PEACHES

PEACHES is a 27 year old corrections lieutenant. He enters the academy as soon as he is old enough to. His father was in the military, but Peaches was more attracted to a position as a correctional officer. Similar sort of structure, anyway…And he has better, quicker access to some form of authority and impact on people’s lives. Unlike Button, he did buy into the underlying ideology supporting his chosen profession at first, and generally performs his job very well. If you were to look for a list of qualities employers are looking for in their officers, he would match up with nearly everything. He hovered on the fence about what to think for some time after hearing his friend’s perspective and seeing everything for himself firsthand with new eyes. It is a significant source of tension for a while, even when they don’t talk about it. He does learn to see outside of what he had been taught all of his life and realize how it is wrong, and begins to feel a similar sense of obligation as Button does, but ultimately what pushes him over the edge is how his coworkers start treating Button. I talked about what Button gets like when he’s drunk on his profile--when Peaches gets drunk he gets belligerent. He would not be counted as ‘good’...He doesn’t have love or hope for all of humanity. The only person that he truly believes is basically good is Button, which is rather sad, and it’s not easy for him to get out of this mindset. He cares a lot about appearances and so is repressed and afraid to act in a transgressive manner.