"Name?"
"Philip Best."
"Alright, Jack."
The Joker lay in bed, while Shiller stood by, holding a medical record. He said, "You'd better bring out your psychologist persona to describe your symptoms, or I'll just be taking a stab in the dark."
"Untie my right hand. I want to smoke." Jack flipped his hair saying that. Shiller stepped forwards, unlocking the hand attached to the bed's railing. In response, Jack made the gesture of a gun and aimed at Shiller.
Shiller grabbed a chair, sat next to the bed while looking for a tape recorder and blank cassette tapes in the cabinet. He inserted a tape into the tape recorder and hit the record button.
"Right, tell me about your life."
Jack curled his lips, glancing at the tape recorder then at Shiller, "My name is Philip Best, a truck driver for Anta Gang..."
Jack rambled on about his mortgage payments, his car loans, his weekend grocery shopping at the supermarket, and how his neighbors' house caught on fire, and so on.
Shiller paused the tape recorder and said, "Okay, next one."
Jack looked at him, he also looked at Jack. They stared at each other for a while, then Shiller said to him, "What are you staring at me for? Make up another one, quickly. I can use it."
Jack tilted his head back, rolled his eyes, mimicked Shiller's tone for a few sentences, and then made up another origin story for himself.
Like this, Shiller had the Joker concoct a dozen or so origin stories for him, then took the tapes from the recorder satisfied.
The same old saying: Trash is just a misplaced resource, and the origin stories that the Joker crafted for himself were not only realistic but rich in detail. With slight modifications to the historical context, they could easily serve as well-crafted false identities.
Shiller hadn't forgotten yet, he had many undercover agents implanted in Marvel's Arkham Sanatorium—these false identities will come in handy.
Jack turned his body to the side, stretching his neck to look at Shiller, his eyes wide as he said, "Do you know? I hate two kinds of people, one is excessively ordinary people, the other is people similar to me.
"And you, you are clearly very similar to me, but you strive to be just an ordinary person. But I, Jack - the world's most professional master of psychology - am telling you, you can't do it, hahaha!"
His laugh had barely ceased when Shiller slapped his injured hand with the edge of his notebook. Jack screamed in pain, then erupted in crazed laughter again, saying: "I got you, didn't I! I have hit a nerve! You'll never be able to become an ordinary person! Hahaha…"
Shiller took a deep breath and said, "After today's consultation ends, get yourself on over to the general ward. Do you know how precious these beds are? Don't delay me from making money."
"Money? Hahahaha!" Jack laughed even harder, causing his bed to shake and vibrate. After a while, he choked on his laughter, started coughing like mad, and then reached out his hand to Shiller, saying, "Water, thank you."
Shiller didn't give him any, but Jack didn't mind. Instead, he stopped laughing, slumped on the bed panting, and said, "That was a funny joke, wasn't it? If there was a movie theater where you could really buy tickets with popcorn, I would buy a whole week's tickets and finish watching all the movies I didn't get to see."
Suddenly he got all serious, he sighed and said, "People chasing after money is laughable, isn't it? What's even more ridiculous is that the money they are after is no different from popcorn…"
"And the most ludicrous, haha…" he started laughing again, his whole body shaking with laughter. "The most laughable thing is that there's a madman who knows money is just popcorn but still chases it, hahaha!"
"Why? Because he's gone mad! He actually believes that as long as he pursues fame and fortune like any ordinary person, he can become an ordinary person, hahahahaha…"
He noticed Shiller was silently watching him. Jack smirked, and said, "Why so serious? Weren't you laughing your head off at the theater?"
"Because it's funny when hell is someone else's problem." Shiller stood up again, saying, "Of course it's fun to see Batman mess up, you think so too, right?"
Jack wiped away the tears from laughter with his free hand, he didn't seem as crazy as he was back in the theatre. He appeared to be normal, but that made him all the more bizarre.
"Frankly, I never thought you guys would have such a big turnout. I absolutely love this place!"
"You should thank the Court of Owls. The incessant rain they caused has affected the residents here, to a greater or lesser extent, whether they got wet or not. Even if they don't get wet, they inevitably inhale the moisture in the air when they breathe, so everyone's a little bit crazy."
"I know, of course I know... Why else would I announce my plan on TV? I knew that people would come, that there'd be a bunch of annoying people…" Jack was gritting his teeth one minute, and the next he switched to a humble tone, "Oh, no, I meant to say, esteemed audience, I knew someone would come to watch the pathetic Joker's comedic performance..."
"Everyone except for Batman, he doesn't want to come. I was the one who had to drag him over."
"That's precisely why I hate the Court of Owls so much. They created a rain that can drive people mad, but it's only ineffective against Batman. They're such idiots," Jack said with vitriol.
