Quinn Family Breakout!
The escape from the GCPD was a fuckin’ blast!
Picture it: Your amazing protagonist, Dr. Harleen Quinzel has been captured by her enemy! But it’s all a rouse to finally free her ally, Jimmy, from the clutches of the evil Commissioner Gordon and his shit-breathed lackey, Detective Bollocks. As she paced patiently around the padlocked prison, Dr. Quinn, medicine woman, awaited the signal from her one true love, Ms. Poison Ivy-Quinn.
Luckily, our amazing anti-villain didn’t have long to wait.
“What the fuck!” A male voice screamed.
“It’s the green bitch! It’s the green bitch!” Another said.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Gunshots rang out through the cells as the desperate squeals of little blue piggies grew louder. Gunpowder and pollen drifted through the air, revving the engine in my Harley as I excitedly bounced up and down.
“Yeah, get ‘em, babe!” I called out, not even sure if she could hear me.
Small, green vines began to erupt from between the floor tiles and the bricks in my cell wall. Smiling like a schoolgirl, I rushed over to one and began to caress it tenderly with my fingers.
Trapped in a holding cell tucked away at the side of the building, there was no way for me to see Ivy. I didn’t know what kind of badass comic book nonsense was going on in the main part of the building. But I could imagine it well enough.
A team of riot gear-clad blue fascists appeared out of nowhere, aiming rocket launchers at my love. But she didn’t lose a beat! With a snap of her fingers and a sexy lil dance, a long branch of thorns appeared from nowhere and penetrated them all. Their bullet-proof vests gave no resistance against the sharp thorns thrusting into them with the force of…something really, really forceful!
What? Oh, fuck you! Writing is hard and I chose a useful degree, not something stupid like English! Back to my story!
I imagined that after brutally murdering those wannabe nutcrackers, Pammy thought the rest would be easy. She’d just grab a key card off some detective’s desk, make her way to where I was, and then we’d fool around in the cell before going to rescue Jimmy. She probably got all hot and bothered, flushed in the face in that cute way she gets whenever I tell a knock-knock joke, and started excitedly looking for a key card.
But then, Batman appeared!
Wait, no, not Batman. The fight would’ve been too long.
Batgirl appeared!
No, not the redhead. And it wasn’t that scary one that doesn’t talk, either. It was the other, other Batgirl, the blonde one.
I imagined that Blonde Bat stared down my babe and said, “Not so fast, Poison Ivy!”
And Pammy just scoffed at her, flicked her hair and replied, “Oh, please. You and I both know you’re no match for me. Run along little Bat, back to your cave. I’m on a mission of love!”
And the Blonde Bat would be all, “Oh, unh-unh! I’m a super hero! So I’m gonna rescue all these Thin Blue Line chucklefucks that killed peaceful protestors. Cuz that’s what heroes do!”
And then they fought! The Blonde Bat tossed out some batarangs—no, wait, she’d toss out something else! Something no other Bat has like…oh! Little pellets full of weed killer! Yeah, Batgirl cooked up some special formula to kill Pammy’s plants, and she threw them at Pam’s vines and they disintegrated.
“Your old tricks aren’t going to work this time, Ivy!” Batgirl would have said.
But my super clever wife would just laugh at her! She’d say, “It’s a good thing I have a new trick, then!”
And then she’d pull out a gun!
Wait, no. That doesn’t make sense. Pammy doesn’t really use guns. Except plant guns. But I’ve never seen a plant gun…ooh! I know what I’m getting Pammy for Hannukah!
Anyway, Pammy wouldn’t have pulled out a gun, she’d have brought out some special, rare plant that no one’s ever seen before! Because…because it was a plant she invented! Long, long ago, Ivy created some new type of plant to use against the Bats, and she’d been saving it for an occasion just like that.
Ivy whipped out the plant—which was probably some sparkly, colorful orchid or something. And before Batgirl could react, the plant blew out a cloud of pollen.
Batgirl stumbled and fell to her knees! She looked up at Ivy with wide, confused eyes and asked, “Wha—what did you do to me?”
