The Gipper -- Part One: A Multi-Part Drama

By J.J. Parker

In 1928, against powerful Army, Notre Dame "won one for the Gipper" -- but who was the legend inspiring the upset?
He was the ultimate rebel: George Gipp drank and gambled, and skipped classes, exams, and football practices. But when it counted, the whirlwind back beat the other teams running, passing, and kicking. And he was as skilled on the diamond as he was on the gridiron.
Yet he flunked out of college.
Women loved Gipp, with his baritone voice, wit, and nearly regal bearing, but he had only one girlfriend, who dumped him. And he chose to become close to only a few people.
Though already famous to sports fans by 1920, Gipp dressed like a nonconformist, as if trying to hide his identity. The daughter of his South Bend friend George Hull, a prominent businessman, said that Gipp "was a handsome young man, unassuming and nonchalant.... People introduced to him were surprised to find out he was George Gipp."
He was a swirling mass of contradictions, an existentialist before the term was coined. Through his own negligence, he died an early, tragic death. Maybe that's why he's remembered, but will he ever be understood?
Read on....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 29, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462842247

J.J. Parker

N/A

Book preview

The Gipper—Part One

A Multi-Part Drama

J.J. Parker

Copyright © 2008 by J.J. Parker.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Forward: Huddle Up!

Note 1: Hunk Anderson:

Note 2: Gipper Nickname:

Note 3: Win One Speech

Note 4: Rockne and Dorais

Cast of Characters

Beatsheet for

The Gipper—Part One

Prologue

Act I, Scene 1

ACT I, SCENE 2

ACT I, SCENE 3

ACT I, SCENE 4

ACT I, SCENE 5

ACT I, SCENE 6

ACT I, SCENE 7

ACT I, SCENE 8

ACT I, SCENE 9

ACT I, SCENE 10

ACT I, SCENE 11

Act II, Scene 1

ACT II, SCENE 2

ACT II, SCENE 3

ACT II, SCENE 4

ACT II, SCENE 5

ACT II, SCENE 6

ACT II, SCENE 7

ACT II, SCENE 8

ACT II, SCENE 9

ACT II, SCENE 10

ACT II, SCENE 11

ACT II, SCENE 12

ACT II, SCENE 13

ACT II, SCENE 14

ACT II, SCENE 15

ACT II, SCENE 16

ACT II, SCENE 17

Act III, Scene 1

ACT III, SCENE 2

ACT III, SCENE 3

ACT III, SCENE 4

ACT III, SCENE 5

ACT III, SCENE 6

ACT III, SCENE 7

ACT III, SCENE 8

ACT III, SCENE 9

ACT III, SCENE 10

ACT III, SCENE 11

ACT III, SCENE 12

ACT III, SCENE 13

ACT III, SCENE 14

ACT III, SCENE 15

ACT III, SCENE 16

ACT III, SCENE 17

Act IV, Scene 1

ACT IV, SCENE 2

ACT IV, SCENE 3

ACT IV, SCENE 4

ACT IV, SCENE 5

ACT IV, SCENE 6

ACT IV, SCENE 7

ACT IV, SCENE 8

ACT IV, SCENE 9

ACT IV, SCENE 10

ACT IV, SCENE 11

ACT IV, SCENE 12

ACT IV, SCENE 13

ACT IV, SCENE 14

This play is

dedicated to:

The spirit of George Gipp, determined to win—everything—at all costs . . . .

Forward: Huddle Up!

George Gipp—the ultimate existentialist athlete-as-rebel—was also the foremost sports nonconformist. And he was the quintessential sports anti-hero: Gipp gambled on the field and off, until his biggest gamble—to not have his infected tonsils removed before the 1920 football season—cost him his life.

Backward through the fog of time, one may see George Gipp as an indistinct shadow. He was never interviewed and seldom photographed, probably because the shy superstar avoided documenting his life as well as he dodged tacklers.

Yet in retrospect, his persona has been colored by others, as through a prism, though even his intimates like Angelo Stappas and Hunk Anderson didn’t really know him. Concerning Gipp’s personality, all that exists is what those others—long dead—have remembered in print about him. But memory is tricky, and frequently faulty. Adding to the Gipp muddle is the lack of visual evidence of his gridiron prowess: no TV existed in his day, nor did newsreels (which would appear with the advent of talkies a decade after Gipp’s demise). And in the few surviving football game action photos of Gipp, he’s tough to pinpoint, because in his era, teams wore dark jerseys without numbers, and in black-and-white photos, team affiliations are indistinguishable.

