Lighting the Match

"The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers." Carl Jung

It was getting late when Jack Napier burst into a downtown Gotham jeweller's wearing a plastic clown mask and brandishing a pocket knife. Silently congratulating himself on the brilliance of his idea to wear the mask to conceal his identity, Jack started the business of using the bystanders to scoop the over-priced (in Jack's humble opinion) diamonds and wads of cash out of the display cabinets and/or till and into his old gym bag. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until one balding man decided to play the hero.

Crossing his arms in a determined, almost pigheaded, manner, the man attempted to stare Jack down after being told to unlock more of the display cabinets. "I'm not going to be intimidated by a thug in a clown mask." The man turned his head slightly to try to find support among his fellow hostages. Finding none, he turned back to Jack, his face set in an expression of undeniable rage. "Take off that mask and face me like a man."

Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Jack slid one of his hands into his coat pocket and wrapped his hand around the gun he had concealed in there earlier, just in case. Rolling his eyes, Jack resisted the urge to throttle him, taking his time, making him suffer before his death, instead opting to casually slide the gun from his pocket and aim it at him. "There's always one isn't there?"

Jack vaguely heard a woman scream as he emptied the gun's chamber into the man's chest. Cocking his head, Jack looked around the jewellers at the small group of people who were staring back at him, as immobile as the man on the floor. One woman, obscenely covered in diamonds and other shiny rocks, looked like she was crying. Jack could literally feel his fingers twitching as he imagined ripping the pebbles from her ears, the circles of gold and silver from her struggling fingers...

He would ignore it; the feeling, wanting to scare her, to kill her. That's what that useless court-ordered shrink told him to do. "Just ignore the urge," he would say. "You're better than that Jack." Like hell he'd know. Jack felt his hand twitch as he stared at the woman. She would have been so easy to scare. Jack fingered the knife in his twitching hand. He could kill her; easily. The only thing stopping him… He wasn't 'better than that' at all. He would kill her, kill the others, mutilate their bodies, teach them one last lesson. The only thing stopping him… The sirens. They were coming.

After aiming a good kick at the man's prone body, Jack strode out of the jeweller's, apparently ignoring the growing sound of police sirens. Underneath the mask though, Jack's eyes were darting across the street, down alleyways, looking for possible escape routes. Taking off his mask, Jack shoved it and the gun into the bag and, pulling the bag higher up on his shoulder, Jack started walking down the street, the last place, he figured, the police would look.

A car stopped by the side of the road, just in front of where Jack was walking. Jack hardly noticed the car; his mind was racing, thinking about everything and at the same time, nothing in particular. He thought about 'his' shrink; Eric. Errric… Jack liked the way the name rolled off his tongue. The guy was hilarious to watch. Jack allowed himself a private chuckle, not noticing the men emerging from the parked car. He thought of Eric and his motives; his plan. The guy really thought that he could 'help'. Jack laughed again, tremors racking his body as he continued to walk down the street. Didn't Eric realise that Jack only went to those sessions because the cops had the authority to lock him up again if he didn't? But no. Eric thought he was doing some good, reforming a misunderstood, petty thief.

A gorilla of a man standing in the middle of the footpath brought Jack back to reality with a bump. Acting nonchalant, Jack tried to sidestep the gorilla in the police uniform only to feel a rough hand grip his shoulder and spin him into a brick wall. Flashing the men (Jack could see two of them) a broad grin, Jack pulled the bag strap higher up on his shoulder. "Look Officers, I was never one for faces but weren't one of you guys in The Village People?" A fist smashes into Jack's abdomen and leaves him wheezing for air as hysterical laughter overtakes his body. Another fist smashes into the side of his face and sends his head crashing into the wall. Laughing through the blood pouring out of his nose, Jack reached for the knife in his pocket and stuck the blade into the side of one of the cops dragging him down an alleyway. Crying out, the cop let go of Jack's arms and dropped him on the ground. The other cop wrapped his hands around Jack's throat and lifted him into another wall.

"Son of a…!" Jack watched in detached amusement as the first cop pulled the bloody knife from his side and turned to glare at him. Wiping some blood from his nose on the back of his hand, Jack smirked at his captors. The cop holding him by the throat didn't seem to be planning to relinquish his hold any time soon. "Is there," Jack began, wiping excess blood away from his mouth as he spoke. "A problem, Officers?"

"The problem is," the cop with the bloody knife walked towards his partner, staring at Jack pinned against the wall. "That when you rob a shop that pays for Mr Falcone's … protection… you rob Mr Falcone."

The cop holding Jack's throat squeezed it a little and continued where his partner left off. "And Mr Falcone doesn't take too kindly to small-timers who try to steal what is rightfully his."

Jack let a chuckle escape as he licked the drying blood from his lips. Cops in the pocket of Carmine Falcone. The more he thought about it, the funnier it seemed to Jack. Cops serving and protecting their wallets. Jack let out a bark of laughter and, with a manic grin on his face, watched the cops' faces turn to confusion as he laughed at their pointless, empty threats.