And Ivy would have just walked over to her, lay her hand on the girl’s shoulder and go, “Shhh….you’ll be alright. Just don’t fight it. Don’t fight the sleep.”
Batgirl resisted, because she was a hero and that’s what heroes do. But her resistance wasn’t enough. The freaky plant powder was stronger than her freaky bat powers. Her eyes grew heavy, her breathing slowed, and then before she knew it, she was on the floor, fast asleep.
Or at least, that’s what I imagine happened. When Ivy met me at my cell, she didn’t say what happened and I didn’t ask. I just ran from my cell, planted a big-ol-wet one on her, and asked if she missed me.
“Of course I did, babe! Don’t do anything like this ever again, okay?”
“No promises!” I declared.
Pammy rolled her eyes, but I noticed the twitch of a smile in the corner of her mouth. I planted another kiss on her to tease the smile out more, and it worked! Soon, she was grinning and giggling like there was something wrong with her.
“Hey, you wanna…” I said, looking over to the cell bed.
“No, babe! Don’t forget why we’re here. We have to save…your brother.”
My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. I slapped my hands to my cheek, horrified that I could forget something that important. Sure, my wife was smoking and I’d spent far too long away from her, but…wait, what was I thinking about again?
“Harley!” Pammy said, snapping me out of my daze. “Come on, we need to grab Minstrel. I know where they’re interrogating him.”
And just like that! Dr. Harley Quinn broke out of prison!
#
Getting Jimmy was an easy smash and grab. I smashed my way into the interrogation room, grabbed my little bro, and we started running through the precinct!
“What’s our getaway look like?” Jimmy asked.
“I got a hot convertible and a hotter redhead waiting for us. But I called dibs on both!”
He chuckled, “Good.”
He let go of my hand, and I felt my face grow hot. I shoulda known, he was getting too old to hold his big sister’s hand. All the other boys would make fun of him if they saw.
“You go on ahead, I gotta see a man about a dog,” He explained.
I bit my lower lip, “Uh…Jimmy? Pammy’s tough but even she’s not enough to keep these cops off us for long. And who knows how long it’ll take Batman to get here—”
“He was here earlier. Couldn’t you smell him?” Jimmy asked.
I sniffed the air and closed my eyes, “Unresolved teenage angst, testosterone supplements, expensive cologne and…Catwoman. Holy shit, you’re right! The Bat was here! We really gotta go now.”
I grabbed Jimmy’s hand and resisted the urge to shout, “Rey!”
He let go of my hand and shook his head. He held up a finger and pointed to the left of us,“Man. Dog. See. Gotta.”
I pointed to the right, “Redhead. Convertible. Escape. Over a week since I’ve seen my fucking wife!”
He shrugged. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t even make a silly face. He just shrugged, and then he ran away from me. His own sister.
“WHAT THE FUCK, MAN!” I screamed. I couldn’t believe that no-good, banjo-playing, pretentious son of a bitch was really about to ditch me after I’d spent days in lock-up, waiting to see him.
“Sorry sis, but I gotta advance the plot! There’s a reason I came here and the fans want to know what that is!”
I rolled my eyes. There he was with his ‘our world is just a fanfic’ bullshit again. It was so fucking fake, and as a Psychologist I was appalled he’d make a mockery of real mental illness like that. He and I both knew we were in a comic book.
Still, I couldn’t argue with him, and I didn’t want to. Whatever Jimmy was after was clearly important to him, so that meant it was important to me, too. If we wound up missing our chance and getting tied up if Batman appeared, we’d just take him down together!
So there you had us—Harley n’ her little brother, Jimmy, running through the halls of the GCPD, kickin’ ass and taking names! Or you would have had us like that if Pammy hadn’t fuckin’ obliterated every cop in the place (so hot!). Every time I saw a flash of badge metal or the familiar ugly blue-black of a uniform, it was on some cop that was either passed out, or staring into space—still dazed by the pollen Ivy hit ‘em with. So it didn’t take us long at all to get where we were going.
Jimmy stopped in front of a door that said “personnel” on the window. I went to reach for the door, but he put out a hand to stop me.