Consequently, this play of the last five years of Gipp’s life is a pot of fiction stirred by the wooden stick of fact. Hopefully, that mixture will breathe life into the mythical Gipp, warming him to realism, only to have fate’s cruel chill wind asphyxiate him again… .

While the events in this play happened, the dialogue and mannerisms were created as best as this author could imagine the characters in the timeframe (1915-’20) would’ve acted and spoken.

Nonetheless… .

The protagonist Gipp is tricky to portray, for he was both hero and antihero.

He was heroic athletically, helping his teams win innumerable times. He may have had the best combined baseball-football skills of any athlete ever. Both the White Sox and Cubs offered him major-league contracts for the 1921 season, and Hall of Famer Johnny Evers, the Cubs manager, predicted Gipp would not only make the big club in spring training 1921, but would start in the outfield. Becoming a regular big leaguer would’ve followed on the heels of being selected a first-team All-American in college football, a prestigious honor in the days before hype, Heismans, and staggering pro athlete salaries. The great Jim Thorpe, though a college football and Olympics giant, was a bit player in major league baseball because he allegedly couldn’t hit a curve ball. Yet Gipp, by contemporary accounts, was a five-tool star displaying effortless grace whether pursuing a flyball or legging out a double. His only rivals in baseball-football brilliance that come to mind are Jackie Jensen, of the University of California and the Red Sox, and Bo Jackson, of Auburn and the Raiders, and the Royals and the White Sox. But fate prevented Gipp from playing pro baseball, so no one knows if he’d have starred in the bigs… .

Antihero has been defined as a protagonist who lacks the virtues of a traditional hero. And the antihero Gipp did lack certain virtues, as he dodged the Army’s draft in 1917 as adroitly as he sidestepped tacklers while zipping and roaring down the football field. Also, he starred in countless pool parlors and poker rooms besides being featured on the gridiron and diamond. And not only did he rake in plentiful takes in pool and poker, he also earned extra bucks betting on his Notre Dame football team. Nowadays, wagering on a game in which one played could cause a player to lose his eligibility; at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties, college football players betting on their own team was common and winked at… .

Between football contests, what did Antihero Gipp do? A future All-American, but no All-American boy, Gipp skipped practices (usually Mondays and Tuesdays, according to teammate Chet Grant), smoked, and imbibed alcohol, sometimes while plying his gambler’s trade, other times when enjoying South Bend’s seedy nightlife. Gipp’s self-destructive soul was drawn like a moth to a streetlight at such sinful places as the downtown Tokyo Dance Hall and the several cigar shops that were fronts for betting action.

Gipp seemed bent on self-destruction; why, only psychologists can guess. Despite wit, good looks, natural charm, and such vast athletic talent that Knute Rockne characterized him as nature’s pet, Gipp seemed resigned to an early grave, and likewise wrung as much living—days on diamonds and football fields, and nights crowding pool and card tables—as he could out of his perceived-to-be-brief lifespan. To him, existence was competition: the winning hand was a continued deal and an extended life, but the folded hand was death. Initially at Notre Dame, he auditioned for the trite role of typical student—rising early, attending classes, climbing into his bed before midnight—but discovered he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, conform. Three years older than the other students—a discernible difference for young men—he resisted the all-male university’s puritanical strictness, and longed for a more relaxed and munificent lifestyle. Thus his eyes were drawn to decadent downtown South Bend, specifically the stately Oliver Hotel, in which the town’s hustlers and visiting pool sharks and card sharps plied their trades, raking in wads of cash from marks. And thus Gipp strayed to Hullie & Mike’s, a Michigan Street hangout for ND students interested in a tasty but cheap meal. The place officially featured a diner and a cigar store. But in a back room was gambling action, which Gipp craved all his quarter century of life. Existentialist that he was, mortality to him was dull without competition, and he endlessly sought it and fought in it, on football fields and baseball diamonds, and in pool halls and poker rooms… .

