S024 - Grail, Victor

#1

Name: Victor Steven Grail
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Basketball, lacrosse, Body Improvement, fighting video games

Appearance: Victor Grail has a very imposing figure, standing at 6’3”, and weighing 220 pounds, with a wide, muscular frame that is the result of his various athletic pursuits and weightlifting. The strongest parts of his body are his arms and legs - his biceps, triceps, and quadriceps are all clearly defined, even when relaxed. His pectoral muscles and abdominal muscles are not quite as defined as his limbs, but they are still noticeably muscular. His square, freckled face is framed by close cropped red hair, a firm, angular nose, and intense blue eyes, the first and last of which highlight his Irish heritage. Victor has three main facial expressions - a scowl, when talking to someone he doesn’t like, a sneer when associating with someone he is trying to take advantage of, or a smirk for when he is trying to impress somebody.

His main wardrobe consists of jeans or athletic shorts, sports jerseys, and jet black sneakers. When he is jogging or working out, he wears a stopwatch around his left arm, to time his sessions. Notably, on his right hand are two rings - one on his index finger and one his ring finger - the championship rings for the Duke Blue Devils in 2010 and 2015. On the day he was abducted, Victor was wearing a green L.L. Bean hooded sweatshirt over a black long-sleeved T-shirt and a Syracuse University lacrosse jersey, and a pair of Wrangler jeans and black Adidas sneakers over white crew socks.

Biography: Victor Grail was born on December 24, 2002, in Durham, North Carolina to Jillian and Eugene Grail. Jillian is an English teacher currently working at Boston Latin School, where she has worked since Victor was ten. Eugene was an assistant coach for the Duke Blue Devils, a point of pride for Victor. Eugene didn’t have much involvement in raising Victor, as he spent most of his time assisting in recruitment of up and coming players from the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. This caused him to spend much of his time researching players of interest from those areas for when the time came for him to observe and make contact with them to join the Duke team. From a young age, Victor always wanted to be the center of attention (for example, if they were playing “fight the aliens”, he would be the one saving everyone). This, on top of watching professional wrestling and UFC, led to a very macho-man personality and an interest in contact sports.

Victor started playing sports, namely football and basketball, at age six. The former was due to his macho-man attitude, while the latter was out of pride for his father. At school, he would make his own social groups, designating his group “the cool group,” and making everyone else outsiders. If he considered a person worthy of his friendship, he would pressure those people into joining his group. Any person who was indecisive would be given one or two days to make a definitive decision. Anyone who said no was considered unworthy, while anybody who answered in the affirmative or still could not decide was considered to be a member of his group. Furthermore, Victor was quite intelligent and athletic, which he was aware of, making him self-assured to the point of arrogance. This, on top of his desire to be the center of attention, often gave him issues with authority and got him in trouble with the faculty.

Due to their jobs, Eugene and Jillian raised Victor in diametrically different methods. Jillian was the parent that did most of the mundane child raising, making sure Victor was fed and making sure that he was able to attend to his activities, such as school and athletics. While she did encourage him, she didn’t share the drive that Victor had toward his hobbies. Eugene, on the other hand, was the one that more indulged Victor. Eugene was the one that took Victor to the Duke games when he could, even allowing him courtside access whenever possible. Eugene, being a basketball coach and sports enthusiast, was more able to identify with Victor than Jillian was, resulting in Victor feeling closer to his father, even though Eugene was not around nearly as much as his mother was.

As a result of Eugene’s almost constant non-presence, Jillian and Eugene divorced when Victor was twelve, starting with a separation when Jillian moved to Salem, Massachusetts to take a job at the Boston Latin School in the fall of 2013. While the divorce was relatively tame, with assets being divided in an equitable manner and a fair allocation of child support and custody rights (Jillian receiving primary custody over the school year, and Eugene getting custody over the summer), it did take a toll on the family. With Jillian, this took the form of mild depression. With Eugene, the effects manifested in his smoking habit intensifying. For about a year and a half following the finalization of the divorce, Victor’s slightly rowdy behavior was exacerbated due to the fact that Victor had genuinely enjoyed being with his father, even if it wasn’t for much time. The downgrade in lifestyle made this worse, given that Jillian’s job only provided a modest income compared to when she combined her income with Eugene’s. Furthermore, Jillian had started dating Cleavant Hughes shortly afterwards. While Victor was able to understand academically that Jillian was no longer married to Eugene, it still felt to Victor like Jillian was having an affair with Cleavant. All together, this made him rowdier and angrier for a time, which was ameliorated via weekly family therapy.

