A Helping Hand

I'd like to help you out;
Which way did you come in.
--Anonymous

I'm Smart (Haiku)

A fountain of knowledge
Spouting facts and opinions
Proving it ... to me.

Character Study: Professor Plum in Clue, The Musical

I am Robert E. Peabody, also known as Professor Plum.  I was born on March 27, 1959 in Springfield Massachusetts.  My parents were rather well to do and I had what could be considered to be a privileged childhood.  I attended parochial school, an all-boys catholic high school, Boston College to work on my BA but with difficulty I finished it at Springfield College, a local teachers college.

Upon graduation I went to work for the Springfield Mass school system at the Alfred E. Glickman elementary school where I taught 7th Grade.

After seven frustrating years of working with pubescent teenagers, I switched to teaching Composition and Rhetoric at the senior level at Commerce High school.

I had the dream of becoming the principal of a school and worked towards that through extracurricular activities in the community.  I became friends with the Chairperson of Academy Hill High School and she saw to it that I was hired there, then helped me advance to a position of prominence in the school.

When my parents died they left me a considerable inheritance and I bought my way into the school and persuaded my patron and her colleagues to make me the headmaster.

In carrying out my fundraising obligations to keep the school afloat, I was introduced to the CEO of an oil company, both she and the company will be nameless here for privacy reasons, and we became lovers.

She saw to it that there were donations made to the school from the company and it was a quite cozy relationship.

Then about five years ago along came Mr. Boddy and, through loathsome chicanery, he drove down the stock price of the patron company, caused my CEO paramour to get fired and the donations to my school were stopped.

Needless to say, the school fell upon hard times, I lost a lot of money and prestige as a result and harbor much ill will towards Mr. Boddy.

I was introduced to Mr. Boddy as a certain Professor Plum; he hired me to write a book for him about the government involvement in the oil industry.  He wasn't too careful about checking my credentials and, since I am quite adept at writing in English, the ruse was successful.

He agreed to pay me handsomely for my efforts but never did.

My objective here at Boddy Manor is to kill Mr. Boddy with the monckey wrench, because he threw a monckey wrench into my life, in the study since that's my line of work.

Some other interesting facts about me:

1. I am not and have never been married

2. I enjoy the company of a variety of women, especially strong and powerful women

3. I am always on the prowl for new conquests

4. I have had a few longer term relationships, the most recent being the CEO of the patron company

5.  I am rather taken by me

There are other guests here at Boddy Manor and I suspect that they will be getting in my way as I go about achieving my objective.

As the action starts, I am in the study reading a book.  I hear and see the other guests, introduce myself and listen to their introductions.

I see that I will have to be interacting with them throughout the events of the evening as I attempt to achieve my main objective of killing Mr. Boddy.

Character Study of Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs

Up until the beginning of the action which commences in 1992:

I have been successful at planning and executing robberies that require more than one person.

The way I do it:

  

  .    Do the research required to know all about the place and how it operates

3.    Arrange for the sale of the stolen goods

4.    Assemble a team of people who don’t know one another and keep it that way

5.    Carry out the plan and disburse the team

6.    Fence the goods

7.    Pay off the team

My robberies have been so successful that the police have made it a mission to catch me, not one of my teams but me, in the act of carrying out the plan.  Once previously, they implanted an undercover cop in one of my teams.  He was discovered and killed before we could be arrested.

About me:

I was born in 1927 in North Saint Louis and grew up there.  I went to Holy Cross School and McBride High School and worked part time at Scruggs, a downtown department store.  There I was associated with a variety of people.   I found out early that there were two paths down which one could walk, the high ground or the low.  The low ground was easier, required a lot less work, and more lucrative when I was a kid so that’s what I did.

When I got out of high school I started working for a group of men who controlled a neighborhood and made sure that the residents were protected from any undue outside influence.  The businesses were independent proprietorships that offered few complaints about the somewhat reasonable amounts we were asking.  My job was collecting the premiums on this “insurance” and making sure that they were paid.  

Occasionally I would have to step up to resistance, which wasn’t often but easily overcome by brute force.  I am a big guy so it didn’t happen all that often.  Toughening up to be able to handle even the most arduous task was important and I killed another for the first time when I was 27.  The event was hailed by my boss and coworkers and I was kind of proud of myself.

Anyone looking at me would think I was a working stiff.  I had a wife and family, a modest house in Baden, one son, and went to church regularly.  I was in the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name society at church and we went regularly to Mass.  

Anyone who asked where I worked or what I did was told I was in the insurance business.  There were those who knew but they also knew not to say anything. 

There was this guy who move into the parish who was sort of sanctimonious and put two and two together about me.  He started talking about me behind my back.  Late in October, near Halloween, I waited for him to come home.  When he got out of his car I approached him, beat the shit out of him and told him to forget about me and about my business or his family would miss him terribly.  There was never any more trouble out of anybody, period.

