Character Bible
Version 2.3
11/29/99
In the world of The Bureaucrat, large events are driven by petty concerns; big decisions are in the hands of small people, yielding absurd, but familiar, results. Every organisation, every institution is, at the bottom of the box, composed of regular human beings, with regular human fears and desires. When an organisation's goals are subverted or parasited by the myopic goals of the people involved, the outcome is tragic, frequently ironic, and always ridiculous.
Principals
1) Cratley LeBlanc
2) Sarabjit Pakarash
3) Candice Hwang
4) Barbara Clayton
* CRATLEY LEBLANC
Cratley LeBlanc is forty-nine years old. He was born in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan, where his mother, Maman LeBlanc, continues to live. He has no siblings.
In the early seventies, young Cratley set out for the big city to seek his fortune. He found himself in a mindless mail sorting job in Toronto. There, his peers taught him the art of detecting which packages contained cash or edible goodies. While this brought Cratley a certain measure of satisfaction, he ached for the effortless decadence that is the perceived right of every deeply lazy soul.
One day, Cratley intercepted a package which he suspected of containing goodies. He opened it up, and discovered a letter and two rubber stamps. The letter congratulated one Cratley Dwight for attaining a promotion to the senior bureaucracy of an obscure (yet quietly influential) government ministry. The letter also explained that the rubber stamps were his official bureaucratic seals – one in English, and another in French.
While the English stamp was consistent with the name in the letter, the French stamp read ‘Cratley LeBlanc.’ This case of severe over-translation set Cratley’s mind whirling: he decided then and there that he would assume Cratley Dwight’s promotion himself, using the French stamp as his incontestable authority.
And so, the Bureaucrat is born.
Cratley LeBlanc is the Director of Miscellaneous Issues Development at the Ministry of Miscellaneous Affairs, a division of Canada’s federal government. He answers only to the Minister Himself, though he is almost always obliged to go through the Minister’s official aide, Candice Hwang. Cratley’s chief flunky is Sarabjit Pakarash, a postie on indefinite transfer. His lesser flunky is RCEMP Lieutenant Twelve-Douze, whom he shares with Candice.
As a boy, Cratley was once impressed by the paintings of Paul Gauguin. As an adult, this remembered fascination has been channeled into an obsessive dream to become Canada’s ambassador to Tahiti. He has vivid daydreams involving Gauguin-style Tahiti girls, fanning him with palm fronds as he drinks from a coconut with one hand and rubber-stamps documents with the other. Most decisions in Cratley’s life are weighed according to how he believes it will forward or hinder his ambassadorial aims. Since the ambassadorship is awarded by the Minister Himself, Cratley must either cause the Minister to choose him for the post, or ascend to the Ministership personally, in order to post himself to the job.
His chief opponent in this aim is Candice Hwang. Cratley suspects that Candice delights in tormenting him, and he is right. When he needs something, he can be civil and even cajoling to Candice; when he feels secure, he is pompous and insulting. Cratley becomes uptight whenever Candice enters a room, and relaxes only when she leaves. He knows that if Candice becomes the Minister Herself, Cratley will never get posted to Tahiti.
When Cratley can’t take out his frustrations on Candice, there is always Sarabjit. Though he pretends to merely tolerate Sarabjit, in reality Cratley cares for him very much (largely on account of the fact that Sarabjit tolerates him). Cratley will criticise Sarabjit’s ideas, and then employ them successfully and take credit. Since Sarabjit knows the secret of Cratley’s career success, Cratley is always on the look-out for a slip-up. He is terrified that Candice’s roving eye could settle on the quirky postie, for fear that if she fell into Sarabjit’s confidence, Cratley’s secret would be in jeopardy.
Cratley goes out of his way to disgust Barbara Clayton, directly because he suspects sometimes that he may be developing feelings for her, for she is as ruthless as he is apathetic – in a way, he can relate with her, and finds this a comfort. So, naturally, he pushes her away as fiercely as he can. He seeks out her insults, and then hates her for them...happily. Mostly, Cratlety is simply afraid of Barbara.