So, college student and hustler, Clark Kent and Gamblin’ Man, Gipp burned the candle that lit his life at but one end: late. He stayed out into the wee hours drinking and gambling with his cronies, and sleeping in the Land of Nod until late the following morning, oblivious to his ND classes, which progressed without him. This regimen earned him an expulsion which, in 1920, nearly ended his ND football career. But by then he was so popular with South Bend’s influential citizens and merchants—due to his patronizing downtown establishments and drawing many domestic denizens to his side, who likewise spent money—that they importuned ND President Father Burns to reinstate him, which Burns did after one month of fighting the popular onslaught and his own academic conscience… .

Gipp—as inept at romancing women as he was adept at juking tacklers—somehow managed to carry on a romance with Iris—a young Indianapolis woman whose true surname has not been disclosed by history—throughout 1920, though not many knew about the dalliance. Gipp was reticent with those he didn’t know well, and mentioned his personal life to very few. Though he loved Iris (and apparently wanted to marry her), the romance was doomed; the young woman’s father, a wealthy lawyer, disliked the ne’er-do-well Gipp, who, she knew, obviously could not live the respectable life that Iris’s father wanted from her future husband. So she cruelly dumped him in November—before a crucial ND football game—after having married a man more socially acceptable.

Gipp, heartbroken, continued to meander through his final weeks. He seemed to have no long-range plan, if in fact he ever had had. For example, he’d thought about transferring to the University of Detroit on a scholarship to play football based in the Motor City for the 1920 season. He wanted to get back at ND for having expelled him in the spring. But Gipp discovered he’d become smitten with the northern Indiana university, which, along with South Bend, had after five years become as much of a haven for him as his hometown of Laurium (in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) was. Had he transferred to Detroit, he would’ve missed South Bend’s action too much, he doubtless realized. So he returned to the Domed campus that fall—three days before the football season opener and well after the fall classes he’d disdained had begun.

Gipp—running, passing, kicking extra points, and punting—put together one of college football’s all-time great seasons in 1920. In ND’s first seven contests, all Irish victories, he played a starring role. In the next game, against Northwestern, Gipp, gravely ill and suffering from a separated shoulder incurred in the rough IU game, appeared only in the fourth quarter. All he did then—in front of a packed Evanston stadium on George Gipp Day, organized by ND’s Chicago alumni—was throw two touchdown passes, for 35 and 70 yards, the latter setting an ND record that lasted for decades… .

Gipp, because of his worsening illness (poisons from his strep throat had seeped into his lungs, causing pneumonia), missed ND’s last match, a Thanksgiving Day victory against Michigan A&M (later to become Michigan State). Yet he’d already assured himself of a spot in football’s firmament, particularly due to his performance against Army, then a gridiron powerhouse covered by the influential New York press. All Gipp did against the Cadets was lead the Irish to victory with 385 accumulated yards of total offense: 150 rushing yards, 123 passing yards to his teammates, and 112 yards gained in zigging and zagging kick and punt returns. Perhaps he was extra inspired because he’d wagered $400 (worth more than four grand now) on ND; maybe Gipp was determined because he knew Gotham’s sports reporters, in the West Point stadium press box, were viewing his exploits; perchance he just wanted ND to whip its archrival.

In any case, he and the other Irish did edge a tough Army squad—not for the first nor last time… .

Central to Gipp’s sad end is that his demise needn’t have happened. He visited his Laurium doctor for a checkup in September 1920, before entraining for South Bend. Gipp had chronically inflamed tonsils, which made his throat painfully sore. The doctor recommended immediate surgery to remove the tonsils, but Gipp declined. Apparently, he was afraid of the knife. Though fatalistic, Gipp wasn’t suicidal. Yet snipping and removing those tonsils would’ve prevented toxins from seeping into his lungs, which later happened, poisoning the life from him in December. But had Gipp been born a generation or more later, he would’ve been cured, for penicillin and other wonder drugs would’ve eradicated the infections that killed him… .

Some swear that Rockne didn’t invent but merely recounted the win one for the Gipper plea. Others say such a sentimental request was unlike Gipp, who hid his emotions with a happy-go-lucky facade (and never, they say, would he have referred to himself as the Gipper). But Gipp was literally on his deathbed, and slipping in and out of lucidity. And he had grown fond of both Notre Dame and Rockne, and may well have realized he was dying. This play depicts Gipp, on the night before he died, pleading with Rockne to ask the boys to win one for George when extra inspiration would be necessary. According to One for the Gipper, by Patrick Clelland, that is when Gipp may have made the request, with his football coach bent over his bedside and Gipp’s mother, sister, and brother in the hospital room, though at a distance and unable to hear their relative’s whispered plea.