The cop pinning Jack to the wall made a face at his partner and relinquished his hold, taking Jack's knife, bloody from the cop's blood, from his partner who, in turn, gripped Jack's throat and shoulder, holding him closer to the wall than the other one had done. The second cop, the one now holding the knife, turned it over in his hand, examining it before bringing it up to Jack's face. Jack grinned almost inanely as the cop wiped the blood on his cheek, leaving a streak of red on his pale skin.

"Do you think that Mr Falcone is something to laugh at?" The cop holding the knife beside Jack's face whispered, slightly waving the blade in front of Jack's eyes.

"Yeah."

The cop with a grip on Jack's throat and shoulder shook his head. "Wrong answer."

The second cop roughly grabbed Jack's chin, angling his head in the dimming light of the alleyway. Forcing Jack's mouth to open slightly, the cop stuck the blade in, nicking the side of Jack's mouth as he applied a little pressure. Jack watched the cop with a smile. He didn't think he'd do whatever it was he had in mind.

The cop with the knife leaned a little closer to Jack's face. "You still think it's funny?"

"Yeah."

With a fluid movement of his hand, the cop brought the knife up through the skin of Jack's cheek, stopping halfway between Jack's now-mutilated mouth and his ear. Pulling his head back, Jack let out a horrific scream that echoed off the brick walls of the deserted alleyway. Both of them smiling now, the second cop handed the knife to his partner and took up the task of pinning the now struggling Jack to the wall. The first cop, the one Jack had stabbed, lent close to Jack and grabbed his chin, digging his fingers into the torn flesh on Jack's cheek as he gruffly turned his head. Sticking the blade back into Jack's mouth, the first cop made the same fluid movement that his partner had made on the other cheek. Jack's scream increased in intensity until the cops dropped him on the ground next to his knife, bloodied with his own blood that was now flowing freely down his face. Slowly raising his eyes, Jack watched the two corrupt cops walk out of the alleyway. One paused and threw something behind him.

Raising two tentative hands to his bloody face, Jack held his ragged cheeks. Jack saw that the cops had taken his bag. Falcone would never get his money or diamonds back. No, the cops would say that they had tried but he, Jack, had got away. That they couldn't find the stolen goods.

Letting go of one of his cheeks, Jack grabbed his knife and wiped his blood off the blade and onto his pants. Sliding the blade back into his pocket, Jack slowly stood up and, with both hands over his bleeding cheeks, stumbled over to see what the cop had thrown away.

Stooping to pick the object up, Jack staggered out onto the main street and stopped under a streetlight. Looking down at his hand, Jack blinked dumbly at the plastic clown mask in his hand. It was his mask; Jack recognised it. But it suddenly seemed foreign.

Letting go of his other cheek, Jack raised his eyes to look at his reflection in a store window. With pain biting through his face, Jack stood and stared at the face that could not be his. He, he, Jack looked down at his mask for confirmation; he looked like his clown mask. His eyes, sunk in their sockets, looked as black as his face, pale from the loss of blood, looked white. And the blood. It was everywhere. On his nose, down his chin, all over his shirt and stretching across his cheeks in a macabre grin.

Jack's breathing grew shallow as he dropped the mask and grabbed his cheeks, trying to stop the blood. Half staggering, half running down the street, Jack started to laugh as he made his way back to his flat. Stumbling through the door, Jack laughed louder when he saw himself in his bathroom mirror. He looked deranged. Insane. A real joker.

Dropping to his hands and knees, Jack dug through the small cabinet in his bathroom, pausing only occasionally to bite his hand in an attempt to distract his brain from the pain in his cheeks. Emerging with a sewing needle and cotton thread, Jack carefully placed them on the edge of the sink and grabbed the strongest painkillers he could find. Swallowing two, he could always go back for more, Jack examined his cheeks in the mirror. Grinning a little, Jack grabbed the needle and threaded the cotton through the eye. And slowly, methodically, Jack started to sew his cheeks back together.

It was almost dawn when Jack had done. He stood, his shirt bloodied, his hair dirty and unruly, his face pale. The rows of stitches stood out on Jack's face, like the scars he knew they would turn into. Staring at his face had an almost sobering effect on Jack. He had been laughing most of the night, ignoring the pain and the blood that was everywhere. But now…

Slowly, Jack raised his hand and ran a finger along a row of amateur stitches made with white cotton thread that had slowly turned red with his blood. The schemers of Gotham. It was all them, with their bureaucracy, their corruptibility, their incessant plans!

Jack washed some dried blood from his face, pausing as he looked at himself in the mirror again. He still looked like a ghoul, like his clown mask had come to life. Why not, Jack thought as he smiled at himself, the rows of stitches elongating his smile, giving his face an unnatural appearance. As a man, Jack thought, the schemers can stop me, carve my face. A calling card, a mask can protect me.

Jack looked down at a crumpled newspaper on the floor. He remembered reading the article… A giant bat had stopped a drug shipment and delivered Falcone to the police. Jack smirked. The Bat was another schemer, trying to control his little world.

Jack stood on the newspaper as he left the bathroom. The schemers would have to wait. As would the Bat. First, he would find those two cops. Leave a little calling card when he was done with them. Something to be remembered by. Nothing fancy. A simple card would do the trick…