why I had planned to speak with Harleen several times over the next few weeks. I doubted she would give up the file on the first go, and I figure I’d need a few tries to gain her trust. To my surprise though, after looking over both shoulders as though to check she wasn’t being watched (though the cameras above us were indeed watching everything) she leaned toward me and nodded her head at me.
I leaned forward too and she said, “You gotta promise my friends won’t get in trouble. They won’t end up here,” she said very seriously – but yet she was still like a child, bargaining for her friends’ freedom from reprimand.
Though the department would have loved to get their hands on some information about the whereabouts of Harleen’s various associates, I’d been able to swing it with my professors and the Asylum to extend the rules of doctor-patient-confidentiality to me as they had when Harleen had been an intern evaluating the Joker. True, she’d already had her degree at that time, but I told my professor it would be a more realistic experience for my dissertation this way. “You have my word, Ms. Quinn, that no one will end up in Arkham because of me or my dissertation.”
She nodded, apparently satisfied with my answer. “I gave the file to Ivy for safekeeping before the last mission that Mistah J sent me on. He was between hideouts so he didn’t have a safe for it like usual, and I didn’t want to get caught with it, so Ivy stashed it for me. If you want to read those notes, you’re gonna have to find her, but you ain’t gonna get any help from me on that. I’m not gonna help you send a brigade of cops to her door.” With that, Harleen sat back, looking proud of herself, though her wrists twitched more often now as though conscious of her perceived guilt at giving up the file’s location.
“Thank you, Ms. Quinn,” I said, “I want you to rest assured that I want the file and have no intention of revealing Ms. Ivy’s location to the police, if I’m able to find it. Doctor-patient-privilege, of course. I just want the file to understand your relationship with Joker better.”
“Well, in that case,” she said with another smile, relaxed again, “I might even help you find Ivy then, if I think I can trust you by the end of our interview.” She smirked, more playacting the role of doctor now, evaluating me.
So far, though, my notes had accumulated enough proof of the first part of my hypothesis to warrant further investigation, so I decided it was time to change gears. My next sentence and her response would be critical. “Now, the next thing I want to ask you is from a professional medical standpoint, Dr. Harleen – is it okay if I call you that?”
And as I predicted, a marked change came over Harleen. Her twitching ceased, and she sat up straighter. Her expression became stern. “Well, they revoked my license, you know,” she said, “so I’m not really a doctor anymore.” Her whole manner had changed, including the tenor of her voice, and I made a large star in my notes to remind myself to go back over this part of the recording later. She was a strong, confident woman in front of me, instead of a giggling girl. “But,” she conceded, “from psychiatric professional to professional, for now, yeah, you can call me that,” she said with a smile.
I could help but smile back for two reasons. One, the strong change in her had lent a lot of credence to the second part of my theory, and would give my further cause to continue my study of her. Two, I hadn’t been sure I’d be able to trigger that change by playing to her ego and breaking out her old title, but it had worked like a charm. I almost felt bad for how easily I was predicting her behavior, but it psychologically, it just made sense.
“Okay, Dr. Harleen, I have to ask you, you consider yourself to be a professional, correct?” I was slightly worried that this question would trigger another change, back to her previous state, but she remained calm.
“Yes, I do,” she answered simply.
“And when you became a doctor, you did take an oath of ethics, did you not?”
“I did,” she said, and her eyes narrowed as though she knew where this was going.
“But yet, you’ve continued your affiliation with the Joker despite his many crimes. How do you reconcile those actions?”
Harleen reached up to straighten a pair of glasses that I was sure she hadn’t worn in a long time. Seemingly confused by the fruitlessness of her gesture, she let her hand fall. “There is something about the Joker…” she said slowly, and quietly. She looked down and her tone grew far away. “I couldn’t leave his side. He was… compelling.” I paused, knowing I could be about to hit a gold mine of information, hoping she would continue to speak. After a few moments, I was not disappointed. “The Joker showed me things, when I broke him out of his cell, when we ran away.” She seemed more to be recalling things aloud to herself rather than speaking to me. “He ran away with me and he showed me…” she paused, and her form seemed to diminish in front of me, “…such terrible things. But still he made me want to stay with him.”
I leaned down to see her expression had become one of horror, and I began to wonder if I was talking to Dr. Harleen anymore. This certainly wasn’t the persona that she adopted around the Joker, but I hadn’t counted on her demonstrating a third set of characteristics. There was Harleen the doctor, Harley – the Joker’s companion, and then here before me was a woman who’d been taken in, deceived, and traumatized, possibly to the point of mental fragmentation. It wasn’t what I’d expected, but the evidence she was offering me corroborated my theory even more and I jotted notes as quickly as I could. A few moments of silence passed and I became sure she wasn’t going to speak again. Her eyes remained fixed on the table in front of her, the expression of horror lingering there.
“So, how could you condone those actions?” I asked her, unsure if she’d answer, or thinking perhaps she’s snap back to her professional self, but neither of those things happened.
