#TeaserTuesday: The Boyle Debrief

 

Though he was careful to complete his chores every day, and gave his stepfather an even wider berth than before, Harlan couldn’t stay away from the clearing in the swamp behind his house, where he skulked in the underbrush and watched the older boys congregate. They didn’t meet every day, and they weren’t always all three there at once. Sometimes a fourth or a fifth would join them. Usually, they smoked cigarettes and flipped through dirty magazines; talked of nothing and everything. Colin was cruel, and Felix seemed to hate him, so Harlan wasn’t sure why they met at all, but he watched them all the same, hungry for the sight of him deep down in the pit of his stomach in a way that no food or drink could sate.

Over time, he got the impression that not only did Felix dislike Colin, but that Felix was something of an outcast amongst all of them. He never contributed a dirty magazine to the rotation; tried, once, to offer up a battered hardback collection of Tennyson poems, only to be scoffed at. Colin snatched the book from him and hurled it into the underbrush. Harlan had stopped breathing, heart rabbiting in his chest, terrified that Felix would charge into the undergrowth and trip right over him. How could he possibly explain himself if he was caught? Hey, guys, I’ve been spying on you for, like, three years. Is that cool?

But Felix didn’t charge. Instead, he slowly unbent himself from the fallen log and stood to his full height, hands balling to fists at his sides. He wore a brown t-shirt with a sea turtle silk-screened on the front, and it didn’t fit very well, though it had only a few months ago. Now, it was too short at the hem, the button of his jeans and a slice of lean, sun-browned stomach showing; he was starting to have a fuzz of dark hair beneath his belly-button, leading down into his pants. The shirt was too small in the shoulders, too, stretched tight across his chest, swelling the sleeves until they looked like the stitches might unravel.

His face, starting to be lean, now, as manhood barreled toward him like a runaway Peterbilt, flexed, tightened, and threw stark shadows up to both cheekbones, which popped beneath the faintest flush of anger.

He wasn’t teasing, and Harlan saw the moment Colin realized it. And the moment Colin thought that maybe, if they came to blows, he wouldn’t be the winner.

In a very even, very chilling voice, Felix said, “Fuck you, Colin.”

Tucker looked back and forth between the two of them, head snatching wildly. He bolted upright, in the wake of Felix’s declaration, and said, “I – I’m gonna go. See ya.” He turned and went tearing off through the underbrush.

Harlan should have used the racket to make his own escape, but he couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to. He sat rooted, the dampness of the moss beneath him soaking into the seat of his jeans, cicadas droning loud overhead. He wasn’t sure he breathed, in the crackling silence that arced between the two boys.

Much too late, Colin drew himself up in a crude mimicry of Felix’s posture. He was big, too, clothes starting to sit oddly on his expanding frame – but there was a certainty about Felix, a possession of his vastness that made Colin seem small by contrast. “What kinda pussy brings poetry out here to read?” Colin demanded.

Felix stared at him a long, unblinking, awful moment, and then turned and walked away, far more gracefully than Tucker had gone, without another word.

Late that night, Harlan lay awake, staring at the water-stained ceiling, heart thrumming in his chest as he thought of the quiet animal rage on Felix’s face. He didn’t understand why the memory left his underarms blooming with anxious sweat, but it did all the same. 

You know how actors talk about how fun it is to play villains? The same holds true for writing them. The nastier the better. Because Dartmoor is about violent criminals, I don't generally enjoy writing villain POVs because, in their own way, the Dogs themselves are the villains, and you're already getting that seedy underbelly perspective from all of them. 

But with Lord Have Mercy, it becomes necessary to get inside of Boyle's head, and what a snarled and ugly place it is. Half a child, caught by arrested development; half the absolute worst sort of psyche to tackle a career in law enforcement: the sort of person who enjoys using authority to hurt those who can't resist. I'm painting him as a genuine psychopath, one who doesn't understand his own emotions and attractions, and that makes for some very entertaining writing, if more than a little disturbing. 

Each part of the book, down to titles, highlights the way the three brothers are different, but they are in fact complements to one another, rather than foils. Alex thinks of himself as the "good" son, though he's quickly learning that his own morality doesn't dovetail all that neatly with society's definition, nor the legality he's sworn to uphold. Mercy's the "fortunate" son - and I hope it's clear that the title of the CCR song is ironic, as is Mercy's application of the word - because he had Remy's name and parentage...but was he really? Was Remy a good father? Or just the father figure Mercy idolized. 

Boyle, though, is the genuine foil for them all, because all three brothers have a code, and Boyle has none. Boyle has only base wants and needs and impulses. Did he wish he was Mercy growing up? Did he have a crush on him? Crave his approval? Was he afraid of him? Is he still? Does he hate him because he's an outlaw? Boyle doesn't really know the answers to these questions, and that makes him dangerous.