He is a wizard of the bureaucratic arts. Passing the buck and denying knowledge are reflex actions, honed to razor sharp precision. Cratley can introduce convoluted knots into any existing paper flow, designed either to impede it, or milk it for personal benefit. He is a natural born bureaucrat...a kind of bureaucratic superhero.
He is overfed and clogged of heart. Simple exertions cause him to break a sweat. He favours an Alka-Seltzer before breakfast, and a stiff drink after breakfast. Most of his hair is gone, except for a fluffy ring around the back of his shiny, pink head. His eyes are money-green. He speaks slowly and deliberately, and blinks frequently. He is openly lecherous, and quietly lonely.
* SARABJIT PAKARASH
Sarabjit is of uncertain age, and uncertain heritage (though he would seem for all intents and purposes to be a 25 - 35 year old man of Bengali extraction). He claims at various times to have been born in all sorts of places, and at all sorts of times. According to Sarabjit, he has participated in or even instigated numerous dramatic events throughout history...though he is very often confused about the details (for example, Sarabjit claims to have been aboard the ill-fated Apollo 13 moonflight, together with NASA astronaut Michael Collins and Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Tom Hanks).
We can say this much for certain: in the late nineties, Sarabjit was a carrier for Canada Post. A curious soul by nature, Sarabjit was poking through the dead letter office when he came across a discarded official government rubber stamp bearing the name of Cratley Dwight. He deduced LeBlanc’s fraud, and set off to confront him. In the end, he was seduced by Cratley’s promises of decadent fun, and entered into an arrangement where Sarabjit’s silence would be bought in exchange for getting to tag along with Cratley, enjoying the benefits he enjoyed.
Sarabjit is good-natured and pleasant – through volatile. A fan of caffeine, Sarabjit is easily excited to a tizzy. He is passionately curious, which often leads him into tricky situations. It is important that no one be angry with him, so he is quick to mollify any offended party. He unfailingly polite. He is a fan of run-on sentences. He has bursts of articulateness alternating with the inability to remember simple words. Through enthusiastic about folk sayings, puns and metaphors, he variably muddles several together unintelligibly with speaking (especially when highly caffeinated).
Sarabjit is of medium height, and rail thin. His hairline is making a slow, patient retreat from his forehead. His movements are gangly, and somewhat clumsy. He has his mailbag slung over his shoulder at all times of the day or night, and frequently pulls very old mail out of it to give to people he meets during the day. ‘Oh,’ he might say; ‘this came for you in 1982.’
Through he often threatens to reveal Cratley’s secret, he would never go through with it – Sarabjit loves the cushy, bribed-lined life too much. It gives him ‘time to think.’ He is also grateful for Cratley’s company, and speaks affectionately with his good friend.
Sarabjit is deeply attracted to Sticky Feather, and his passion is not dampened in the least by her insulting rebukes. He believes that they share much in common (chiefly, that they are both kinds of ‘Indians’). Sarabjit has a close relationship with Little Denis, and shares a similar rapport with all children (and even small animals, St Francis-style).
It is Sarabjit’s belief that his highest mission in life is to discover the meaning of existence. Thus, he is anxious to maintain his relationship with LeBlanc, who takes care of his material needs. Freed from the burdens of work and food procurement, Sarabjit can focus on his spiritual explorations. He is troubled by a deep suspicion that his life is a cartoon.
* CANDICE HWANG
Candice was born in Toronto, Ontario. Her mother, Wai-Po, sold real estate; her father, Lo-Phat, was unemployed, a broken man after being successfully sued by a diet cuisine company for the use of his own name. As the years went by, Lo-Phat sunk further into his own reclusive world, which he apparently shared with an imaginary friend whom he called ‘SuperKim.’ Growing up in this environment, it was clear to young Candice that her mother was the superior rôle model. Deep down, Candice fears that if she were to be confronted with a real crisis, she might simply ‘snap’ – like her father – and become useless. Thus, it is her wont to be ever energetic, ever occupied, always dynamic...so as never to slip into her father’s hopeless, delusional lethargy.