She looked at me with a sympathetic grin plastered on her face and the high pitched but kind voice of the criminal Harley Quinn. “Oh but, you gotta understand. He only ever did it for my own good.”
“Harleen, the Joker killed people,” I told her, though I knew she knew full well. She had blood on her own hands too, but that topic would be for another session. “A lot of people, who are now missed by their families.”
“He never did that without reason though,” she said, pleading his case passionately. “He only ever wanted to show people the truth, and he only hurt people that deserved it. I mean, I know he talks about anarchy but he always has a reason.” She sat back with a sigh and a smile, her wrists twitching against her restraints again despite her apparently relaxed matter. “Besides, you don’t know Mistah J like I do. Not yet anyway. He always takes care of me, you know?”
“But, hasn’t he hurt you too, Harleen?”
“Harley!” she shouted, suddenly slamming the flat of one of her hands against the table. She hadn’t been able to get a lot of momentum so it didn’t make took much of a sound, but I knew she was serious and upset regardless. “Harley,” she repeated, breathing deeply and making a visible effort to calm down. “He calls me Harley. And,” she continued, sitting back again, “he’s only ever done things to scare me, for my own good, you know?” Her high, sweet tone was back. “Because I’m crazy and he’s gotta keep me in line a little bit sometimes.” She smiled again, her hands curled and relaxed despite the twitching. “I don’t mind though. My puddin’ takes good care of me, and he knows best.”
I wrote away on my notepad, flipping to the next page before looking up at the woman in front of me, who was far away in swooning thought over the man she was in love with. “Harley,” I said, using her preferred name so as to not upset her anymore, “The Joker has hurt a lot of people. He’s a criminal.”
She continued to smile though, poised and calm. “Policemen hurt a lot of people too, you know, and people don’t call them criminals. They get awards for it. That’s what no one else ever understands about me and Mistah J. Yeah, he can get a temper sometimes, but he loves me and takes care of me. Some people’s villains are other people’s heroes.”
I wrote her last sentence verbatim on the page in front of me, baffled by the seeming wisdom coming from the mental hospital patient in front of me. But then something else struck me, something that momentarily superseded my current track of questioning. Harleen was still referring to the Joker in the present tense. Was her delusion of his presence really so thorough?
“Harley,” I said quietly, knowing I was approaching dangerous ground now, “you speak of the Joker as though he’s still around, why is that?”
She laughed at me. “What do you mean? Sure, he’s not here right now, but my puddin’ will be here any time. He’ll break me out and rescue me, because he needs me, you know? Mistah J needs his Harley.”
It was cruel but it was the only explanation now. No one had told her. This is what criminal justice was coming to in Gotham now that everyone had gotten used to relying on Batman to get rid of the bad guys. The world was rarely so black and white though, and here no one had even told this deeply damaged girl that the person she devoted her life to was no longer part of it.
I must’ve paled, or looked strange, because she asked me if I was okay. “I… Harley,” I said, hating to ask, “do you believe the Joker is still alive?”
She laughed again. “What do you mean? Of course he’s still alive. He’s going to come get me, but I’m sure he’s just busy.”
Unfortunately, I knew differently, as did the people of Arkham’s management. In a fluster, I told her to give me a moment, and I walked over to the door and gave it three furtive knocks. When the guard unlocked it and answered, weapon at the ready, I hissed quietly to him, “Why hasn’t anyone explained to her about the Joker?” I hoped she wouldn’t overhear me, and she made no sound behind me.
The guard shrugged and smirked. “She’s been in solitary so the other inmates haven’t told her nothing, and you think any of us want to be the one to break that news? Nah, that’s above my pay grade. I just gotta keep them from killing each other, or us. You done then?”
“No, I’m not done,” I snapped, irritated that these people cared so little for the asylum patients they watched over. Sure, they were criminals, but they were still people… well, mostly. “I have a few more questions for this session,” I said, and the guard nodded, stepping out and locking the door again.
I returned to my seat and Harley asked me, “So what was that about, doc?”
“I’m not really a doctor, either,” I said, laughing nervously about the conversation I was about to have, “not yet anyway.” But she didn’t say anything else, so I continued, the nervous laughter giving way to my more somber and sympathetic tone. “Harley, I’m sorry that no one has told you this yet, but the Joker is dead.”
“What?” she asked, utter disbelief on her face. She almost smiled, maybe believing she hadn’t heard right or that she knew better than I, but it had been all over the news for weeks now. Batman had some kind of mental break and, uncharacteristically, put down the Clown Prince of Crime for good. The fact that the Joker was no longer at large was the only reason I’d really been able to be sure I could read Harley’s file on him and have it remain confidential.
“He was killed,” I told her, reluctant to mention the culprit for fear it would just hurt her more. “Weeks ago. He’s dead.”
“No, he’s not,” Harleen said, her voice gaining pitch and her twitching becoming more agitated. “No, he can’t be.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true,” I said.