Critics, who claim Rockne invented the dying Gipp’s request, say that had it happened, Rockne would have invoked it sooner than he did, in 1928. But ND was expected to win all its 1921 games, and nearly did. And 1922 and ’23 were rebuilding years, with not as much pressure to win as in seasons with veteran teams. The unbeaten 1924 Irish did win the national championship, the ’25 team was successful, and the ’26 outfit—but for a confounding upset by upstart Carnegie Tech, while Rockne was tending to personal business in Chicago instead of helming the Fighting Irish in Pittsburgh—nearly reaped another national championship harvest. The 1927 squad was good, but not great. But in 1928, graduation had robbed ND of many of its seasoned players. The ’28 team was green in more ways than its jerseys, and dominated by sophomores, the true freshmen of today. This inexperience led to Rockne’s only bad season, marked by a 5-4 record. Yet the annual Army game, played in New York’s Yankee Stadium and covered by anyone who was anyone in the sporting press, remained ND’s marquee matchup—and the Irish were decided underdogs. So why not dust off the eight-year old Gipp deathbed request, and why not trot it out? As Gipp himself allegedly said to Rockne, . . . when the team’s up against it, when things are all wrong and the breaks are beating the boys… tell them to go back in there with all they’ve got and win one for the Gipper.

Though a football hero who inspired his fellow teammates and students, George Gipp flaunted football team rules with abandon: he swilled hard liquor, caroused, wagered, skipped classes and football practices, smoked like a chimney (despite it being against football training rules) and annually reported late for football practice (and in Fall 1917, he showed up on campus after ND had played its first two games). But when he appeared in football games, he was a cyclone, a triple threat who beat the other team multiple ways.

Also, despite his natural reserve, the opposite sex was attracted to him, with his baritone voice and almost regal bearing. But, outside of a few dates with plain, working-class South Bend girls, he had but one serious girlfriend. He could be captivating, witty, and charming when he chose to be, yet he chose to be with few females.

Gipp also was modest: though already famous in the sports world by 1920, on campus and in South Bend he dressed like a nonconformist, typically wearing old corduroy pants, an open-necked dress shirt, a tweed cap, and a worn black leather aviator jacket. The 13-year-old daughter of his South Bend friend George Hull, one of Hullie & Mike’s owners, decades later said that Gipp was a handsome young man, unassuming and nonchalant… . People introduced to him were surprised to find out he was George Gipp.

He was a swirling mass of contradictions, an existentialist isolated from his peers long before the term was coined by a Frenchman (as was ND’s founder, Father Sorin) named Jean Paul Sartre.

George Gipp died an early, tragic death. The yet-to-be discovered miracle drug penicillin could’ve saved him, but in his era, nothing could. And perhaps life’s author had created a tragic role for Gipp long before the athlete was born… .

Nonetheless, Gipp’s abrupt demise—perishing at age 25, at the height of his fame, shortly after being named the initial Notre Dame first-team All-American football player—is mainly why he’s remembered by Irish cognoscienti, but… will he ever be understood?

As a contemporary Notre Dame professor, Fr. Charles O’Donnell, said about George Gipp, Class of ‘Never (having never graduated, nor come near having earned enough credits to qualify), He was an enigma that we never solved. Truly, Gipp was a real-life rebel without a cause, though his rebellion was against conformity and boredom rather than people… .

Perhaps this play will be a key to unlock the puzzle of Gipp’s personality. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Gipp’s persona was a riddle wrapped inside an enigma, and his death drew the curtain down, seemingly forever, on his being.

Until now… .

Let the curtain rise.

—J.J.P.

Note 1: Hunk Anderson:

Anderson is portrayed in this screenplay as a dopey foil to Gipp. Actually, Anderson was bright, and an engineer when he wasn’t coaching football. He also was widely considered a brilliant line coach, efficient at teaching the intricacies of blocking and tackling both to college and pro football players, including the Chicago Bears of the 1940s and early 1950s.

