Character Name: Trevor McGee (Black)
Canon: Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite
History:It was the summer of 1972 in Missing Mile, North Carolina and Trevor's family had just moved into the old farmhouse on Violin Road. The signs were there; Daddy was having more and more trouble drawing and was fighting with Momma more, and Didi was... Well, Didi was almost oblivious to it all until Daddy started started to frighten him even more than usual at night. To compensate for this (and to make himself feel better), Trevor would convince Didi to sleep in his bed with him. Until one night, that is. Didi had gone to bed early and for once, Daddy had given Trevor his nightly glass of fruit juice instead of Momma. Though he knew something was wrong, Trevor drank his juice as instructed and crept off to bed, only almost contemplating waking Didi so he could sleep with him. But he didn't and he didn't know until that morning that Daddy had drugged the fruit juice.
❝MISSING MILE - Grisly tragedy has struck
just down the road. Hardly anyone knew that
the famous 'underground' cartoonist Robert McGee
was living in North Carolina until he bludgeoned
two members of his family to death, then committed
suicide in a rented house on the outskirts of Missing Mile.
McGee, formerly of Austin, Texas, was 35. His
work has appeared in student and counter-culture
newspapers across the country, and he created
the controversial adult comic book Birdland.
Also deceased are his wife, Rosena McGee, 29, and
a son, Fredric McGee, 3. Surviving is another son,
name and age unknown.❞
Twenty years passed and Trevor found himself free of all of the institutionalized makeshift boarding houses the incident had landed him in. Never quite knowing why Bobby had spared him, he found himself on a Greyhound bus to North Carolina, drawing materials in hand. If asked, he'd tell you he'd gotten quite good, but not as good as Bobby. But then again, he was going by Trevor Black rather than Trevor McGee. Nevertheless, Birdland haunted both his art and his everyday life. He didn't know what he was going to find when he got to Missing Mile and stood on those familiar floorboards in the farmhouse and he certainly wasn't sure if he was going to be able to leave once he got there.
What he found, however, was something he could have never guessed if given a million chances. Whatever ghosts had taken up residence in Trevor's mind were in that house on Violin Road waiting for him. He'd only been there a handful of nights when he'd experienced a few different things, strange things. They ranged from illustrations he didn't remember creating and the lights working when the house had no electricity or running water. He'd found a friend in Kinsley, thankfully, and it was Kinsley that sent the hacker to deliver some supplies to him.
Trevor and Zach got off to a rough start. When Trevor first saw him, he scared Zach so badly that he dropped the box of supplies he was carrying and Trevor very frankly tried to kill him. Once brought back to his senses, Trevor actually apologized for his actions and they slowly started to build a base of trust. Well, Trevor said much more on his past than Zach, but Zach's eventually came to light anyway much later. As if by a twist of fate, Zach ended up staying in the house with Trevor. Their interactions vary on Trevor's maddening mood swings (some of which result in violence).
As Trevor tried to sort his head, his relationship with Zach deepened and the house and the ghosts it contained reacted to it in numerous ways. On two different occasions, it went as far as destroying some of Trevor's drawing and sending them to a publisher intact, and trapping Zach in the bathroom alone and showing him a gruesome way he could die in the mirror. When Trevor found Zach in the bathroom, Trevor didn't see what Zach saw. He saw his father hanging on that old shower rod. The house continued to torture them in little ways, and it didn't take long for it to draw the two of them into Birdland itself.
While in Birdland, they were faced with not only their own ghosts, but Trevor's father himself. Despite his brain screaming at him to return to Zach, the one person who hadn't left him, Trevor confronted his father, wrecked with the need to know why he left him alive. He didn't get the answer he wanted, though, as Bobby told him that he didn't really want to know why, he wanted to know what it felt like instead. When Zach found him, Trevor was babbling and frantic and he tried to kill Zach as per his father's suggestion. Thankfully, Zach had the metaphorical keys to the kingdom and he convinced Trevor not to after he very nearly beat him to death. Trevor, unable to handle it and walking that fine line between madness and strange, slammed his fist into porcelain and glass.
