— Mark Twain
Brent Louis Barclay
Nickname:
None
Birthday:
November 2nd
Age:
17
Sexual Orientation:
Heterosexual
Grade Level:
12
Hometown:
Columbus Circle (Midtown), NY
Character Role:
The Bad Boy
Personal Life
Home Life:
Brent's immediate family consists of his father, Jesse Barclay (52), mother, Brenda Barclay (51), and older brother, Cameron Barclay (23). For the past five years, his family has been in an unusual living situation. When Brenda was diagnosed with ALS, his father desperately sought out a physician who could offer them a better answer than "she has three to five years to live" and he managed to get her into a drug treatment study in Little Rock, Arkansas. Knowing this was their only hope of a better survival rate, Brenda and Jesse left Cameron (who had just turned 18) and Brent at their New York apartment. The study was only supposed to last six months but has continued to receive private funding to allow them to continue testing treatments on the patients. Jesse returns to New York as frequently as he can, but since he's only working part-time as a mechanic and devoting the rest of his time to caring for Brenda, his salary doesn't go much farther than the bills in Arkansas and the NY apartment rent. Brent and Cameron fly down to Little Rock on Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving to visit their parents, and they're hoping that by Christmas this year, Brenda will be in a condition where she can fly back to NY.
In the mean time, Brent and Cameron have become very close. They were forced to "man up" when their mother was suddenly diagnosed with ALS and even more so when their parents moved down south. Cameron was always a good older brother to Brent and when he decided to take up drug dealing to support their family, he did his best to keep Brent out of it. His intentions were just to bring in enough money to lessen the burden on his father, and for a few months, Brent really believed that his brother was making the money by delivering pizzas. During the summer prior to his freshman year of high school, Brent found a few bags of cocaine on his brother, and the secret was out. Rather than condemn his brother, he offered to help him. When he started attending St. Jude's that fall, he quickly became known as the campus drug dealer. Most of the time, kids just came to him for a dime bag of weed or a few tabs of ecstasy for a concert they were going to, but he had access to the hard stuff too. That scared him, and still does. For good reason, too, since last year he realized that his brother developed an addiction to the cocaine and since then, nearly half of their profits are being used to support his brother's addiction. At the sight of his brother's demise, Brent has pledged to never touch anything harder than weed, but that doesn't mean that he won't encourage his peers to test out what he has to offer.
Academic Career:
Brent attends St. Jude's School for Boys on an academic scholarship. To the surprise of many, he's naturally very intelligent and excels in the maths and sciences. During his freshman year, he and two senior students constructed a science fair experiment that was entered in the Google science fair. It won first place, awarding each of them a $50,000 scholarship to be used for college studies. His brains are the only thing keeping him at the school, since he has a poor attendance and disciplinary record and his parents are unable to send him there without the help of the scholarship. He does not play any sports or participate in any clubs.
Future Plans:
John Hopkins University's science department has already expressed interest in Brent and he has every intention of attending next year. It would be the perfect opportunity for him escape the bad lifestyle he's gotten himself into and finally clean up his act. Plus, he's already received an outside scholarship from the science fair to cover at least his first year expenses and will most likely receive a scholarship from the college as well.
Disposition
Manipulative | Selfish | Arrogant | Intelligent | Responsible | Family-oriented
Though his reputation paints him as a heartless bad boy, he wasn't always like this. In fact, Brent grew up as a fairly normal kid and if anything, he was more geeky than rebellious. As a boy, he was extremely bright and his excellence put him ahead of his peers. It brought pride to his average family but it also set him apart from his classmates. Time and time again, the kids who lived in his building would knock on his door, inviting him to come out and play baseball or get ice cream from the corner store. Every time, he'd have something better to do, ranging from being on his way to the library to being in the middle of a science project. Eventually, the kids gave up trying to include him. What fun was a nine year old who preferred to read up on the different types of rocks than to play cops and robbers at the park? He was incredibly bright and motivated, but lacked any sort of moxy or spontaneity. When he was young, it didn't bother him much, but as he hit his middle school years, he began to notice that he wasn't having as much fun as his peers. He had a small group of friends, all of whom were equally as "weird" as he, and he was sick of being part of the loser crowd.
When his mother was diagnosed with ALS, his life changed in the snap of a finger. His parents left he and his brother with an enormous amount of freedom and seeing it as his chance to change his life, he submitted an application to the wildly elite St. Jude's School for Boys. Brent never imagined being accepted, nonetheless with a full scholarship, but when it happened, he was thrilled. He vowed that this would be his new start and between the emotional stress of his mother's diagnosis and his own decision to transform into someone cooler, he became tougher. He still prided himself in his school work, but didn't flaunt it and dropped any extra effort he had put into it before. He became the kid who slept through lectures, was sent to detention for showing up to classes with ten minutes left and spoke back to teachers, yet aced every single test. He became hard and brazen, fearless and rebellious. When he began to deal drugs, his bad boy image took on a new life. His peers now see him in a contrasting light to those who knew him before high school. He's someone who takes what he wants, when he wants it, without asking. He's commonly reprimanded for his "attitude problem", arrogance and sarcasm, and since his mother fell ill, he prioritizes his own interests, and that of his family, before anyone else. He keeps most people at bay emotionally, since he knows that even though he's tough enough to not be picked on anymore, he isn't the type of person who fits in with the Upper East Side crowd. He's still that dorky, poor kid at heart who's beginning to wish that he could start over again, and this time, land somewhere in the middle of his antisocial, kind-natured old self, and bold, yet reckless new self.
Hobbies:
Reading (the NY public library is usually a daily stop) | Dealing drugs | Going to concerts
Bad Habits:
Falling asleep in class | Smoking (he managed to drop his cigarette addiction this summer but continues with marijuana) | Rarely apologizing or admitting fault for mistakes
Likes:
Money | Used book stores | Science | Listening to music | Hip hop music | Blueberries | Breakfast for dinner | Dogs | People with a good sense of humor | Eating out
Dislikes:
Black & white movies | Death | Addictions | Feeling out of control | Know-it-all's | Entitlement | Frivolous spending | Snobs | Mayonnaise | Sci-fi | Facebook | Football | Soap operas
Physical Description
Jeremy Irvine
Height:
6'1
Weight/Build:
175 lbs
Hair Color:
Brown
Eye Color:
Blue