Goose Perkins

Goose Perkins (グース・パーキンズ, Gūsu Pākinzu) was the leader of the Lemures. In December 1931 he conspired to hijack the transcontinental train, the Flying Pussyfoot, in order to blackmail the American government into releasing Huey Laforet.

Appearance
Goose has slicked-back, sandy blond hair. His eyes are typically depicted as being shut. On the Flying Pussyfoot he wears a black tuxedo over a white shirt, as well as a black bow tie around his neck. This is the standard uniform which every member of the Lemures, excluding Chané, wears onboard the train.

Personality
As shown through his early enthusiasm to join the military, Goose had been a motivated citizen upholding a strong sense of justice. However, failing to make it as a soldier completely changed his attitude. By the Grand Punk Railroad arc, Goose is shown to have a ruthless and somewhat maniacal state of mind.

He considers it important to plan out tasks before conducting them and is usually set on following these plans through. However, Goose recognises when it would be best to abort a mission instead of continuing towards their goal. These traits make him out to be quite a good leader.

Despite never showing it upfront, Goose cares deeply for his loyal subordinates. This is shown in the fact that he is furious whenever another member of the Lemures is attacked. On the other hand, when somebody betrays him, Goose does not hesitate to kill them off - even appearing to enjoy watching them suffer, as seen when he instructs Chané to leave Nader for dead.

Pre-1931
In his younger years, Goose had been an aspiring soldier. However, his hesitancy to discard his emotions prevented him from making it into the ranks. Bitter from his failure, Goose began to involve himself in terrorist plots and eventually formed an alliance with Huey and Chané Laforet. This led to the formation of the Lemures.

1931: Local Chapter The Grand Punk Railroad
On December 29, Goose addresses a number of Lemures in an abandoned factory south of Chicago. He informs them that somebody in their midst had turned Huey Laforet, their master, over to the federal government. Goose requests that this traitor step forward and recognise the error of their ways.

Nader Schasschule does so, prompting the rest of the men to follow suit. Nader confronts Goose, asking him what it feels like to be betrayed by everyone. Unfazed, Goose replies that he had known what Nader was planning to do all along. The thirty or so men Goose deem loyal proceed to shoot everybody else, leaving only Nader alive. While he is attempting to pull out a gun, Chané appears and cuts off his right hand.

Chané intends to kill Nader immediately, however Goose insists that he should not be allowed such a quick death. Therefore, Nader is tied up and locked inside the factory while Goose escapes to Chicago Union Station with the remaining Lemures.

Inside the first-class cabin on the Flying Pussyfoot, Goose discusses the Lemures' mission. He instructs his men to attack everyone onboard the train without mercy, thus 'granting unto them the proudest of deaths.' Goose splits his team into three groups of ten, disguised as an orchestra, and they begin to infiltrate the cabins. While passing through the freight hold, he crosses paths with Rachel. After meeting her eyes, Goose develops a feeling of unease which is mirrored by Chané. However, he dismisses this and leaves as if nothing happened.

From the first-class cabin, Goose provides instructions to his men who are on standby to enter the dining car. They intend to kidnap Natalie Beriam, Senator Manfred Beriam's wife, in order to blackmail him into freeing Huey. However, their plans are interrupted when Ladd Russo kills one of the Lemures who had gotten in the Russo Family's way. This leads Goose to become cautious of the people whom he recognises as the 'white suits'.

After recovering from their confrontation with Ladd, Goose and the Lemures barge into the dining car. Goose approaches Mrs. Beriam and orders a few of his men to lead her away at gunpoint. The rest of the team are instructed to take turns watching over the dining car. As Goose turns to leave, he notices an open window. He points his gun at a man sitting by the window and questions him about it. Terrified, the man says that a 'woman in fatigues' (Rachel) had escaped through the window. Goose adds her to a mental list of dangerous people as he leaves the dining car without further ado.