Candice is somewhat short, with all round edges. She is in her early thirties, and of Korean extraction. Her voice is lilting and gentle – and incessant. Candice cannot help but comment aloud on all she experiences. Often, she will record her comments in a pocket-size dictaphone, headlined as a ‘note-to-self’...regardless of the subject matter or who might be within earshot.
She is a great fan of motivational speakers, cheerful slogans, self-help books and elaborate personal regimens designed for ‘success.’ Her speech is a nearly incomprehensible babble of neologisms, business-speak and buzzwords.
Though she prides herself on being efficient and no-nonsense, Candice is in fact just the sort of clogging that fills many government arteries; her attempts to improve workflow invariably have the opposite effect. Convoluted human resources programmes, motivational seminars, placards and slogans, managerial brain-storming sessions – they all serve principally to help everyone at the Ministry avoid actual work. Candice believes that she truly adds to the productivity of the ministry, and holds ideals of serving the public good close to her heart.
Candice Hwang has two personal goals.
5) To discover ‘inner peace.’
6) To become The Minister Herself.
To the first end, she devotes plenty of time to pursuing fringe roads to spirituality. To the second, she works to undermine Cratley, and to enhance her own position in the eyes of the Minister Himself (or, at least, the position of her phantom husband).
Officially, Candice is the Managerial Executive Liaison to the Minister Himself. In this capacity, her chief responsibility is to disallow any access to the Minister Himself at all. In reality, she does the Minister’s job, for he delegates his entire workload to her. To add insult to injury, the Minister refuses to believe that it is Candice who does all this work (and does it so well) – but rather believes it must be the work of her ‘husband.’ This lack of recognition makes Candice very angry. Since she cannot express this anger toward the Minister, she directs it at Cratley.
She holds Cratley is very low regard. She considers his priorities to be deeply sick, and takes every opportunity to frustrate him. Her pet method is a significant error of omission. She insists that Cratley file reports on his activities, as well as reports on his reports (according to Candice, to ‘enhance the productivity workflow by maximising our accountability sourcing’). She takes personal delight in thwarting Cratley’s every wish and aim. She is determined that a man as spiritually bereft as Cratley must never ascend to a serious position of power in the ministry. When Cratley does happen to do something right, Candice makes sure to take the credit (apparently, the ends justify the means).
Candice is big on the dating scene. She is always on the look-out for a potential husband. Occasionally, her eye threatens to drift in Sarabjit’s direction. Candice dates a different man every day of the week, and finds each of them ‘under-qualified’ for one reason or another.
Sticky Feather cannot understand why Candice is so nice to her. It makes Sticky Feather angry. Candice is constantly holding up Sticky Feather as a model to emulate – claiming Sticky Feather’s pleasant attitude and warm charm combined with her resourcefulness and efficiency make her a perfect worker at the Ministry. Sticky Feather has never done anything to warrant such praise. Though Candice would never admit to it, her strange behaviour toward Sticky Feather is related to her attraction to Sarabjit.
* BARBARA CLAYTON
Barbara Clayton was born in New Westminster, British Columbia. Her mother was a journalist, and she never knew her father. Raised to be self-reliant and ruthless to get the job done, Barbara became a successful financial consultant, then a financial journalist. She built her weekly newspaper, The Fiscal Reality, from the ground up, and currently serves as editor-in-chief as well as being a professional pundit. Barbara aspires to go into politics eventually.
In the eighties, when the head offices of The Fiscal Reality moved to Toronto and the paper became a bi-daily, Barbara found it prudent to maintain an illusion of heterosexuality. She accomplished this by sharing a house with a recently divorced civil-servant named Cratley LeBlanc, convincing him that it was the reputation of his heterosexuality which was needing protection. Since then, they have been cohabitating and trying to avoid one another as much as possible.
