Meeting Your Makers: Joker Black

Anne-Marie’s house is like a zoo in more ways than one.

First of all, from the moment you step onto her front lawn, you’re hit with misty bursts from her neighbor’s lawn sprinklers. Then, when you trek into the foyer, you can look up and see the shaded overture of the second floor hanging over you beneath a skylight, replete with the cast shadows of a dense canopy of variously clean clothes hanging over the banister. A cacophony in the distance is split between the remarkably avian screech of a hair-dryer and the mammalian shrieks of a prepubescent child’s shrill rage. There’s a persistent and staticky whisper emanating from a TV set in the living room across the house, over and under which weaves a rhythmic snoring.

“Shoes off on the left,” Anne-Marie says, before darting off down a ridiculously narrow hallway that bisects the house.

There’s an unavoidable gut discomfort as I traipse after her without my dad’s hand-me-down pair of Docs. I cope by reminding myself that this is a normal house, with only the normal amount of loose nails and exposed sawblades laying about the floor. Only, I might’ve spoken too soon about normalcy. Because for the fairly reasonable square footage of the place, the entire first floor is laid out like a funhouse maze—except that instead of hints of excitement-pee and sweaty-teen-sadness, the place reeks of laminated family travel photos and tacky wood-animal tchotchkes.

Having lost track of her around the bend of the kitchen archway to the right, I retrace my steps back to the foyer, then double back only to find myself at the foot of a staircase. The floor rumbles underfoot, and I can smell hints of detergent. Someone hums a melody two walls behind me, and I whirl around. Then, a rabid pitter-patter of feet on the floor above turns me back the other way. The steps circle around, then draw nearer. I swear to god that something’s beady eyes are watching me from somewhere nearby.

It feels like I’m being hunted by velociraptors.

A scream. I screech, and dive for cover behind a respectable pile of towels at the foot of the stairs.

“Mooom! Siiiis! There’s a weird guy in our house againnn!”

When I lift my head over the safety of my cover, I’m greeted by the top of the stupidest looking red-brown bowl-cut I’ve ever seen.

“Shut up, Aiden!” comes Anne-Marie’s voice, from a direction so spontaneous and directionless that I’m pretty sure it’s coming from outside the house.

The scrawny-looking kid standing before me can’t be anything more than 13 by the face, and yet he’s almost meeting me in the eyes in height. All-but ignoring me, he yells out:

“Is he one of yours, or one of Stella’s?”

“I said shut up!” comes the reply.

Aiden shrugs, plops himself down on the first step of the stairs, and pulls a disproportionately huge tablet out from the back of his waistband. Within seconds, he’s cussing away under his breath at any one of a number of mobile games made indeterminable by their bouncy, dopamine-farming stock sound effects. I simply stew there in freshly-dried lemon-scented awkwardness, in the company of someone I’m hoping desperately is Anne-Marie’s kid brother and not kid.

“How long have you been on that thing today?” comes my girlfriend’s voice.

I breathe a sigh of relief, only to see Anne-Marie standing with her back to me as if I’m not there.

“I already did my homework,” Aiden protests.

“Yeah, but did you brush your teeth?”

Silence.

“Or shower?” She offers.

Silence.

“Did you even change your damn socks?”

“Dude, not now!” he complains. “I’m on a win streak!”

“You’re always on a win streak.”

His voice is a somehow even less endearing version of nails on a chalkboard. “Because I’m cracked out my mind, dude! Now lemme play.”

“You get one more match. Or else I’m adding your iPad to my laundry list.”

His subsequent screech is inhuman.

After it’s safe to unplug my ears, I say, “Look, just let the kid grind. He did do his homework.”

“Yeah,” Aiden mutters, biting his lip in focus. “What the creep said.”

I have half a mind to throw his tablet in the wash myself, until Anne-Marie groans:

“Ugh. Games are such a waste of time.”

I look at her like she’s from Planet X, and say:

“What.”

“Yeah,” she adds. “Dunno how the little guy can do it all day.”

Listen, I’m not one of those losers that has to jump to defend the sanctimony of killing time by way of games. At least, not anymore. But something about the sharpness of her tone and self-certainty in her wit set off the combative nerd inside of me.

I scoff. “Well excuse me, princess. But video games are an art. No- they’re kinda more like a sport. An E-sport. And they’re just as valid as any other sport.”

“Right,” she nods, “And that’s why I can run a 5k around you, while you get out of breath just from making out.”

“I- that’s-”

“Gross,” Aiden notes, having already diverted his attention to a video of some manosphere influencer rambling about an inane interpretation of women’s rights edited tastefully over some infinite runner game footage.

“Gross,” I concur, “And entirely besides the point.”

“Annie-Mayyy,” Aiden moans. “Can I have the new jiggle-jiggle skin?”

“No, Aiden,” Anne-Marie sighs. “You already got Batwoman last week.”

“But I want Harley Quinnn!”

I glance at his tablet screen, and my pupils pulse at the fact that he has somewhere close to two-hundred dollars in in-game currency in the bank. The kid’s skin collection is so impressive that my mind sorta glazes over his stats. Even his username bounces off my head at first. Of course. It’s inane, childish, and it’s-

“TheLegoKid48.”

Anne-Marie’s face twists into a swirl at my constipated whisper.

“Holy shit, dude,” I practically squawk, “He’s TheLegoKid48!”

“Who?” asks Anne-Marie.

Aiden scrunches up his nose at her.

I wave my hands emphatically. “I can’t believe it. TheLegoKid48’s top 500 in everything.”

“Huh.” Anne-Marie says. “And here I thought he was just a useless sentient bean stalk that intakes Cheeto-flavored crayons and outputs noxious fumes.”

“I’m like, a pretty big fan,” I say, reaching out a hand to the kid—only to withdraw it once I remember he was picking his nose not but five seconds prior. “You must’ve killed me and the boys like five times at Tilted Towers alone.”

Aiden shrugs, and sniffs his fingernails. “Dunno. Probably. Hey, you like Roblox?”

I nod, slowly. “I guess. Though I’m more of a Minecraft kid at heart.”
“Ewww. You’re like an old man.”

I don’t even have all the hair on my testicles yet, you little shit—is what I would have said—if I didn’t remember that the little shit in question is my girlfriend’s precious baby brother.

“Don’t be a little shit,” Anne-Marie says. “Ogden’s a great guy.”

Aiden snorts. “What kinda name’s Ogden?”

I look him dead in the eyes and put on my narrator’s voice:

“The kind that strikes fear into the hearts of men, and passion into the hearts of women.”

Aiden’s pupils widen, and he mumbles, “Whoah. You’re kinda cool. Like, dumb. But cool.”

“I- Thanks?”

“I’m gonna go play, but you should add me on Discord. Later.”

“Later?” I reply.

He bolts up the stairs, pausing only to scream, “Jinx! You owe me a pop!”

I’m left with the goofiest smirk this side of a sitcom dad.

“Hard to believe that I used to be just like that at his age,” I mumble, “I kinda miss the youthful innocence.”

Anne-Marie lays a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’re pretty much still like that.”

“Pretty much?” I ask, pinching her side.

She yelps, and grabs the small of my back. “Yeah, pretty much.”

I lean in, cheek to cheek. “You’re the one that’s pretty. And much.”

“Alright, settle down, lovebirds,” comes a hearty southern drawl.

I leap away from Anne-Marie so sharply that I hear my tailbone crunch against the banister. Hiding my pain with a smile, I offer a friendly wave to the unexpected company.