Goose and the others return to their cabin with Mrs. Beriam in tow. They notice that three of their men who had been ordered to watch over the freight hold were missing, leading Spike to assume that the Russo Family had killed them. Chané is gone, said to be hunting down the Russos. After ensuring that she was out of earshot, Goose reveals his intention to kill Chané the following afternoon.

Suddenly, the men in the freight hold re-establish their radio connection. Goose and Spike are met with sounds of destruction. They listen in concern as one of the terrified men describe their attacker as a 'monster' before being crushed to death. Goose feels fairly certain that this 'monster' is Rachel, or the 'woman in fatigues'. However, the monster's true identity is that of Claire Stanfield. Mary Beriam, Natalie's daughter, is then led into the first-class cabin where Goose and his men are watching over Mrs. Beriam. Goose informs her that his subordinate is currently negotiating with Senator Beriam in regards to freeing Huey. He adds that if the Senator were to refuse their terms, Mary's corpse would be thrown onto the tracks. Goose then exits the room, leaving Mrs. Beriam unable to say a word in response. Entering one of the other first-class rooms, Goose finds Nick and Nice Holystone tied up on the floor. Spike had captured them in order to obtain information. Nick insists that there is a red monster on the train. Not willing to believe him, Goose turns to Nice and questions the pair's connection to the Russo Family. His assumptions were based on the fact that Nick had been spotted threatening the dining car (in order to save Jacuzzi). Nice tries to dispute this by calling Nick a marijuana addict, and that he must have been attacking people due to his hallucinations. However, Goose is not fooled. Cornered, Nice decides to tell him their true mission as train robbers. Having lost interest, Goose leaves the room.

However, he soon steps back inside wearing a troubled expression. He questions Nick and Nice on the corpses they had seen inside the conductor's compartment, hoping to gain more information. Nice claims to have seen the bodies of two conductors, one who had been shot and another who looked to have been half eaten. Relating this information to the bloodbath he had witnessed in the freight hold, Goose dispatches five men to check the conductor's compartment. Slowly but surely, Goose begins to fear the 'Rail Tracer'.

Sometime afterwards, the Beriams are rescued by Rachel and escape onto the roof of the train. Goose acknowledges that it is probably too late to recapture them. He discusses the prospect of formulating an escape plan and orders Spike to kill Chané when the chance arises.

While passing the first-class cabin that Nick and Nice were tied up in, Rachel is captured by the Lemures. Goose confronts Rachel in anger, accusing her of being 'Vino' and the 'Rail Tracer'. Rachel simply laughs at his mistake. Just before demanding her to explain herself, Goose is interrupted by a subordinate who informs him that their men in the dining car have vanished. He leaves the room grudgingly. Rachel manages to free Nick and Nice from the ropes with her serrated fingernails.

With the Lemures down to only six surviving members, Goose finds himself more worried about staying alive than taking over the train. He orders his men to abort the mission and retreat. However, they are also instructed to kill the remaining passengers so that their faces will not be remembered.

Suddenly, the door opens slightly and Nice rolls one of her cherry bombs into the room. Goose throws the bomb out of the window, causing it to explode on the tracks and rock the train with a powerful impact. He shuts the door just as another bomb rolls through the corridor, blasting the door off its frame.

Nice is planning to finish off the Lemures with another bomb, which she rolls into the hallway. In order to escape, Nick intends to pull himself out of the window and onto the rooftop. However, he is kicked back into the cabin by Goose who had climbed up there beforehand. Armed with a pistol in each hand, Goose jumps in through the window and orders Nice to hand over all her explosives. She initially refuses, eventually relenting after he threatens to take Nick's life. Goose then hits Nice with one of his guns deliberately, prompting a violent reaction from Nick. Just as Goose is about to shoot him, Jacuzzi bursts into the room and fires a machine gun. Nice and Nick take their opportunity to escape while Goose is hiding under the bed.

After the incident had died down, Goose walks up to his men in the hallway. Slightly scared by their leader's bloodshot eyes, they present him with a 1918 German flamethrower. Goose puts the flamethrower on his back and gives chase to the train robbers with a mixture of rage and amusement. He eventually finds himself alone, having come face-to-face with Jacuzzi on the roof of the train.