Once they escaped, both battered and broken in one way or another, they returned to Kinsley's only to find Zach's friend Eddy waiting for them. Eddy informed them of the FBI being hot on Zach's heels and helped both him and Trevor get the hell out of Missing Mile and to Jamaica where they started their life together.
Personality:Experiencing something as traumatic as your father killing the rest of your family certainly has some interesting effects and Trevor is a product of his environment for sure. To start, he's not only socially awkward, he's naive. He doesn't know how to react to people in an entirely comfortable way and often words things strangely or comes off as intense. He's soft spoken and only really raises his voice when he's pressed or angry enough. He's one of those people that would rather watch what's going on around him than aim to get involved with it. That doesn't mean he won't, however. It will just take a little incentive and motivation on his part or someone he cares about.
His aloofness started at a young age. After he was sent to the North Carolina Boys' Home, he emotionally caved in on himself that much more. He didn't bother trying to make friends with the other boys and was often teased by them. Instead of becoming a victim, Trevor egged them on and learned how to defend himself through experience. Once he was old enough to leave the home, he became even more distant and promptly took to traveling, never staying in one place for too long. This sort of nomad lifestyle didn't lend well to making friends and so Trevor really isn't too concerned with making connections with other people.
There's a part of Trevor that's always wondered why his father left him behind, leaving him to find the mess he'd made of their family the next morning. Though Bobby explains to him why near the end of the book, twenty years of wondering have already done their damage. He thought he wasn't good enough, that his father maybe didn't love him like he loved Momma and Didi, and so he left him alone in the world to use art as a crutch just as he did.
He tends to get lost in his head easily, for better or for worse. It's common for his thoughts to be on the darker, raw side and he sees things differently than most people. Instead of looking at someone and seeing them for their clothes and make up, he sees them as their flesh and bones. He entertains thoughts of what might be under someone's skin and is shown doing just that numerous times in the books. It might be easy to assume it's just an artist's curiosity, but it's a bit more morbid than that. He'd like to know what makes someone tick, how their muscles and bones look in action under that thin outer layer.
With that said, Trevor is a wee bit unstable at times. When he's stressed, he's prone to small fits and sometimes even lashes out physically. This sort of violent reaction can also be triggered by simply touching him. Given his violent past, it's pretty understandable. These days, he winds up hurting himself and inanimate objects rather than those closest to him, at least. He still carries a lot of regret and guilt for hurting Zach so much even though the majority of it was completely unintentional. Without Zach, take away Trevor's ability to draw and violence becomes his only outlet.
Meeting Zach was a game changer for Trevor. For better or for worse, Zach made Trevor more vulnerable than he'd been in a long time. He slowly started opening up and could function at a normal level with very few issues around the other boy. He grounded him, pulled him back to reality and anchored him there in a way no one else could managed. Most importantly, he taught Trevor how to trust someone and be affectionate with them. It's a learning experience and he's working on it.
Lastly, though Bobby very explicitly states that Birdland isn't real, it's incredibly real to Trevor. Both his experiences in the house on Violin Road and in the place itself vary in intensity and brutality, but the concept is enough to rattle him as it was his obsession for years. Sometimes he'll even catch himself wondering if there's inspiration to be found in Birdland still. After all, Bobby had found some and Trevor does like broken things.
Abilities:Above all else, Trevor draws. It isn't so much that he likes it and it's a hobby as it is that he has to draw. It's a way for him to not only express himself, but stay connected with his thoughts. Though he isn't able to draw for long periods of time due to his right hand, he does so until he can't hold his pencil/pen/etc anymore.
He doesn't look it, but he's able to deal out a least a little damage with his fists and whatever weapons he can get a hold of. He isn't professionally trained and it's obvious. His movements tend to be on the clumsy side for better or for worse.
There are times that he actually dreams of Birdland, though it's in fragments and no longer tangible. It doesn't do much aside from leave Trevor shaken or anxious for a few moments. |
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