“I want to show you how much I’ve grown since we last saw eachother.” He explained.
Jimmy put his arms behind his back, grabbed his banjo, and slung it around his shoulders. He cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and plucked a string.
“LaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAa….” Jimmy sang. It sounded like a wet, rubber ball going through a dull and rusty garbage disposal. I wanted to cry, it was just like the lullabies my mom sang to me when I was just a little Harley.
With his mouth still open wide, pushing notes out into the air, Jimmy took the banjo from around his shoulders and slammed it into the glass of the window in front of us. The glass shattered and fell all over the floor, making a sparkling mess that made me feel bad for the janitors. I had to admit, it was impressive Jimmy did all of that with his voice. I clapped for him, and he took a bow before he reached for the handle and opened the door.
“Here, poochy, poochy, poochy!” I cried as I walked into the room.
I looked to my left, then to my right, wondering just what it was that Jimmy wanted in that dusty, old office. Though it was dark, I could still make out a couple filing cabinets, a desk, and the same computer model that I used AOL on when I was younger.
Jimmy walked over to the desk and booted up the computer. I started screeching dial-up noises, because it felt culturally inappropriate not to. Jimmy seemed to agree, so he joined in and started screeching with me as he continued his task. When the computer came on, he reached into his shirt and pulled out a thin hard drive. He plugged it into the computer, and a dialogue box popped up on the screen, indicating that files were being transferred.
“Whatcha downloadin’?” I asked.
“Something to upload later,” He said with a wink.
We both went back to screeching—it helped pass the time.
In a moment, the file transfer was done. Jimmy grabbed a sharpie that was already on the desk, and wrote “Fido” on the hard-drive. He put it back down his loose, baggy shirt, and tapped his left breast to make sure it was safe.
“That’s it?” I asked.
Jimmy shook his head, “I got my dog, I got my sister, I got my banjo. I’m good.”
Jimmy walked out of the room, and I followed him into the hall. I grabbed his hand and stopped him from walking even further away.
“No bullshit, Jimmy,” I told him.
He cocked his eyebrow up.
“What’s this all about?” I asked him. I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, then glared at him.
“I’m your sister, Jimmy, you can’t just shut me out! I haven’t seen or heard from you in years and I hoped that meant you got out of this life. Went away somewhere, got a 9-5, started bumping uglies with someone and making little Jimmys of your own. Ya know, real life shit! I thought you were happy now…”
Jimmy laughed, “I am happy. Can’t you see me smile?”
He grinned like a ravenous beast and spread his eyelids so far back that I thought the balls would fall from their sockets.
“No bullshit, Jimmy. I want to know what this is all about. I’m willing to help you as much as I can if that’s what you need. But I need to know what I’m helping you with. What do you want here, Jimmy?”
Jimmy shook his wrist from my grasp and took a step back. He spread his arms wide and smiled.
“A regular life? A nine-to-five? My dear, sweet, psychotic Harley, that’s fucking stupid!”
He pulled his banjo out again and started strumming a fun, playful tune I didn’t recognize. The entire time, he looked at me with a grin on his face and spoke with a giggle in his throat.
“I want a good story, Harley. That’s it, that’s all I’ve ever wanted—a good story. But I don’t want to be the hero, because the heroes are ugly. I want to be beautiful. I want to draw in the audience with every glimmer in my eye. I want to inflict untold pain onto this world, revel in the suffering of others, and know all the while that everyone reading this story just keeps turning the page.”
He sounded like Joker. I didn’t like that, and it made me think about Pammy’s suspicions of him. Was she right? Was I really just falling into the same pattern I was in before? I couldn’t believe that Jimmy was that much like Mistah J—I wouldn’t believe that! Still, I thought back to the protest. I believed that Jimmy had his reasons, but I needed to hear those reasons.
“I want to make people feel fear and pain, Harley. And not just the pale folks like you, who disagree with me silently because you don’t want to get called racist. I want to write a story that makes everyone feel pain, and fear, and hatred. I’m not just doing this for revenge, Harley, even though these whites deserve that tenfold. I’m doing this because this world is just a dark fantasy, but I want to turn it into a nightmare!”