Goose sticks the nozzle of his flamethrower onto the rooftop before climbing up the ladder himself. The fire that shoots outward almost burns Jacuzzi's face. Flustered by the large distance that the flames could reach, Jacuzzi runs away desperately. Attempts to shoot in Goose's direction are futile, since his machine gun had ran out of ammunition. Climbing onto the roof at last, Goose manages to corner Jacuzzi just above the coupling on the second-last car.

All of a sudden, a piercing scream rings out from underneath the train in Goose's vicinity. Intending to burn the source of the screaming with his flamethrower, he approaches it. Isaac and Miria unexpectedly swing towards him from behind while holding on to the end of a rope. Goose's leg is caught by the rope, spinning him around and causing him to land painfully on his back. Not being able to smell any leaking gas, Goose assumes that the flamethrower is undamaged. Getting back onto his feet, Goose jumps over the coupling to the last car where Jacuzzi is waiting. Feeling self-assured, he aims the nozzle at Jacuzzi - however, barely any fire emerges. As it turns out, the impact of his previous fall had permanently twisted the valve at an odd angle.

Absorbed in his attempts to fix the valve, Goose fails to notice Jacuzzi running at him headfirst. The tattooed boy positions himself under Goose's chin and jumps with all his might. Goose breaks his nose and loses two front teeth from the impact. However, he manages to shoot Jacuzzi three times in the thigh with a self-firing gun attached to the back of his hand. Despite the unbearable pain of having Goose jam his fingers into the bullet wounds, Jacuzzi continues to headbutt him repeatedly.

Goose kicks Jacuzzi causing him to fall backwards. Taking this as a sign of victory, Goose prepares to kill the boy at last. However, he becomes distracted by a chunky, wet mass crawling onto the roof in their direction. Goose assumes the identity of this mysterious mass of red to be the 'Rail Tracer' which had killed so many of his men. Frustrated and losing all means of sanity, he aims the flamethrower at it, spraying fire without restraint. He does not notice the cherry bomb that Jacuzzi throws into the stream of flames, and it explodes in his face. Goose is launched towards the back of the car by the force of the explosion.

Not willing to give up, Goose produces a knife from his pocket. He manages to strike Jacuzzi in the arm, losing his balance in the meantime. Jacuzzi takes this chance to kick his attacker in the stomach. Goose's body does a half-turn in midair and plummets over the edge of the car. As he falls, Goose is engulfed by a bright red light (what remains of the 'Rail Tracer', aka Czeslaw Meyer's body parts).

1931: Express Chapter The Grand Punk Railroad
Goose is revealed to have escaped death, clinging to life purely by the thread of his obsession. He crawls along the railway tracks in desperation, determined to get his hands on Huey's secret to immortality.

Ten of his men who had been negotiating with the government were yet to announce their success. However, Goose is convinced that he will able to rebuild the Lemures with these ten men. When a shadow is cast over his body, Goose looks up hopefully, expecting to find a subordinate. Instead, he comes face-to-face with Nader.

Goose is alarmed, expecting him to have died during their last confrontation. Nader - whose neck, arms and face are badly burned - explains how he had been rescued by a doctor passing through the abandoned factory. His right arm is still missing from when it was cut off by Chané.

Nader relays his plan of action, having turned himself in to the police while disguised as a member of the Lemures. In doing so, he had also managed to expose the location of the remaining ten negotiators. Every single one of Goose's men had now been arrested. Mockingly, Nader calls Goose a 'poor drop-out of a bastard' for not killing him when he had the chance.

Having lost his last thread of hope, Goose drops his head silently. He is reduced to nothing but a corpse on the railway track, chunks of flesh and blood spilling out of his open mouth.

Trivia

 * Goose uses a self-firing gun against Jacuzzi in their final battle. It is said to have been created by Nebula. In the early 2000s, Mikado Ryūgamine from Durarara!! - another one of Ryohgo Narita's works - is seen using the same type of gun against Kida Masaomi.