"You're lying again. If this rain really had an effect on Batman, the Court of Owls would be a thousand times worse than it is now."
Jack pouted his lips and whistled twice, as if to cover up his lies. He shifted his body, leaning against the pillow, and said as if he had found a soulmate: "See, you think so too, don't you? Batman has always been crazy, he just won't admit it. If some external factor made him go crazy, that would be really dull."
"Do you think he wanted to laugh during last night's performance?" Jack blinked his somewhat unclear eyes, full of anticipation, and his tone became excited again. "I've hidden in the alley to spy on him several times, watching him break the limbs of the robbers."
"But he's far too serious," Jack complained, "Can't he lighten up a bit? Listening to the groans of the robbers, hearing the pleas of the criminals he despises and hates... shouldn't that bring him joy? And if he's happy, why doesn't he laugh?"
Whenever Batman is mentioned, Jack can't stop talking, but Shiller is not interested in his lunatic rants. He tapped his notebook with his pen and said: "I also have two kinds of people that I hate the most, one is those who cause me trouble, and the other is those who act righteous even after causing trouble."
Before Jack could say anything, Shiller continued: "It seems that we are precisely the kind of people the other despises. Since we dislike each other, let's keep our distance. You can move to the ward next door tomorrow and live with Cobblepot."
Jack snorted from his nose. "You're quite the cunning one."
The next day at noon, after Shiller returned from lunch in the cafeteria, he found Jack squatting and crying at the door of the ward. He was leaning against the door frame, covering his face, crying inconsolably.
As Shiller passed by without looking at him, Jack grabbed his white coat and said: "Oh my God! How can there be such boring people in this world? How could you arrange for me to share a ward with him?"
With one hand holding onto Shiller's white coat and refusing to let go, and the other wiping non-existent tears, he said: "He just told me a joke, but even the joke was utterly boring."
"He actually said he wants to open a restaurant, can you believe it? Then he wants to build an iceberg inside the restaurant, oh my God..."
"I always thought dressing up as a bat was twisted enough, but there's actually someone who wants to dress up as a penguin, penguin, haha!"
"Doctor, they're all crazy, you have to save me!" Jack started to tremble. "I don't want to stay with these lunatics!"
Shiller bent down, grabbed his wrist, and pulled his hand off his clothes. He bent over and said to Jack: "Firstly, this is a mental hospital. If either you or him weren't crazy, you wouldn't be here."
" Secondly, this is not the time for recreation. If you dare to run out of the ward again, I will have Batman expelled from Gotham University and sent to study in Metropolis. You will never see him again."
Jack quickly got up, bolted onto the bed, and even pulled the blanket over himself. He hummed: "Little Jack is going to bed now, hum, hum, hum... sing me a lullaby…"
He pretended to be asleep with one eye closed, while the other sneaked a peek at Shiller's reaction.
Cobblepot, standing by, sighed deeply. "Doctor, I suggest you switch him to the next ward," he said, looking at Shiller by the door.
He pointed towards the wall with his thumb. "I'm sure he and Evans have a lot in common."
"More importantly, if this lunatic stays any longer, I'm going to beat him."
"Alright then, he'll go live with Evans tomorrow."
The next day, after Shiller returned from lunch, he found Jack somehow climbed up onto the high observation window. Jack was straddling the window, clumsily shifting his body, as if trying to climb out.
Before Shiller even had time to ask what was going on, he heard Evans yelling from inside: "You actually like those musical comedies! And you even insult classical opera! I've really misjudged you. Those new operas are absolute sacrilege!"
"You're the one who's crazy!" Jack straddling the observation window, waved his fists and yelled:" Baroque operas are antique gimmicks! Monteverdi is absolute trash! They don't understand humor at all!"
As he spoke, he cocked his head and mimicked a few tunes. His dry voice combined with a strange singing style was all emotion and devoid of any technique.
He spewed insults at all the Baroque and classical opera masterpieces he could think of from the high observation window, causing Evans to throw pillows at him.
There's no denying it, Evans was quite strong. Standing below, he thunked Jack square in the face with a pillow. Jack, who had an injured arm, failed to maintain his grip and fell down right in front of Shiller.
He was still angry and wanted to get back into the ward to continue arguing with Evans. Shiller grabbed his clothes and said, "You want to go back and get beaten up? Don't tell me you actually think you can beat him up?"
Jack was furious. He shouted, "He doesn't understand music at all, that idiot! Classical operas are complete navel-gazing, can you imagine? There are still old fogies nowadays who like that stuff. Only operas and musicals are interesting!"
Evans leaned half his body out from the door frame and shouted, "The one with no taste is you! You damned madman!"
"You're the madman!"
Standing aside, Shiller was speechless. Partly because he didn't understand opera, and partly because he didn't understand lunatics.