I didn’t laugh, but Jimmy did. To him, it was the funniest thing in the world. To me, it seemed…disappointing. I knew that there had to be more to him than that. Jimmy was smarter than that—he was better than that. There was more to his plan that he wasn’t telling me, and I wasn’t going to be satisfied until I heard more.
Jimmy looked at me, waiting for the laughs to pour out. They never did. I felt him search my face for some kind of opening, some way to attack me and get me to drop my guard. But I didn’t give him that opening. I couldn’t, not until I was sure that—I can’t even say I wanted to be sure he was okay. I just needed to know where he was at.
Jimmy stopped playing his banjo and sighed. With a less grandiose voice, he muttered, “Fine! I’m doing this because I have a long series of trauma and mental illness, and acting like this helps me feel valid. The more chaos I cause, the better I feel about myself. The more I feel like myself.”
Jimmy locked eyes with me again, and I could feel an excitement growing within him, “Being like this is what makes me myself, Harley! I’m done running from who I am and what I am—I’m Minstrel. I’m a violent, psycho, egomaniac, porch monkey that just wants to cause trouble. And I like that about me! So from now on, I’m not running from it, I’m leaning into it!”
N’ after he said that, I guess it was my turn, cuz Jimmy took a step towards me and flashed a crooked smile, “What is all this, Harley? What do you want?”
I sucked in my teeth. I didn’t want to lie, not to Jimmy. But it was a hard question to answer. Of course, I’d thought about it, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? I thought about stuff, then did some stuff, then thought some more, and did some more. People think I’m impulsive, that I just do whatever without considering my future. But that ain’t true. I consider my future a lot, it’s just that the thoughts I have ain’t that easy to translate to other people, so I don’t bother tryin’. No one wants to understand me anyway, not really. People would say they do, but they just wanted to fix me, make me more like them. The only people that didn’t do that were Pammy and Jimmy, and it took me a long time to realize that.
“Ya ever been in therapy, Jimmy?” I asked.
He kept his face perfectly frozen in the crooked smile that it was in already. But he let his head tilt to one side, as if his neck were on a broken hinge. It was hilarious, and I knew immediately that it meant, “What the fuck do you think?”
I laughed, “Fair enough. I haven’t really been much myself, either. Save for those times the Bat had me locked in Arkham, but that don’t count. That’s not real therapy. And I know, cuz I’m a psychologist. When I talked with a client, I would always ask them what they wanted out of it, to see where their head was and figure out a way I could help them. They never really asked what I wanted, clients tend to be inconsiderate like that. But I always told them anyway, because I wanted them to know and to understand what my role in our relationship was.”
Jimmy stared back at me unblinkingly, encouraging me to go on. That was another thing he had over Joker, Jimmy was actually a good listener.
“I’d always tell them that I wanted them to be the best versions of themselves they could be. It sounds corny, but it’s true. It’s what any good shrink should want. The hacks at Arkham didn’t want that, they just want you to settle down long enough to move you out. But me? I want all my patients to be the best versions of themselves that they can be.”
My voice started to choke up at that point. I felt myself feeling things that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I’d gotten so good at distracting myself from those things that I’d forgotten what they felt like. Of course, I always knew they was there, and I always had those things as my guiding light. Like I said before, I thought about all this a lot, but I tried to get away from the strong emotions whenever and however I could. Sometimes that meant fighting in an elevator with high heels, sometimes it meant building my own highway. Either way, I avoided thinking about the most upsetting stuff in my life. But Jimmy was making it all come bubbling back up to the surface.
“When—when it all happened…when I left, I felt so awful, Jimmy. I felt like the worst person in the world. I abandoned my daughter! For the goddamn Joker! I hated myself. I still hate myself. I know I can’t—I don’t have no right to ever try and get her back. But I also know that she’ll find out who I am eventually. And I don’t want her to just hear about some sad, broken woman that got brainwashed by the Joker.”
