The Dark Knight*

An unusual vignette about criminal psychology, inspired by modern stories about immersive urban darkness.

An homage to modern crime-storytelling, inspired loosely by the very stark/provocative crime-psychology thriller The Cell (Jennier Lopez). Thanks so much for reading (signing off), 

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A special criminal-investigation(s) case involved the apprehending of a nefarious Chicago serial-killer who went by the name Fatso, dressed in a clown-costume, and accused of killing over 20 individuals, mostly working girls, and police officers. The Chicago detective-office filed the required reports and handed the case over to their lead detective on the case, Amlan Satan who'd been the one who actually caught the psycho named Fatso.

DETECTIVE SATAN (Amlan): I plan to treat this case as normal, and 'Fatso' has requested I serve as a personal cell-counselor.

CHICAGO POST (Newspaper): This 'Fatso' is worse than Gacy or Bundy, and we're pleased Satan's his private counselor!

AMLAN: Chicago doesn't need this kind of media-hysteria, and I plan to discover why 'Fatso' wants me to counsel in Chicago.

Detective Amlan Satan's not had a comfy or easy-going life. After graduating from Dartmouth with a degree in cognitive-psychology, he began Interpol-relations blood-diamond traffic/piracy work in Moscow, evaluating macro-sociological trends complementing patterns-analysis of underworld crime-clan decision-making. He then moved back to Chicago and joined the detective's office with the CPD, intending to chase straight criminals/killers, and he later wrote in a Chicago editorial that he'd obtained personal 'psyche-scarring' experiences as a young boy which motivated him to become a 'pensive' officer of the peace, serving society as a sort of 'dark knight' of distancing.

AMLAN: I've had a tough time as a child, and it contributes to my understanding of criminal minds, how Chicago ticks better.

FATSO: I'm pleased you accepted my special proposition, Detective Satan.

SATAN: I just want to serve my duty and my time with you, Fatso.

FATSO: So, I read in the newspapers you'd a 'tough' time as a child.

SATAN: Yeah, and it's contributed to my cop-motivations...dreams.

FATSO: I believe tha.

SATAN: Do you?
FATSO: Well, I suppose you want to know why I wanted you to be one of my 'personal' counselors.

SATAN: I can guess, Fatso...you believe I'm somehow 'experiences' in the darkness of the mind and will comfort.

FATSO: I think you and I are similar in a lot of ways, Satan.

SATAN: Tell me, Fatso.

FATSO: I was a traumatized child (young boy) too, ya know.

SATAN: Really?

AMLAN: We're evaluating 'Fatso' and appreciating his insanity; I'm evaluating one case involving a murdered female doctor.

FATSO: I was a child in a now-abandoned Detroit home, Detective Satan.

SATAN: So?

FATSO: Well, so in this now-abandoned home, which I drove by after some of my 'deeds' in Chicago, I remembered.

SATAN: Memories?
FATSO: Yeah...well, so my dad's a drunk, and he'd come home and abuse me in the attic while my mother played music.

SATAN: Piano?
FATSO: Nah, the radio...he'd abuse me in the attic while she pretended not to know.

SATAN: You 'know' she'd no idea?

FATSO: This 'belief' is what comprises my 'memory' of that damned now-abandoned house, detective.

SATAN: Aha.

AMLAN: We've put 'Fatso' on a regular schedule of Lexapro and Lithium, and I think we're making progress...into his dreams.

SATAN: Continue with your story, good man; you know none of this is recorded/pre-recorded.

FATSO: I trust you.

SATAN: RIght.

FATSO: So, when I was a teenager (in Chicago), I used to torture captured squirrels.

SATAN: What...what'd you do (to them)?

FATSO: I cut their heads off and burned their corpses.

SATAN: Wow...that sounds stimulating and dark!

FATSO: I thought of my mom.

SATAN: Never your dad?

FATSO: I was just a teenager then...I was inventing myself for the future.