Eugene came down with lung cancer when Victor was fourteen due to his smoking, and was affected for two years before suddenly passing away in March of 2019. While this was a very trying time for Victor, it was much less trying than the divorce. This was due to the previous counseling, the fact that there was some warning that a recurrence could be lethal for Eugene, and the fact that Victor received his father’s championship rings. These rings are Victor's most prized possessions, which he presently only takes off when playing sports or while in the shower. As such, while Victor did go to grief counseling, it was only for a period of three months.

In June of 2019, Jillian and Cleavant married and had a daughter, Susie, in November of 2020. Victor was able to come to terms with this in that the wedding had been planned for quite a bit of time prior, and because Eugene had been invited to the wedding. While there are still some issues between Victor and Cleavant, this comes from Victor’s general attitude as opposed to any sort of marriage or parental issues. Likewise, Victor isn’t very attached to Susie, although it is simply due to the large age difference leading to a lack of connection as opposed to any apathy or hatred.

At 14, he joined John Endecott Memorial, by virtue of JEM being the closest public school in the area, and immediately joined the basketball and lacrosse teams. On the basketball team, he became a center due to his height and the fact that he was legitimately the best player for that position. In lacrosse, he became a midfielder due to midfielders utilizing body checking in defense and being involved in scoring goals on offense. During freshman year, he also joined the Body Improvement club as a way of retaining his fitness level in the off-season. He started on JV in both teams in freshman year as one of the lead players, and ended up making the varsity teams in his sophomore year. He is very skilled at these sports and highly driven to help the team improve and win, although people note that he is not very good at accepting failure or misfortune, nor is he very good at accepting advice. This attitude is exacerbated by the fact that basketball is his favorite sport and the John Endecott Memorial basketball team has had a losing record for several years, making Victor see the team as an ill fit for a genuinely skilled player such as himself. Coaches have noted that it is possible to give him constructive criticism by advising him how to improve what he is good at along with those areas that he is less skilled at to help him be more rounded. As a result of this, there is grudging respect for his skill, but very little respect otherwise. When it comes to lacrosse, he is somewhat happier. While his skill is less pronounced, the team’s record reflects that of an improving team, which Victor can more easily accept.

The COVID pandemic did affect Victor, given that his main activities were done in person, and thus had been shut down for the entirety of 2020. As such, for several months, he was unable to participate on the basketball and lacrosse teams. While he was able to go jogging outside to an extent and work out with free weights and resistance bands at home, he had a large void of time. Since he had few friends, with those friends he did have more often than not unable to leave their homes for quite a bit, he took to playing fighting video games, such as Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and Street Fighter. This did take his mind off the relative isolation and boredom that came from the fact that he couldn’t leave the house or participate in any team based physical activity.

Victor is currently a very abrasive, take-charge person. This makes those that he associates with somewhat uneasy, since he does have a tendency to talk over people. However, while he does have a somewhat Darwinist attitude, in the sense that only those who are the best or most adaptable succeed, he is aware that group effort is valuable. As such, he values the contributions of the group to the common good, and welcomes teamwork and a wide variety of opinions. However, he prefers to act in a leadership position, as he believes that he is best suited to the position of the leader.

As of the Fall 2021 semester, Victor’s life has stabilized. He has gotten used to Cleavant as a second father, and is cordial, if distant, towards him. He is able to enjoy himself by participating in physical exercises around other people, and can personally meet with his friends. Academically, he does well, though he prefers concrete courses such as math and science. His future career goal is information technology, due to the necessity and high demand of people working in the field, as well as the high salary paid to those in the field. Currently, he is waiting on applications to UMass Boston, Syracuse University, and Boston College.

Advantages: Victor is exceptionally athletic from his years on sports teams and the body improvement club. In particular, he is very strong, with exceptional grip strength, and he is very hardy. Furthermore, he is a team player who values the success and contributions of the individuals to the whole.
Disadvantages: Victor is very abrasive to others, which has alienated those around him. While part of this is his general nature, he also only gives respect to those that he considers worthy of such. His arrogance has made it very hard time for him to accept failure or misfortune, and he has a need to be right in any debate.

Designated Number: Student No. 024

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Designated Weapon: 1 liter bottle of bourbon

Conclusion: Take some shots (bourbon) before you take some shots (bullets). - Abby Soto