For dramatic purposes, this author characterized him as comic relief. Had Hunk been alive, though, that wouldn’t have happened. For he had legendary pugilistic ability, supposedly having never lost a fistfight (of which he had scores). His combination of hand-eye coordination, reflexes, strength, and a hot temper flattened many a man who offended him (and, judging by his litany of documented fights, Hunk was easy to offend). This author would not have wanted to risk being hammered to the floor by a succession of Hunk’s tattooing right hand punches. Therefore, on the chance that Hunk—even if he’d been still alive and in his 90’s—might’ve been offended by his characterization, this author, in interest of preserving his face intact, admits to artistic license.

He can only hope that Hunk’s descendants, if they do read this play, won’t take offense.

They may have inherited his bellicose genes.

Note 2: Gipper Nickname:

Some so-called experts have written that the Gipper is a nickname made up by Hollywood or Knute Rockne, and that Gipp never was referred to as the Gipper during his lifetime.

But research indicates otherwise.

A South Bend Tribune reporter writing soon afterward about Gipp’s December 1920 funeral procession in South Bend as it wended its way to the train station (destination: Laurium) described the many ND students and South Bend residents lining the path as folks wanting to pay their final respects to their Gipper. Teammate Buck Shaw, a tackle, recalled many years after Gipps’ death that The Gipper was the greatest! I’ve seen players who could run better, who could kick better, and who could pass better, but I’ve never seen an athlete who could do all three things as well. And few, if any, have had Gipp’s poise and confidence. Also, the 1921 edition of The Dome, ND’s yearbook, referred to the late student as the Gipper.

So Gipper apparently was Gipp’s nickname while he lived, and he could well have applied it to himself, in jest or irony—and on his deathbed.

Therefore George Gipp, in his lifetime and forever, was and will be The Gipper: a larger-than-life hero, yet all too human… .

Note 3: Win One Speech

Despite evidence indicating Rockne having given his dramatic win one for the Gipper speech before the 1928 Army game, this play positions it during halftime of the scoreless contest. Why? For dramatic purposes. Notre Dame surged to its winning touchdowns in the second half, and halfback Jack Chevigny emotionally blurted That’s one for the Gipper! after scoring the first of them. Actually, the Irish, distinct underdogs, had played unexpectedly well in the first half, holding powerful Army scoreless. According to future coach Frank Leahy, present in the ND locker room as a substitute lineman, Rock gave his spirited Gipper pep talk prior to the opening kickoff.

Note 4: Rockne and Dorais

ND’s actual assistant coach in 1920 was Walter Halas, not Gus Dorais, who’d been Rockne’s assistant in 1919. Also, ND had a different assistant coach in 1928, during the Army Gipp’s Ghost game. For simplicity’s sake, and because this play has too many characters as it is, its author made Hunk Anderson Rockne’s assistant in ’28 and Dorais the assistant in ’20. But Anderson did become Rock’s assistant again in ’30, Rockne’s final season.

—J.J.P.

Cast of Characters

(in order of appearance, more or less, in Part One and Part Two)

George Gipp: Football and baseball star, gambler, drinker, and the ultimate rebel against conformity. Born in 1895; he ages from 20 to 25 in this play. A young Steve McQueen would be ideal to portray Gipp. Unfortunately, McQueen’s dead (but then, so’s Gipp).

Knute Rock Rockne: He’s 28-32 y.o.; acts more like Gipp’s stern older brother than a father figure. Lotsa common sense; he’s direct and fearless. Disciplinarian with his players, but has a heart of gold. Amateur psychologist. Realizes Gipp is different and cuts him slack. Gipp is the only player Rockne ever allowed to smoke, drink, and skip practices, but Rock tolerated that disobedience of team rules because he realized Gipp was a phenomenal talent who marched to his own drummer.

Nurse: Various throughout play—contrasting looks.

Dolly Gray: Looks like that Beedle Smith character in the movie Patton, but younger.

Angelo Stappas: same age as Gipp, but more streetwise than Walter Miller (below).

Italian Immigrant #1 and #2: Young men conned by Gipp; speak with Italian accents. Guido is #2, and he has the heavier accent of the two. Enrico is #1.

Gambler #1 and #2: Men in 30s or 40s whom Gipp bets in scene with immigrants. G1 is Joe. G2 is Artie.

Cop #1 (Fred) and Cop #2 (Tim): Burly cops in an early scene. Any age.

Miner #1, 2, 3: three grubby, gruff miners from Calumet in I, 2.

