B053 - Barber, Clayton [DECEASED]

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DECEASED

Name: Clayton “Clay” Barber
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Debate, law, disability rights, baroque music

Appearance: Clay Barber is tall and large, standing 6'4” (193cm) and weighing 275 pounds (125kg). His weight is a mix of fat and muscle, his limbs are thick and strong, but not defined. His torso is wide and round and jiggles as he moves. His skin is freckled and smooth, medium-toned on his face and hands, but pale elsewhere with distinctive tan lines at his neck and wrists.

His hair is a muted brown which is not light enough to be tan, but not rich enough to be chestnut. He keeps his hair short, but not buzzed, and it tends to become greasy rather quickly. He has a thin scraggle of a mustache and beard which extends down his neck in an unkempt manner.

His eyes are a pale blue, but their most distinctive aspect is that they do not focus, they continually move and shift even when Clay is concentrating on something; Clay does not typically wear darkened glasses. His nose is just a little small for his face and his ears stick out a little from his head and have fleshy, non-attached earlobes.

Clay has a natural baritone voice which is practiced and easy and potentially quite loud. With a bit of effort, he can also project a booming bass which can sound eerie to those who have not heard him use it before.

His typical clothing is highly generic and much of it comes from big-and-tall stores. He wears greys and blacks almost to the exclusion of other colors, and when away from home he is never without his cane or a specialized magnifying glass that aids his reading. At abduction, Clay was wearing a grey t-shirt and black trousers with black socks and sneakers, and a black duster.

Biography: Clay Barber is the oldest child of William and Donna Barber. He was born with a severe visual impairment tentatively diagnosed as Familial Exudative Vitreoretinopathy (FEVR). Due to repeated and continual treatments throughout his life, he has not lost his vision entirely, but for many purposes, he is effectively blind.

William Barber is a highly prized computer programmer and is the chief breadwinner for the family. Donna Barber has written a philosophy book and a science fiction thriller, but has not found a publisher for either of them. She has self-published the latter book through Amazon and has earned about $500 from it over the past four years. When Ricky was old enough to enter first grade, she became a substitute teacher, though she has not yet substituted at George Hunter High School.

Clay grew up with a moderately wealthy family with easy access to computers and the education that came with them. Early in his schooling, he was granted significant accommodations for his near-blindness including braille texts and printouts, and assistants to read other information which he could not see.

Teachers were usually able to assist Clay in getting from place to place in school. Most of the other students were less willing to help since his large size and unusual eyes were marks of his outsider status. He was often unable to join in the recreational activities of the other children in his peer group because of his impairment.

When Clay turned eight years old, he was introduced to and adopted the use of the white cane. This coincided with his mother giving birth to Richard “Ricky” Barber. Clay had felt smothered by his parents' attention, and he was very happy that the new baby was the center of their focus. He used this time to vie for more and more opportunities to become independent by sneaking outside to explore the neighborhood while his mother was distracted by the new baby. Clay's parents were concerned at first, but since he was cautious and his explorations did not lead to any harm, they were warily content to allow his forays to continue.

Clay's relationship with his younger brother has not evolved much over the years. Clay displays no affection for Ricky, and Ricky treats Clay as a millstone around his neck, preventing him from having a normal life and a normal family.

While Clay did not enjoy his elementary school experience, that was primarily due to his social isolation. He was marked as an outsider by the other students and was subject to a fair amount of verbal bullying along with a few instances of shoving or punching starting around grade four. He could identify the voices of his classmates and teachers, but if they stayed silent, he had only the sound of their shoes to work with.

When teachers at school caught these acts of bullying, they would typically react in an overprotective manner, treating Clay as a helpless, delicate flower. This irritated Clay quite a bit, and he determined never to tell his parents or other adults about his schoolmates' poor treatment of him. Instead, he developed a stoic demeanor, remaining emotionless and cold when his surroundings were hostile. While the bullying was taking place, Clay's grades were a mix of Bs and Cs, almost a full letter grade lower than they had been before the bullying started.

His favorite location in school became the library. It was a place where he could get away from the students who harassed him and read, listen to audiobooks, or use text-to-voice programs. He developed a love of logic and worked to suppress his emotional reactions as much as possible. By age thirteen, Clay had decided to focus on a study of law, since it was possible to change lives and societies with nothing but knowledge and skillful rhetoric.

The school library also held a modest collection of baroque and classical music which Clay stumbled across in his explorations. He developed a fondness for the intricate melodies of Bach and Brahms and the bombast of Beethoven. He has saved a large sample of these pieces on his home computer and listens to his favorites to relax or to help him focus when he feels stress. In the process of locating such music, he learned a fair amount of the history of the composers and their pieces, and he has enjoyed educating himself on this topic as well.

