“I don’t mean to be so damned….well, assholish I guess would be the word.”
Truer words have never been spoken in service of a bald-faced lie. Accurate in that he is indeed an asshole – perhaps the finest example of the breed in the entire history of the South – but also a full-on assault on veracity for even suggesting that it’s an accident. An unforced error. An option among many. No, Doyle Hargraves means it. Every time, without apology. It’s the old on/off switch, only his off never stays put unless he’s asleep. Even then, his dreams continue the narrative. As portrayed by country artist Dwight Yoakam, Doyle is everything nasty, brutish, and short about Dixie masculinity. Only Dwight’s a six-footer. But in attitude, he’s every inch the small man. The pipsqueak. The bully who can’t fathom a universe that doesn’t cater to his whims and pipe dreams. Naturally, he has a girlfriend. Who willingly provides him with a place to live. Some things never change.
While Sling Blade remains Karl’s tale, it is Doyle who ultimately gives him (and the film) purpose. Released from an institution after many years (for matricide, of all things), Karl (Billy Bob Thornton) finds himself befriended by young Frank (Lucas Black), son of Linda (Natalie Canerday), who just happens to be the one shacking up with Doyle. Their connection is the heart and soul of the movie, while Doyle, God bless him, remains something akin to its anus. After a particular nasty shit. Without the requisite clean-up. But in the end, he will be its salvation. Especially for the Wheatley clan. Faced with a world too complex and horrible to contemplate (for a man unable to contemplate much), Karl believes that committing one more murder is the best and only way to return to simplicity and peace. Sure, the act helps a woman escape from violence, and a boy to have whatever shot is due him in rural Arkansas, but above all, it’s about survival. He’s not fit for this world, especially a world full of Doyles. Just a matter of time before another one crosses his path.
Doyle, as expected, is a construction worker, a profession that does require a certain degree of skill, but is also one that affords a man a great deal of leeway. Work is seasonal, sporadic, and months can pass between gigs. Which is the way Doyle likes it, given his propensity for all-night alcohol binges. He catches winks when he can, but only to recharge the batteries for a few extra hours of nastiness. When he’s not yelling, he’s boiling, and he loves nothing more than berating his buddies for not living up to his wild expectations. You see, Doyle has a band. A terrible band, but one that could, in his mind, provide an escape from his no-account life if they weren’t so damn lazy. Some nights – most, really, given how they all run together – Doyle will release the hounds of hell with the phrase that Linda finds most chilling: “I’m callin ‘em up.” Four words that mean but one thing: a house full of idiots making so much noise, the police are bound to show up. And yes, no sleep for anyone within earshot, which is the way he wants it. Your shut eye couldn’t possibly be as important as my music. So shut the hell up and revel in the brilliance.
Naturally, after a night of picking away at their instruments and chugging assorted bottles of whatever was half-price down at the liquor store, the men turn surly. Especially Doyle. Head-to-toe the most self-hating man in the civilized world, Doyle will round off this gathering – like every gathering – with insults, accusations, and paranoid delusions. Before long, the clarion call of the damned will spit forth. “Get the fuuuuck out!”, he roars, treating friend and foe alike as mortal enemies to be vanquished. We’ve been here before, likely hundreds of times, but it still stings. But here they are again, lining up for the abuse as if mandated by court order. Even the wheelchair-bound companion isn’t spared the vitriol. Reduced to a “crippled prick” he too is raked over the hellfire-soaked coals that stand in for Doyle’s very existence. It’s undeniably violent, the air teeming with possibilities (all bad), but let’s face it, it’s also ferociously funny. So funny, in fact, that I still quote the scene thirty years later. To this day, the only thing that makes me mad about the whole thing is that Yoakam didn’t win the Academy Award.
Plaudits aside, Doyle remains the ultimate asshole. We may laugh at his antics, but remember, as an audience, we’re far removed. As such, I think of Linda, Frank, or even poor Vaughan (John Ritter), a gay man doomed to live in the one town most likely to form a hanging party in his honor. What are they to do? Still, had this been fifty years prior and the Klan very much alive and well, it still wouldn’t match the danger posed by Doyle. He’s a man without purpose, talent, or direction – with the expected whiskey dick to match – and as we know, America’s graveyards are full of the unfortunate victims who had the unhappy accident of getting in their way. Take this little nugget, in reference to Karl:
“Hey is this the kind of retard that drools and rubs shit in his hair and all that, ’cause I’m gonna have a hard time eatin’ ’round that kind of thing now. Just like I am with antique furniture and midgets. You know that, I can’t so much as drink a damn glass of water around a midget or a piece of antique furniture.”
Yes, a perfect encapsulation of Doyle’s bigotry, but so incongruous to the limited intellect of the man, we can’t help but admire its audacity. I mean, “midget” and “antique furniture” in the same sentence? Some folks fear snakes, public speaking, and flying, but this one, well, he’s shaking in his boots over Tattoo and a 19th century armoire. Yes, he deserves to be hacked to bits, but before we proceed, can we pick that brain for more? There’s gold in them thar hills, even if it’s a brain that long ago stopped operating for good. It’s all Doyle. So much so, in fact, that after the funeral, we hope they find a diary filled with similar observations. If you’re going to be a prick in this life, best be a quotable one. It won’t make those left behind miss you one bit – Linda least of all – but some day, decades later, we might muster a smile. Perhaps a bit more.
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