Alvin Marsh

"Sometimes I worry about you Bevvy. I worry a lot"

- Alvin Marsh to his daughter Beverly.

Alvin Marsh is a minor villain in Stephen King's It. He is the widowed spouse of the late Elfrida Marsh and the abusive father of Beverly Marsh and hates it when she hangs around with boys. He is also a form Pennywise uses to frighten Beverley, since she is afraid of him.

In the novel and the 2-part miniseries, he dies by unknown causes, though it is possible that he was eaten by Pennywise. It was also implied, in the novel, that he was sexually attracted to his own daughter.

He was portrayed by Frank C. Turner.

Personality
Like Butch Bowers (Henry Bowers's dad) and Eddie Corcoran's stepfather Richard Macklin, Al occasionally abuses his daughter. Unlike Butch and Richard, he tends to beat and abuse Beverly for odd reasons, even though he does not smoke or drink too much (which are often the two key elements of child abuse). In the book, in fact, it was mentioned that he didn't drink at all, a fact that Beverly often thanked God for in her prayers. While beating her, he constantly tends to say "Sometimes, I worry about you, Bevvie, sometimes I worry a lot."

Another strange thing that separates Al Marsh from Butch Bowers and Richard Macklin is that, unlike how Butch and Richard were towards their respective kids, Al could be truly kind and loving to Beverly as often as he could be cruel and abusive to her. She had a lot of genuinely good memories of times spent with him and things he taught her, and he did seem to love her in his own way. It was likely that a big part of the reason why he abused her was because he simply confused beatings with discipline.

1958
While Alvin Marsh is sitting in his chair drinking alcohol and watching television, Beverly was tidying up in the bathroom when IT's presence in the voices of lost children begin to taunt Beverly from the drain in the sink. Then the children's voices morph into IT's voice and a big red balloon rises from the drain in the sink and explodes, flooding the sink and covering Beverly in blood. As would be expected, Beverly begins screaming and attracts the attention of her father. He comes in, believing that a peeping Tom was looking in on his precious daughter, and ends up hitting her across the face. (He worries about her, he worries a lot.)  She realizes that he cannot see the blood that covers the bathroom and decides to tell him instead of the blood that she saw a big spider. He leaves after checking out the drain, much to the horror of Beverly as he covers his own hands in the mysterious blood.

The blood does not disappear, and she shows it to her friends a day or so later. The Losers' Club helps clean it up when her father is gone one day.

1985
Beverly arrives in town and goes to her old home. She sees her father's name on the doorbell, but when she rings it, an old woman comes out. She introduces herself as Mrs. Kersh, who tells Beverly that Alvin Marsh has been dead for five years. (Somewhat strange that Beverly would never have been informed of her own father's death). Beverly checks the doorbell and realizes that she apparently mistaken and that the name is Kersh. She apologizes and Mrs. Kersh invites her in for tea. Beverly accepts and discovers that the place has been entirely redecorated.

She freshens up in the bathroom and hastily plugs the drain. She runs a bit of water and then hesitates, and when Mrs. Kersh calls out to her, asking her what is taking her so long. Beverly realizes that the sink is now halfway full of water from the leaky faucet. She goes to have tea with Mrs. Kersh, who nastily slurps down her tea. Beverly realizes that the woman's teeth are rotting, and discovers that her tea has transformed into blood (feces in the book). She drops the cup and realizes that it did say "Marsh" on the doorbell. Pennywise then adopts the voice of her father, another great fear of hers since childhood, who says that he wishes that Beverly would be wise to leave while she can. Alvin tells Beverly that he always worried about her, he always worried alot, causing Beverly to become frightened of him. Alvin chases after Beverly, trapping her into a corner near the locked door and admitted that he loved beating her up, he beaten her because he secretly wanted to rape her. He also told her that nobody who died in Derry really died. Alvin chases Beverly to the door, attempting to grab her as Beverly screams "You're not real! You're not even alive!", then Beverly manages to escape into the streets.

Quotes

 * "I worry about you, Bevvy. Sometimes, I worry alot!"
 * "Have you been doing something that you shouldn't be doing?"
 * "Have you been fooling around with some boy?"
 * "POETRY from some boy?!"
 * "Not even 12 and already fooling around with some boy!"
 * "You come here!"
 * "Don't make me come and collect you, Bevvy!"
 * "What did you say?!"
 * "You get the hell right back here, Bevvy!"
 * "You get back here or by God, I'll whip the skin off you'!"
 * "Speak up, girl!!"
 * "It won't do you any good to run away from me, Bevvy!"