Due to his visual disability, Clay has considerable experience dealing with the Americans With Disabilities Act and its associated court rulings and applications. While researching the topic for his own use, he became fascinated with the political process that led to the creation of these laws and with the legal and rhetorical arguments on both sides of the important cases. He has read several journals and lay articles about disability law in order to be able to assert his own rights to teachers or even the school board if necessary. It has only been necessary once so far.

When Clay was starting the ninth grade, a new teacher for his algebra class made extensive use of an overhead projector which Clay could only see as a bright white blotch. He talked to the vice-principal, reminding her that such discrimination could lead to long and costly lawsuits. The algebra teacher quickly made sure to provide paper copies of the slides which Clay could read with his magnifying glass.

As Clay went through puberty, he only grew taller and broader. He also found that he was socially isolated from the rest of his peers in another way: He had no interest in either girls or boys. He assumed at first that he was simply unique in this regard, but a bit of computer research time allowed him to figure out that this was called 'asexual'. He was pleased to find that his lack of desire was shared by some others, and he chose to think of himself as superior to his peers due to his lack of this sexual drive.

Just after winter break midway through grade nine at George Hunter HS, a sophomore tried to trip Clay in the hallway between classes. Clay was able to keep his balance and quickly lashed out with an arm catching the older boy in the jaw. They were both sent to the principal for punishment, but Clay explained his strike as just trying to steady himself and having no idea where his attacker was. Both the school authorities and his parents believed Clay's explanation because he had never acted violently before.

Both students were briefly suspended, which Clay complained was unfair; many other students and faculty, as well as his parents were sympathetic. In order to ensure that the bullying stopped, Clay made sure to very subtly imply to certain harassing students that his strike had been intentional after all. Within two weeks, Clay was no longer a target. Clay privately considered this a victory.

By tenth grade, Clay had gotten used to the routine at school and his grades had improved from low Bs to low As. He joined the Debate team in his sophomore year and tried out for Choir, but found that he did not get along with the Choir director and he dropped Choir within a few weeks. Clay knows that he is not the most valuable member of the Debate team, but he puts in effort and takes critical feedback with grace as long as it is fair criticism.

By the beginning of his junior year, Clay had met and formed a low-key friendship with Michael Froese. The two of them do not tend to socialize much outside of school, but they meet up often enough during free periods or after classes. Their friendship seems to be based more on attitude than on any specific common interests, though they both have an intellectual bent.

By his senior year, Clay had become one of the most senior members of the Debate team if not the strongest orator. With his father's help, Clay was able to locate a chapter of Toastmasters International and has joined the group. He was still working on his first prepared speech at the time of the abduction.

Clay's relationship with his parents has improved a great deal over the past few years. Before Clay joined the Debate team in grade ten, they were quite concerned for his welfare and tried to subtly encourage him to be both more outgoing socially and more dedicated in his studies. Since his grades improved and he expressed interest in debate and the law, they have both been relieved and seem to feel that he has a future that will not be in abject poverty. His mother has already begun to look at colleges and universities assuming that Clay can maintain his current A- average.

Clay also assumes that he will be going to college, probably to study criminal law or civil rights law. He is also aware that he is unlikely to be accepted into a highly prestigious university, so he has psyched himself up to attend University of Tennessee or another local institution.

Clay has embraced stoicism and has decided that he will not allow his visual impairment to define him. He feels that the legal system is not designed to give everyone a “level playing field”, but to favor those who can best manipulate that system, either through wealth or guile. He views calls for “fairness” and “equality” as an emotional ploy to enhance the status of those who cannot compete in the real world on their own merits, or as an attempt to drag down those who have already achieved some successes in life.

He utterly rejects socialism and is highly skeptical of democracy as an efficient system for a stable society. Clay has seen that some people are smarter or more skilled than others, and that attempting to give everyone an equal voice would greatly hinder the progress of a society. He heard first hand when he was briefly in choir that some people were more driven and more talented, and one of the reasons why he left the choir is because he did not really care about the music they were performing and he didn't want to be seen as dragging down the group with his mediocre singing.

He believes that government should operate the same way: The driven and talented should lead, and those who do not contribute should get out of the way.

Advantages: Clay is a voracious reader and has a broad base of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects, though he knows only a few subjects in depth. His size and girth are indicative of his physical strength and ability to absorb some blows.
Disadvantages: Clay's visual impairment is at a level that most would consider crippling. He cannot see enough detail to read normal print beyond about 2 cm (8 cm with his magnifying glass) from his eyes; beyond that range, he can make out blotches of color, but not shapes. He relies on his white cane to navigate any unfamiliar terrain due to his inability to see details such as curbs or stairs.

Designated Number: Male Student No. 53

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Designated Weapon: Street Sword: Practical Use of the Long Blade by Phil Elmore

Conclusion: Oh my god! Last time, the mute girl gets the megaphone, and now this? This is too good. Now we just need a deaf kid so we can give them a record player... hang on, does this make me a bad person? - Josh Baines

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