Barbara is an imperious ice queen, an autocratic machine with a calculating eye and a sharp tongue. She demands ‘only the best’ in clothes, food, perfumes, entertainment, sedatives, alcohol... She is bossy and brusque with Cratley, giving him the time of day only to remind him of social engagements he must attend in order that their photograph might be taken as a couple. Barbara never condescends to speak to Sarabjit at all, but rather prefers a third party for relaying information. She considers him to be beneath her notice.
Barbara devotes most of her energy to elaborate character assassinations of people she views as her political/career opponents. She is convinced that most everyone would delight in her failure, and that anyone/everyone is actively conspiring against her. She is the strong living-martyr of her own melodrama, fighting against all odds for an end she cannot name.
Barbara goes through a new girlfriend every month or so. Apparently, she favours variety for no one resembles another. She just as likely to be dating a power player in the world of high finance or a squeegee kid. Though she maintains a veneer of snobbery, her tastes run just as lecherous as Cratley’s. Very occasionally, she will permit Cratley a momentary bond on account of their shared destiny in the part of the afterlife devoted to punishment.
Barbara views children on par with insects, and thus is reluctant to acknowledge the existence of Little Denis. She will deign to speak with Sticky Feather, when a moment of criticising Cratley can be shared.
Secondary Characters:
5) Sticky Feather LeBlanc
6) Little Denis LeBlanc
7) RCEMP Lieutenant Twelve-Douze
8) The Minister Himself
9) Kostas Poufkapapolis
10) Five Dollars
* STICKY FEATHER LEBLANC
Sticky Feather was born on a Blackfoot reservation outside of Calgary, Alberta, where she lived until the age of twelve. At that point, Sticky Feather conspired to put herself up for adoption, as a means of escaping the poverty and social dysfunction of her community. She was adopted by one Cratley LeBlanc, a senior bureaucrat who briefly believed he might succeed in public politics. He adopted Sticky Feather to demonstrate his loving family-man side, and his sensitivity to aboriginal issues. Shortly thereafter, he abandoned his attempt to break into politics, and promptly forgot about Sticky Feather.
At seventeen years old, Sticky Feather is a rebellious, sulking, spiteful youth with a permenant scowl and enough chips on her shoulder to warrant an accompanying breaded halibut. She few words for anyone, and what words they are are usually bitter and self-pitying, if not simply insulting. She is ungrateful, melodramatic and self-centred...in other words: a young adult.
Sticky Feather’s chief sources of angst are two: 1) the neglect she feels from her adoptive father, and 2) her feelings of cultural limbo. Sticky Feather knows very little about ‘what it means to be an First Nations person’, and is very defensive about it. She claims to be ‘Indian’ to hide from the ‘white’ world, and claims to be ‘white’ to hide from the ‘Indian’ world. She feels cultureless, misunderstood, and adrift.
Sticky Feather is aggressively protective of Little Denis, and sometimes attracted to the hormonal outbursts of Lieutenant Twelve-Douze. Everyone else, she hates...loudly.
Sticky Feather works at the ministry as an all-purpose office assistant.
* LITTLE DENIS LEBLANC
Little Denis is seven years old. She is the biological child of Cratley LeBlanc and his ex-wife, Sylvie Groulx (an experimental physicist, Sylvie married Cratley in order to secure a grant to study neutrinos at Sudbury; she found herself in love with Cratley for a short time, during which Denis was conceived and born. Divorce followed shortly thereafter). Though Little Denis spends most of her time living with her father and Barbara, she lives with her mother according to a complex schedule which Cratley can never keep straight. Cratley is thus frequently surprised to see Denis.
Denis is not a well-rounded little girl. She is bright and precocious in some areas, and oddly naïve in others. For instance, Denis has her own credit card and uses public transit, but doesn’t know that talking to strangers is dangerous. She lacks some of the basic lessons a parent gives a child. On the other hand, she is independant enough to survive desite her father’s neglect (though she does get a helping hand from Sticky Feather). She is very interested in science, and plans to be a theoretical physicist when she grows up.
