The Guard

There were "so many things" O'Leary wanted to do, so many plans into which hadn't been factored the Derringer down Boyle's y-fronts. “Like what for fucks sake? Run with the bulls at Pamplona?”

There are so many things Boyle wanted to do too, but his hasn't been an empty life. When opportunities present themselves he generally takes them. When a car crash produces a tab of acid he takes it there and then. He wants a threesome with two women dressed as police officers? He orders them in.

He's a liar of course. He may or may not have tried crack. He may not have come fourth in the 1500m freestyle at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.  He probably hasn't visited Disney World on his own. He may not have ever left Ireland. He's taken what life has given him without going to look for anything else. Until, maybe, the last.

In this way he's the everyman. He's every jobbing trust administrator or civil servant, except he wears a uniform and finds the occasional dead body. He's the middle class with class, and a sharp tongue.

When the opportunity of FBI agent Wendell Everett presents itself, he baits it. He doesn't seek out the big catch but he casts the line and waits. The case does come his way. So it goes.

Has Boyle read Vonnegut? Perhaps. While Sheehy, O'Leary and Cornell aim to impress each other with their favourite philosophers, Boyle feigns ignorance. On the Russian writers he exclaims to his mother "they take too long getting to the fecking point".

Although the smugglers have gone out and looked for a life that's theirs while Boyle has found his own where he happens to be, they have much in common. It's a life of regret, a life of dissatisfaction, almost bemusement that it got to this point and, well, is this it? ("What's the point? It's all so fucking meaningless." "The money") They suspect that a more conventional life may be preferable. Would a monogamous relationship be more fulfilling? The smugglers posit the idea openly and it occurs to Boyle as soon as he discovers the truth about Gabriela's marriage. Had they all kicked against the pricks too long?

He may mock the many things O'Leary had wanted to do but he understands well enough. In conversation with his mother, Eileen, for whom he cares beyond anyone's appreciation:

Eileen: “What about amyl nitrate? What does that do for you?”

Boyle: “What am I? A fucking drugs aficionado? What’s with the interest all of a sudden?”

Eileen: “I don’t know, I feel I’ve missed out.”

Boyle: “You missed out on amyl nitrate?”

Eileen: “No, generally I’m saying.”

Boyle: “Sure, you have missed out generally. You’re not alone there.”