Jimmy reached into his nose and pulled out a handkerchief. He offered it to me, and I took it from him. Our hands touched, and I didn’t want to let go. But I had to, because my mascara was starting to run. I took the handkerchief and rubbed my eyes. The tears did their work to loosen up all the makeup, and I did my work to smear it across my face. Some would say I only made myself look worse, but those people don’t have Ph.Ds.
“I started to give myself therapy in a way. I didn’t have you to talk to, and I was too sad to talk to Pammy back then, cuz I thought she was gonna judge me and call me stupid and horrible for what I did. I didn’t think she’d want anything to do with me…”
I stopped. I grabbed my chest to make sure my heart was still beating. People think that the worst memories I’d have would be from when Joker would…they think my worst memories are of him, but they aren’t, not really. The worst memories I had was loneliness. For a long time, I felt like Ivy didn’t want anything to do with me, and that broke me all over again. I remember feeling like I didn’t even have a heart anymore, just a hollow pain where a heart should be. And whenever I thought back to that point of my life, that came back. All the bruises and scars I’d endured throughout my entire fucked up life meant nothing compared to that.
“I didn’t have anyone else, so I started talking to myself—well, I started talking to Harleen, to Dr. Quinzel. She helped me through a lot in those days. I don’t know where I’d be without her. And during one of our sessions, I asked her why she was doing all this, ya know? Everyone else had given up on me, including me, so why not her? And she gave me that canned answer that every therapist is supposed to give. But it really hit me, ya know? Cuz when I realized that she wanted me to be the best version of myself, I realized that maybe I could really do it.”
“And you think that you have?” Jimmy asked.
I thought for a moment, and I shook my head. “Nah, I still got some shit I need to work out. But I’m far better than I was before, I can tell you that! When my little girl learns about her mom, maybe she’ll hear that I’m a villain, maybe she’ll hear that I’m a hero, but at the very least, she’s going to know that I was exactly what I wanted to be.”
Jimmy shook his head, but was otherwise silent for a while. It was a different kind of silence than before—it felt more hesitant than anything else. There was something he wanted to say, but he was struggling with it.
“Jimmy?” I asked, and felt myself going to reassuringly grab his shoulder. But I fought off that urge, remembering just how much distance there was between us.
“I tried my best, Harley, but…” Jimmy began.
I felt my heart begin to sink.
“What’s wrong? Did Joker find out about Lucy?” I fought to keep my voice from sounding frantic.
“He always knew, Harley. He just didn’t care.”
A truth like that can be some crushing shit, let me tell you. I could easily see myself just falling to the floor at those words. My abusive ex knew that he had a daughter, despite everything I did to keep her safe, he knew. And he didn’t even care. So I’d literally abandoned her for nothing.
I laughed, and I could tell that surprised even Jimmy to hear, so I explained for him. “I figured as much. He was so…different the night that she was conceived. For that one night it was like he saw me, not as a person of course, but as a thing that could be useful to him. And then when I came back, he was back to ignoring me, like he didn’t even want me around. And that was the first time I was happy for him to treat me like that. If Joker didn’t care where I’d been, then he wouldn’t be mad about Lucy, you know? I wouldn’t have to worry about him feeling like I’d ruined our sick little game and deciding that Lucy had to…I don’t even want to think about what kind of sick shit that bastard would have done. All I need to know is that if he didn’t care about her then, that only means that Lucy’s safe, for a while at least.”
Jimmy shook his head, “Till she’s 18.”
I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t understand what he meant at first. The smile was gone, his eyes were avoidant, and his body felt reserved. Jimmy was ashamed about something.
“I did what I could. I could only assure her safety until she’s 18. I’m sorry.”
I was filled with emotions that I could hardly put into words. So I didn’t try. I felt tears roll down my face as I sprang up, tackled Jimmy, and began to land kisses on his cheek.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Eighteen years. Eighteen Motherfucking years! Not enough for me to never worry about her, but still long enough. Long enough for Lucy to have an actual childhood. Long enough for her to learn who her mother was, and how I wound up in the position that I did.
And long enough for me and Pammy and Jimmy, too, to make sure that no good, pale faced, limp-dick, shit-breathing, Prince wannabe could put any part of his slimy hands on my baby girl!