Denis would be perfectly happy, if it weren’t for the fact that her father is convinced that she is a boy. He pronounces her name ‘Dennis’ and dresses her in blue, sporty, boy’s clothing. Denis’ protestations as to her true sex are uttered only out of habit, now...she knows her father will never catch on. Cratley has always wanted a son, and cannot seem to be persuaded that Denis isn’t that dream come true.
Sarabjit and Denis have a close relationship. They like to chat about the nature of the universe (which, as noted above, Sarabjit believes may be made out of cartoon). Sticky Feather frequently gives Denis advice about the big bad world, which scares Denis. Denis is not often at school, for one reason or another (usually an extended strike), so she is often underfoot, at home and at the ministry.
* RCEMP Lieutenant Twelve-Douze
Lieutenant Twelve-Douze was born in Clarenville, Newfoundland. His commitment to his outfit is such that he cannot even remember his given name anymore. Twelve-Douze is an officer of the Royal Canadian Extra Mounted Police (‘we have bigger saddles’), an elite guard of loyal constables whose mission it is to guard and protect the highest officials of the federal government. Unfortunately, Twelve-Douze’s penchant for violence and bad temper has seen him demoted and penalised so many times that he has finally ended up at the Ministry of Miscellaneous Affairs, a lowly-post for a highly-trained killing-machine such as himself.
Twelve-Douze is determined not to screw-up his job at the ministry. He fears that if he does badly, he will end up how he began: a security guard in St John’s. Thus, Twelve-Douze is constantly trying his utmost to win the respect of his superiors, Cratley and Candice. His loyalty switches between the two, depending on who he feels will be in the best position to promote him eventually. He plots with Candice to undermine Cratley’s authority, and vice versa, to hedge his bets.
Twelve-Douze bristles with testosterone. He is an extremely high-strung, short-tempered fellow with a fascination with all forms of violence and weaponry. He sweats incessantly, and fidgets. He is always on the look-out for an opportunity to ‘take out some punks.’ His greatest joy in life comes from ‘bringing down a dirtbag.’
Twelve-Douze has a standoffish, hostile attitude toward Kostas, whose sexual orientation he views as improper. None the less, there is a chemistry between these two. Twelve-Douze is oblivious to the attraction of Sticky Feather. He views Sarabjit as a ‘softie...possibly a pinko’ and not a ‘real man.’ Toward Sarabjit, Cratley and the Minister Himself, he is obsequious and flattering.
* THE MINISTER HIMSELF
The Minister Himself is from the Southern US. He is one hundred years old, and has personally participated in ‘World Wars I through II inclusive.’ Little else is clear about The Minister Himself...not even his given or family names.
The Minister Himself is an elderly Southern gentleman. He speaks gently and deliberately, with the lilting drawl of the Southern US. He is tall, thin, and always elegantly, is anachronistically, dressed.
It has been a long time since the onset of the Minister’s senility. Great progress has been made in the interval, and the Minister is now infrequently lucid. He is prone to relating anecdotes, little touches of wisdom, that defy understanding. He makes enthusiastic use of the dramatic pause.
The Minister often finishes a long, meandering anecdote only to look up and find that everyone has left the room. He is a good natured fellow, though, and doesn’t let this disturb him...he takes it all in stride.
Ambitions: unknown. The Minister seems to have been the Minister as long as there has been a Ministry, regardless of the political party in power. The Minister Himself sports a large American flag in his office.
The Minister seems to have a soft spot for Cratley, whom he calls ‘Mr Dwight.’ He treats Cratley as if he were a young, promising young man on the rise in the Ministry. He offers encouraging advice, and affectionately tells Cratley that he may one day become the Minister Himself – if only Cratley could learn to be as productive as ‘this Hwang fellow.’
‘This Hwang fellow’ is Candice Hwang – whom the Minister refuses to believe is the same Hwang who does so much good work purely on account of her sex. ‘You tell your husband he’s doing a bang-up job,’ the Minister Himself may say to Candice...though he is more likely to simply wonder aloud who ‘that skirt-wearin’ fellow’ is. He is as indifferent to Candice’s protestations as Candice is to those of Little Denis.
The Minister has grave difficulty recognising anyone else, and will call them by random names.