FATSO: I dreamt of running through a cornfield and finding an angel of hell, and I told the creature, "I'm a murderer."

CHICAGO POST (Newspaper): Hopefully, all this 'psyche-media' won't distract us from the 'ugliness' of Fatso's Chicago evils.

FATSO: What the hell are you telling me here now, Satan?
SATAN: I'm your detective and your counselor, so I want you to think 'purely' about my thought-model.

FATSO: What kind of model is this, detective?
SATAN: Imagine you're in dream-sleep and you see an American football-player and Euro-soccer player running to you.

FATSO: Why?
SATAN: Just imagine...football is called soccer outside America, so these two 'imaginary' athletes are in contrast.

FATSO: Right.

SATAN: So, which do you choose arbitrarily or decisively or whimsically or fortuitously, Fatso?

FATSO: I like football (American), and I don't go to Europe, so I suppose I'd 'lean' towards the football-player, detective.

SATAN: Very good.

FATSO: I thought of my dad drinking booze in the shadows of our Chicago house, while I was murdering my victims.

AMLAN SATAN: I'm going to approach your latter portion of this counseling-session as a masked 'maniac' and want calmness.

FATSO: Why'd you claim you're abnormal like me, detective?
SATAN: Entertain me, Fatso...imagine I'm a killer like you, complete with masked deformity.

FATSO: So?
SATAN: We're both swimming in a dream-world red-river of the unconscious, but it's not blood.

FATSO: Alright; what the hell is this river of red, Satan?
SATAN: I want you to imagine this red liquid/water represents your mother.

FATSO: Why?
SATAN: I want you to think I'm that Euro-soccer player, actually a masked maniac, swimming alongside you.

FATSON: And?
SATAN: I want you to imagine this red liquid/water is what your mother was afraid of confronting when you were young.

FATSO: Why?
SATAN: I want you to imagine we're both swimming in this red liquid/water for an experience in forgetting.

FATSO: What?
SATAN: You're forgetting about your father...not yourself.

FATSO: Alright!

FATSO: So, I had another dream which was strange, and in this one, I'm in a foreign museum with a talking glass-horse!

SATAN: Does this horse symbolize your consciousness, you think, Fatso?
FATSO: I dunno.

SATAN: Maybe you're in a labyrinth or hotel-like dream-chamber with rooms with all your bloody victims!
FATSO: Maybe.

SATAN: You never got out of that Chicago attic, did ya?

FATSO: No, I don't think I did!

SATAN: Alright.

FATSO: Well, what do you think?
SATAN: I think the Lithium you're on is reminding you that your childhood attic was a hallway of motives.

FATSO: And?
SATAN: I'm going to be your concierge, Fatso!
FATSO: You're my dark knight, then?
SATAN: Perhaps...or maybe I want to get inside the head of someone you murdered...someone I loved.

FATSO: Like that gorgeous female Chicago doctor-lady, detective?
SATAN: Perhaps.

AMLAN SATAN: I want you to daydream you're choosing between a Super Bowl glory or a World Cup soccer triumph now.

FATSO: You've got a peculiar skill with placements in atmosphere and consciousness, Satan.

SATAN: I studied psychology at Dartmouth, ya know!
FATSO: Cool.

SATAN: Did you ever find your mother in that attic of your dreams, Fatso?

FATSO: No.

SATAN: Very uncool, right?
FATSO: Right.

SATAN: What do you seek to gain from this incarceration and counseling session in Chicago, Fatso?
FATSO: An artwork of asylum-time.

SATAN: Why?
FATSO: I want to absorb this society dream of incarcerated imagination.

SATAN: Alright.

Detective Amlan Satan reported to the criminal insanity doctors and Chicago press that his counseling sessions with 'Fatso' in the incarceration-center yielded great insights into the deformative nature of developmental psychosis, and he decided to retire from criminal-policework altogether, convinced he'd made peace with his own demons of what compelled him to become an American 'dark knight' of law-enforcement psychology...and distancing!

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)