▸ Column · Modern Gotham — Harley Quinn's post-Joker advice column, with a cape-shaped cut-in from the rooftops
HARLEY QUINN replies.
Replied to by Harley Quinn, with a rebuttal from Batman.
The letter
My brother Terrence and I went eleven years without a word — ever since I no-showed his wedding because I was deep in a bad stretch with the bottle and couldn't stand in front of him sober. Last month, out of the blue, he left me a voicemail. Just said he'd been thinking about me, wanted to know if I was okay. I played it four times in my kitchen, shaking, before I could breathe right. We met at our old diner last Tuesday — the one we hit after his Little League games — and inside ten minutes we were cracking up about Dad and his lawn-edging fixation like nothing had happened. There's still real stuff to dig through, I know eleven years don't melt away over a patty melt. But I walked out lighter than I've felt in a decade. I just wanted to tell somebody who wouldn't make it weird. Turns out people really do come back sometimes.
Harley Quinn replies
Hiya sweetie. You wrote the right clown — I don't make happy weird, I make weird happy. Totally separate departments.
Okay, here's where my busted little brain went first, 'cause it's broken in a very specific way: you're still half-braced, ain'tcha? Waitin' for the patty melt to turn into a bill. Lemme spare ya the decade I spent on that — I waited and waited for the other shoe, and the other shoe was attached to a fella in face paint whose voicemails were leashes. Took a redhead who left me alone long enough to feel worth callin' back before I learned the difference. So I know it cold now: Terrence didn't open with "you owe me a wedding." He opened with "are you okay." Honey. People settin' traps don't ask after your insides first. That's not a trap. That's a brother.
You were drownin' when you missed it. You already bled for those eleven years — quit payin' interest on a debt that's settled. It ain't a crime scene, cupcake, it's just where the river took ya both.
So go feel light. Let it be real. The hard talks'll keep — patty melts are forever. Most folks who say "I love you" want somethin'. He wanted you breathin'. Call him back.
— Harley Quinn
Batman weighs in
Quinn calls it a brother. I call it eleven years of missing data.
One lunch proves nothing. People return for reasons they don't announce. Watch the pattern. Three more meetings. See whether he comes when it's inconvenient.
But your real threat was never Terrence. It is the bottle that took the first eleven years. That enemy still breathes. Guard your sobriety like a perimeter — fixed routines, people who notice, a plan for the bad night drawn up before the bad night arrives.
Enjoy nothing you have not secured.
You're not alone. Not anymore. Make certain you stay that way.
— Batman
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