Man: Age is 50s or 60s, Caucasian, works in office in Golden Dome. Terse.

Walter Miller: Young (one of ND’s renowned football-playing Miller boys of 1907-1943); about same age as Gipp, but not as worldly.

Equipment Manager: Curt man working in N.D. locker room, I,6. Elderly, feisty.

Coach Fitzgerald: Coach of frosh ND team, 1916. Authoritative, Irish descent, 35y.o.

Western Normal Player 1 and Western Normal Player 2: Two football players facing ND’s frosh team in I,7. Beefy, amazed at Gipp’s winning FG; contrasting looks.

Ref: Various throughout play—contrasting looks.

Corky: Sullen 50ish man; big gut on him; wears green eyeshade when playing pool, white sleeves rolled up; wears gray vest and pants. Simon Oakland type. Truck driving co. owner, business degree.

Jimmy O’Brien: Red-haired Irishman (speaks in brogue), owns Laurium pool hall, chummy with regular patron Gipp; 31y.o.; jokingly calls the nonconformist G Mr. Gipp; pleasant, gift-of-gab type.

Ojay Larson: Kinda dopey football player; high cheekbones, tough physically; homie of G and Hunk A.

Conductor: Appears in but one scene. Fiftyish. Graying hair. Proud Michigander. Likes football and admires U. of Michigan and Fielding Yost. Suspicious.

Pete Bahan: Bigtime jock, in football (two-time captain) and (in this play) baseball. QB in 1918. G’s buddy off the field. Ran with Gipp, but not as big of a drinker.

Porter: Carries bags in Congress Hotel, Chicago. Slender, any age or ethnicity.

Gambler 1 (G1, Mugs): Head of out-of-town gang of professional gamblers who invest Congress Hotel in Chicago, II, 2 (Talks like a 1920s hood).

Gambler 2 (Deanie) and Gambler 3 (Charlie): Subordinate gamblers, friends of G1. These three gamblers are in II, 2.

Vicky, short for Victoria Longwell: (short, black hair, pretty hazel eyes, shy smile, avg. height, about 21 y.o.); Gipp meets her on Heckla Street, Laurium. She’s a governess for a family of kids in the well-to-do part of Laurium.

Bruno: Ballplaying buddy of G’s on Laurium team in 1917 (in the Keweenaw League, depleted of ballplayers because of the draft and WWI)

Laurium Manager: 50ish mgr. of semi-pro Laurium team in ’17.

Norm Barry: Calls G Gipp. A little in awe of the older Gipp.

Frank Rydzewski: Jolly, but big and strong. Big Man on Campus in 1917; ace lineman who also grabbed several interceptions.

Horace: Football player, big and tough looking, for Morningside College.

Doctor: Middle-aged man who treats Gipp’s broken ankle.

Newsboy: 12y.o. lad in downtown South Bend.

Poor Woman (with children, little boy and girl): Late 30s, white, poor, in DTSB; Gipp feels sorry for her and her kids.

Frank Thomas: Tough, bantam-like QB from East Chicago, Indiana. Calls Gipp Georgie. Future head coach of Alabama and Bear Bryant.

Cop: Irish cop in Chicago; wears blue uniform; typical 1920s Irish cop. 40ish, agewise.

Hunk Anderson: Succinct, tough, quick to anger; seems slow-witted, but actually has lots of common sense despite occasional (fictional) malaprops. Gipp’s teammate and classmate, until Epilogue, when he’s Rockne’s assistant coach.

AndMom: Hunk Anderson’s mom: middle-aged, wears apron and house dress.

Bystander: 40ish man in Lincoln, Neb. Wears hat and smokes cigar while playing pool; bets a lot. Cocky. Named Louie.

Inspector Bradley: Blue suit and cap; fed agent; grim; self-important man who tries to ensure no illegal hooch is being smuggled aboard trains; white guy, 30s or 40s.

Jimmie Collie Chilanden: 50ish. A train conductor by trade. Ornery; his wife’s a shrew. A poker crony of G’s, Chilanden looks like the balding captain from TV’s Car 54; wears navy blue cap, like a train conductor.

Nick the Greek: Cocky middle-aged gambler from Chicago. Also a top pool player. He tries to hustle Gipp in III,I, but fails.

Richie from Chicago: Poker gambler in III,3.

Tim