1958

 Below is a full prose piece I wrote regarding my characters Judas Kase and Niall Chesky. Some really difficult characters they've been to characterize. I like them so much. They mean a lot to me.

Niall is a morphine addict, been using since the late 40s. Judas and him met thru a murder case he was investigating, and now they're intertwined. This is two years into a relationship that was built off of lies and intricate psychoanalysis. I'm still trying to decide if I want Niall to be an evil person in action and not in moral, because he is an upstanding moralist, but also very mentally deteriorated and very aware of his manipulative tendencies, and uses sharp and deep-cut angles to support his iffy ethics. Very complicated feelings about all possibilities of these characters. I've taken a little inspo from Disco Elysium and Naked Lunch (More-so William S. Burroughs' books in general), and it's been sweet finding parallels between the plan I have for cheskase and the media I hold so dear.

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    As a detective you're bound to encounter moral dilemmas when working a case. Judas knows this, and knows it well. But he still hasn't learned how to disconnect from his thoughts, often allowing himself to be predisposed to disappointment when the job doesn't satisfy his internal demands to feel comfortable about the actions he makes, to avoid regret.

    Disconnection was especially difficult when he questioned Niall Chesky—a social/moralist whom also presented as the leader of a "division" of radical fags via a monthly magazine—for a murder case. He was an admirable, courageous man. He didn't mind the inevitable consequences of his viewpoint if he ended up not protected by Judas's judgment and call. He was comfortable in standing for what he believed and helping the people who didn't understand, and easily led them into belief in ways Judas couldn't expect from any person addicted to hard narcotics.

"Freedom in spite of yourself is all that's needed for you, Judas." Niall would say. He repeated this idea a few times before, rephrased in countless ways.

"I have a warped view of freedom. The justice system is not as just as it should be." He responded, staring down at his hands.

"You've got the right idea." Niall rounded Kase's person, like a hawk spying its prey. Predatory, is what he was. Addictive. His habits run off him like sharable attributes.

"Before long I'll be functioning without your unconventional input, left to be stuck in my own head."

"Two men can get together and talk in private, you know this?"

"Not now."

"Then when? When Judas?"

"You speak to me like you're Jesus. I feel trapped when you speak my first name so calmly."

"A dangerous thought, sir." He sat and crossed his legs. "You're troubling yourself with that way of viewing me."

"Often is that the case."

"Czy możesz mnie kochać?"

Silence. Ignorance.

"No matter."

The two of them often had conversations that go this way exactly. A struggle in morality. A fight to the death with a part of Judas' soul that only holds him down. He recognizes this, the decay of his values. His unnerving radicalization—The affect that Niall has. Always classified as a seated, unusual interaction—executed with psychoanalytic precision. Judas felt naked—Seen through.

"You want someone to take care of you, Judas." Niall would say. Judas would deny quickly, saying he has lived and breathed alone since he could remember. He'd relate his early life to that of a bear cub; brought up, taught the basics—raised so once his teachings served him the way intended, he was allowed out and taught to never return. He said he would die alone, and would be content with exactly that.

"You need someone to take care of you,"

He says this diligently. Loneliness deeply ingrained in his voice.

"I am all-right." The detective spoke, matter-of-factly.

"You crave something, uselessly. You're internally conflicted and externally shallow. You're clotted."

"You speak in poetry, Niall." There it was, the loneliness returned.

They cannot see what is in front of them. Time passes, quick and unsteady. Like a broken clock. They do not want it to. If they could, they'd spend every night in with one another, speaking philosophy. Sun goes down, they still converse.

"I speak in truth, Judas Kase."

"That may be so, but your mind is elsewhere."

Niall giggled playfully, like they were entertaining a joke. "Narcomania is just another complicated game."

"It's dangerous. It's time you stop entertaining the abuse."

"All hobbies become dangerous in continued practice." He continued, in unseriousness.

"It is not a hobby, Chess. It is a terror." He spoke, in adamancy.

"Terroryzujesz mój umysł tak samo jak narkotyki."

Judas sighed, discontent. "You still speak perfectly in your language despite your mind being a slope of unease."

"Do you understand?"

A hesitation. "Not yet." Kase had more to say, but avoided, and went with the second best option. "I'm fond of it, though. The language."

In truth, he did not mean the language. He meant the way he spoke the words. His accent, the inflection and intensity of his approach; his voice. It sometimes seemed like Niall couldn't find the words in English, so he spoke in Polish as substitute.

"You do not mean the language."

"I wish I did, but I don't, no." He left it at that.

Niall stared at him for a moment.

"You want someone to take care of you."

"I cannot want, or need a ward. I cannot want, or need you."

    Judas deviated from the conversation by picking a cigarette out of the pack laying on the table next to him, the sun going down and the heat dissipating laggard around him. The atmosphere was almost thickened by the exchange, but it was still growing cold. No longer would his long sleeve button up do him any good on this previously warm October day.

    Niall looked at the man diagonal to him, looking wired, as always. He nudged his arm and gestated toward the pack, and kindly did Kase fish a fag out of it and hand it filter first. Judas watched as Niall began reaching for the zippo at his end of the outdoor glass-top table, but instead picked it up before he wrapped his lanky fingers around the edges and urged him to lean forward. The detective then lit the cigarette in his peers mouth, one hand cupping the side in which the wind blew. The smoke promptly rising from the end, he observed as Chess' eyes, head angled down—looking up at him, like he would if knelt—gazed into his own as he began to move his hand to engage a two-finger hold on the item. He had a slow, injurious look. Impossible to explain why this is the way Judas took it, but it was. The pain of his thrills seemed to never cease from Niall's face—wide, blue eyes with eternally varicosed pupils: a galaxy within an ocean of impurity; natural blush on the nose and ears, early creases in his smile—teeth-y and elegant—and forehead; angered eyebrows, stuck in position out of unawareness regarding expression—now all aches embossed for his proxies.

    Niall will wish. He will. Kase will let him. In return, Judas will not hold his hand, or engage deeply. He will not allow himself to move in ways which overtly express his need; in which he considers abnormal. Frankly, Chesky will not care. He will still wish.

"You wish to say you love me." Chess stated between drags. Judas watched his hands and avoided eye-contact.

"I don't know if you have the correct suspicion, Niall."

"I wish you would say my name more often."

Kase sat quiet. Unallowing himself to speak any longer. The request disabled him.

He wishes he could surrender. Hoping that when that happens, they can settle the named churches as divine so they are finally deemed too holy for him to enter.