“No, no!” she began to shout, her twitching becoming more like thrashing as she shook her head. “No, he’s alive, and he’s coming to save me,” she said, her whole body shaking with her movements. “No, no, no, he’s not, he’s not dead, he’s not!” Her voice kept getting louder and she was pulling so hard against her restraints that I was afraid she was going to really hurt herself.
I stood up quickly and went back to the door, knocking harder this time. They needed to help her and she was beyond my reach for the moment, but instead of coming in upon opening the door and seeing their patient in distress, the guard grabbed me by the shoulder and yanked me out of the room, slamming the door shut behind me. Keeping a grip on my shoulder, he grabbed his walkie-talkie and spoke into it, spewing a stream of numbers (his identification, I assumed) before saying, “Seal and sedate, Cell B-2. Now.”
“What!?” I asked incredulously, upset that this was their immediate response to her emotional outburst. “No, don’t sedate her, we just need to calm her down – “ I started, but the guard cut me off, telling me that that was what the sedative would do.
“She’ll be too groggy to talk for the rest of the day though, so you’ll have to come back some other time. Just wait here a minute and then I’ll let you go in and get her stuff before we move her back to her holding cell.
I sighed, defeated. This hadn’t ended the way I wanted, but I’d least I’d be able to come back and speak with her again. After a few silent minutes, another guard’s voice came over the walkie, informing my escort guard that the sedative vapor had been cleared from the room and the retrieval team would be coming to move Harley. He reported that he’d ready her for transport, and then keyed in the code that let him open the door so I could get my things before I left.
But when the door swung open, I could only stare in horror at the scene before me. Harley wasn’t sedated at all, but on her knees facing the wall, her chair tipped and wrists bloodied from where she’d forcibly yanked them out of her loose but unforgiving shackles. Her form shook as she laughed uncontrollably. Her fingers were slick with blood too and she was smearing them against the wall… writing something, I realized. I took a step toward her, lost in my horror. “Mr. J will save me,” she was scrawling on the gray concrete with her own blood. I only barely had time to register the other bloody “J”s on the wall, and the fact that she’d been able to avoid sedation, escape her shackles, and start this bloodbath within mere minutes, before she turned and looked at me. I was nearly sick, and I turned and walked away as quickly as my shaking legs would carry me because I knew immediately where the blood on her fingers had coming from.
Harley Quinn had scratched a permanent Joker-eque smile onto her face, with her bare fingernails from the look of it. The blood had spread across her lips like macabre lipstick, and was dripping from her mouth and down her neck. She sat there and continued to write red “J”s on the wall, laughing despite the blood in her mouth and undoubtable pain.
A few days later, the asylum mailed back my recorder and my notebook, but they needn’t have bothered. I submitted my program withdrawal to the administrative dean of my university that afternoon, told my professors that I wouldn’t be seeing them again, and began looking for apartments far away from Gotham City.
It wasn’t until years later, when I’d undergone therapy for myself and moved out of the state, that I managed to pick up that blood-spattered recorder again, rewind it, and play back my one conversation with Ms. Harleen Quinzel. When I reached the end of it though, my blood ran cold. I never knew what happened at Arkham after that, because I never wanted to. What I heard on that recording sealed my decision to rid myself of the recorder and all my files on the case, and leave Gotham behind for good.
EVIDENCE LOG #09537495 TRANSCRIPT PAGE 4/4
INTERVIEWER: I’m sorry, but it’s true.
INMATE: No! No! No! He’s alive and he’s coming to save me. No, no, no, he’s not, he’s not dead, he’s not!
[knocking sounds]
[door opens, door shuts]
INMATE: No! No! Mr. J isn’t dead!
[slamming sounds, sound of handcuffs banging against table]
INMATE: He’s got them all fooled! He’s alive! Ha ha ha!
[INMATE grunts, sounds of hancuffs dropping against table]
INMATE: All I have to do is be good and he’ll save me, I know Mr. J will save me, I know he will, I know he –
[INMATE screams, whimpers, screams again and then laughs]
INMATE: Yes, he did always like me in red! He’ll be so proud! [INMATE laughs loudly, and then quietly]
INMATE: You can’t be dead Mr. J. You have to save me. You need your Harley.
[INMATE screams, groans and then cries]
INMATE: You need your Harley! You need me because I’d do anything for you! I know you won’t leave me here, I know too much about you, Mr. J!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE: You do know me so well, don’t you, Harley?
[INMATE laughs]
[door opens]
GUARD: Hey, don’t you want your stuff?
INTERVIEWER: [in distance, fading] I don’t care, keep it!
[INMATE continues laughing]
[RETRIEVAL TEAM arrives]
RETRIEVAL: My god, what the hell is this? How isn’t she passed out already? Damn it, I bet the green one did something to her. Double dose, sedate her and let’s get her to the infirmary. What’s that on the table?
END TRANSCRIPT