As I matured I looked for a way to become more independent.  I didn’t want to give up my job in the mob but I wanted exercise my people and planning skills.  I didn’t start thinking this way right away, I was content with what I was doing in the mob until I was in my early thirties.   

My first job set the pattern for all that followed.  I went to the south west part of the county and looked at the possibilities.  It was a more affluent area, around Kirkwood, where the security was not as good as in the city.  I found a couple of places that had good merchandise, small staffs, and regular hours.  I asked a couple of guys who didn’t know each other to join me in a “project,” a hold up.  Then I met with them individually to tell them the general ground rules and plan; then a team meeting where they all saw each other for the first time.

It was important that they not know each other because I was operating outside the organization, on my own.  Also because if any one of them were to get id’d and arrested they wouldn’t be able to identify anyone else on the team.  They could have id’d me, of course, but that would have been a death sentence for them.  This was made clear in my first meeting with each of them.

For the past 40 years, I have been able to successfully implement this arrangement.  I have done well for myself and for those who team up with me.  So much so that applicants are continuously contacting me to participate in one of my capers.

I’ve not been greedy, I’ve taken 50% of the fenced amount and split the other 50% among the team.  This meant that the “take” had to be considerable and the team kept to a minimum because with a team of five, each would get 10% of the take.  I put a downside limit of $100K so each would get $10K.  That’s not bad for a day’s work.

Character Study, Harry Trevor playing Baptista Minola in Kiss Me Kate

Harry Trevor (1903) New York NY

Harry Trevor was born in Manhattan, New York at 10:20 AM on December 24, 1893 to John and Mary Trevor.  He was a normal, healthy baby boy weighing in at 8 lbs 12 ounces.

A word about John and Mary Trevor.  They were vaudevillians who became acquainted on the circuit.  They started out separately, met,  and one romantic night fell into each other’s arms.  John did the honorable thing when Mary told him she was pregnant and they were married on June 2, 1893, a Tuesday because they were performing on the weekends. 

They rented an apartment in midtown Manhattan and John continued his performing in the city, whenever possible, and on the circuit the rest of the time.  Mary took the baby with her to wherever he was until it was time for Harry to go to school.

Harry attended public school in Manhattan until he finished 8^th Grade.  That was the extent of his formal education.  He and his mother joined his father on the road and Harry became part of the act with his father.  The act varied from melodrama, to comedy sketches, to song and dance; whatever the house required.  His mother was more of a supporter than performer.  The three of them had a good life together.

As the years passed and Harry matured out of the act and vaudeville came to an end; he went into the legitimate theater.  There, he found a ready market for his ability to portray a variety of characters; for whatever the script called.  He never aspired to top billing, or even second, third, or fourth line billing.  He was satisfied to support the stars and collect his pay.

Thus he gained a good reputation among producers and directors in the theater district and played every house of note in the city.  He often traveled with the troupe to the minor markets to hone a show and get it ready for the “big white way.”  His credits were significant and he enjoyed the respect of the more noted “stars” on Broadway.

As for his personal life; Harry was as lackluster as the roles he played.  At 44 he was still unmarried and, although he enjoyed the company of women, had no intention of marrying and/or starting a family.  His own experiences, though not bad, were not enough to engender such a desire in him.  He managed to keep an ever changing list of girlfriends, the changing coming when one became too clutching.

Among the guys, Harry was always up for a good time but eschewed overindulging in liquor and gambling.  He’d seen too many shipwrecks in his lifetime to get sucked into that.  Not a teetotaler, he enjoyed a drink as much as the next guy, but never overindulged.  The same with gambling, he loved the track and boxing but the $2 bet was his favorite.

As for finances; here again he didn’t aspire to stardom.  He knew that there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so he religiously put aside 10% of his earnings, in cash, in a valise that he kept in his room or apartment wherever he was.  This seemed foolish to him during the 20’s but then after 1929 he congratulated himself over and over again.

He kept up with the news and could see that reforms were going in place to make banks safer so he opened an account at The Manhattan Company Bank and continued to add to his “nest egg.”   Then during WWII he regularly bought war bonds and was now looking ahead to a comfortable retirement.

One could almost sum up Harry Trevor as an ordinary fellow; one who never knew his full potential.  On the other hand, he was a good fellow to have around.

When his agent called with an audition for Kiss Me, Kate, he said, “Sure.” Went in and got the role of Baptista Minola, Katharine’s father.  He knew the company as one that was a little threadbare; some thought it to be taking its last breath.  The director was a bit of an egomaniac in that he was also the star of the show.  The leading lady was almost a has-been.  She and the director were divorced but there was still a lot of emotion in their relationship, both positive and negative.

Knowing this, Harry went in with his eyes and ears open, and his mouth shut.  He fit in very nicely as the man who wasn’t there.  He did his job, played his part, said his lines with Shakespearian flair and bowed appropriately when the curtain came down.

Meanwhile, there is a fetching, not-so-young member of the ensemble that is catching his attention.