* KOSTAS POUFKAPAPOLIS
Kostas was born in East York, Toronto, Ontario. He is in his late twenties, and of Greek ethnicity. Kostas knew at the age of eleven that he was a homosexual, and that he was his destiny to one day find his Prince Charming. Though his own family cut him out of their lives for his choice of lifestyle, Kostas maintains an attitude of positivity and optimism. He is a happy, gregarious fellow who gets along with everyone. He remembers everyone’s birthday, and notices everyone’s new hair-cut right away. Kostas is muscled and handsome.
He works as a receptionist at the ministry, and intercepts all telephone calls. It is his wont to leave callers on hold indefinitely, to misconnect them, and to disconnect them (he finds telephone calls and annoying interruption to buffing his nails). He also choreographs a small fleet of identical looking office girls on rollerskates called ‘The Jennys’, as they are all named Jennifer. The Jennys do most of the grunt work around the ministry, as Kostas commands them like a coxswain (‘one, two, three – collate!’).
Kostas is always eager to help out any way he can. He is an incorrigable gossip. He often urges Cratley to ‘come over to the dark side’ and become queer. He is always on the look-out for his Prince Charming.
* FIVE DOLLARS
Five Dollars is a repulsive old vagrant who lives outside of the ministry. He was born in Montréal, Québec, as Cratley Dwight, but found himself inexplicably stripped of his identity and his job years ago (by the manipulations of Cratley LeBlanc, see above). Dwight has a nervous breakdown from which he never fully recovered, and ended up homeless. By the late nineties, his wits are so addled as to render his incoherent cries for justice meaningless.
Five Dollars makes his living by barring entrance to the ministry, and demanding a toll of five dollars. If unsatisfied, he will hork a foul glob of sputum upon the shoe of the offending person. Belligerent and frightening, Five Dollars usually gets his way. He croaks out his demands in a voice that sounds like it is issuing from a grave, with a compact vocabulary of complaints, grumbles and threats.
When alone, Five Dollars works on his complicated plot to regain his rightful place at the ministry, and to be revenged upon Cratley LeBlanc. He sometimes enlists the assistance of other vagrants to help him execute these plans, which invariably fail spectacularly.
Main Settings
- The Ministry of Miscellaneous Affairs
- The LeBlanc Household
- The Hamster-in-the-Barrel Tavern
THE MINISTRY OF MISCELLANEOUS AFFAIRS
The Ministry consists of four main locations.
1)
Cratley’s Office is his sanctuary, inhabited by himself and Sarabjit. This is where Cratley meets with members of the public, and has run-ins with Candice Hwang. Lieutenant Twelve-Douze is often hanging around.
2)
The General Office is where the bulk of ministry workers toil. Kostas’ reception desk is here, as well as the elevator lobby. Candice prowls this floor, and Sticky Feather can be found here, as well.
3)
The Minister’s Office is where Candice, Cratley and the Minister have it out. It is rare for anyone but these three to be in this location. An anteroom serves as Candice’s office.
4)
The Lobby is where members of the public queue up for service, and where Five Dollars loiters. Everyone must cross this space to get to and from the ministry offices. Lieutenant Twelve-Douze is often here, serving as security.
THE LEBLANC HOUSEHOLD
The household consists of five main locations.
1) Livingroom: this is where the family gets together to watch television, or talk. It also serves as Sarabjit’s bedroom.
2) Kitchen/Dining Room: this is where the family has breakfast and dinner.
3) Master Bedroom: this is where Cratley and Barbara encounter one another. They each have a private bathroom, leading off opposite sides of this room.
4) Sticky Feather’s room: Sticky Feather’s private sanctuary.
5) Denis’ room: Little Denis’s sports-themed playroom and bedroom.
THE HAMSTER-IN-THE-BARREL TAVERN
The tavern consists of a single location, wide open. Cratley, Sarabjit and Lieutenant Twelve-Douze retire here for drinks and a game of darts on a regular basis.
Scripts:
Douze and Don'ts
Waste of a Rocket Scientist