≪ adonis ackerman ≫ district 11

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From the moment I was born, I feel that my existence was extremely free of struggle. My mother worked for my grandmother’s medicinal herb shop breeding a special strain of herb to heal tracker jacker stings quicker and faster and more effectively than ever thought before. We lived in a small house together where I had my own small, personal room for my own. While some children had to fend their siblings off for an extra bite of bread or seconds that would satisfy their hunger, I feel that I never really had to concern myself with hunger. My life as a toddler seemed to be nearly perfect. The only thing I clearly remember concerning me was my lack of patriarchal influence.
My mother was a single parent. She always told me this fantastic story of how she met a man, a Capitol Peacekeeper that was on duty in District 11 at the time, and they liked each other an exceptional amount to decide to have a child; This child was me. Apparently, the man had just grown lonely of his life away from his wife and children in the Capitol and decided to have a little fun with a local. The moment she consoled him about her pregnancy, he immediately denied having any relationship with my mother. After she pleaded for him to help her raise her unborn baby boy, they met in the middle. This unknown man admitted that he will keep the child sustained and healthy as long as my mother never admitted to even knowing the man.
{I don’t know if this is true or not, to be completely honest with you. I always remembered having the same crescent-shaped roll for nutriment that seemed to be created from thin air, but I have no idea whether the fable of the Peacekeeper was true or not. For all I know, my mother could have simply been trolloping around the District and needed her parents, my grandparents, to help keep me fed and healthy. This may have been a clever ruse to keep me from being embarrassed of her past - my past.}
Whenever I traversed town with my family – whether it was to market or town square for ceremonies – I feel that I never escaped the glares and stares of those around me. It felt like I was constantly being watched and judged; I felt like I was constantly the center of everyone’s whispered chatter. It makes sense now that I am old enough to comprehend it. A woman miraculously gets pregnant and has a child with no patriarch or father to be seen. It must have been a mystery that the, as the batty women of District 11 nicknamed her, “Virgin Mary Anne Ackerman” had become a mother without even hinting to who the father was. I was viewed as either a bastard or a savior before I was even old enough the world I had entered.

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Before I knew it, I had begun public school. I think I enjoyed the pure excitement getting to explore the District outside of market days or public service announcements. I pranced on my daily commutes to school and attempted to communicate with the adults working stalls and stands as I passed. I met a plethora of people on these commutes, like Mrs. Tulip who would always squeeze my then chubby cheeks and give me a sort-of fresh apple as I passed. I was made fun of in school for my large teeth and eyes that my face had yet to grow into. My hair was always messy, and the judgemental brats that I educated with had judged me from the very beginning. This may have been the root of my personality when I finally reached average attractiveness through puberty.
One of the worst moments of my life during this time frame would be on the date of November 12th. It was an autumnal, warm day and I was passing by the Market on my way from school. I had witnessed a woman chatting with another coworker, ignoring her stall of fresh peaches completely. My small hand had just grasped a fuzzy fruit when another, larger hand had grabbed my wrist with ferociousness. I looked up into the cold, hazel eyes of a man that seemed to mirror me entirely. “What do you think you’re doing, kid?” The Peacekeeper man’s voice seemed to croak as he asked me this question. My eyes, twinkling in amazement, stared at the face that looked similar to mine. His dark hair, his hazel eyes, this had to be…
{This was the biggest mistake of my life. Some people say “everything happens for a reason”, and I believe it, but this moment will literally and physically scar me for the remainder of my life. I have no idea if what occurred was because of my question or my previous action, but it had scarred me from dealing with the Peacekeepers from this moment on.}
“Are you my father?” I asked, my voice quiet and full of childish curiousity. He stared back at me, and I suppose he had begun to cause a scene in the Market as he was still squeezing my wrist with the peach still in my grasp.
I don’t really remember what happened next, but I assume that he had struck me and knocked me unconscious. I recall his voice, amplified mechanically, screaming out to the Town Square in rage. “This, ladies and gentleman, is what happens when you attempt to steal from those who ever so graciously feed you!” I felt a searing pain in my back as the feeling of a whip struck my back in pain. My eyes were watering and my mind began to leave my body. I heard his voice once again, “The Capitol will punish all found guilty of thievery! Whether it be the oldest of you…” he paused here, landing one additional strike with the whip on my back. “or the youngest of you, you will experience maximum punishment.” I winced, expecting another sting from the whip until another voice screamed out of the crowd.

“STOP!” Her voice was shrill over the blank crowd, gasping their displeasures I would assume. The heavy footsteps were nothing like my mother’s, I could hear her strutting on the rough ground. “This youngin’ has taken his punishment, Sir.” It was Mrs. Tulip, with her dark skin and kind personality. The man paused, and released me from my punishment. This public punishment taught me two things: to never steal and to never randomly ask a peacekeeper if he was my parent. After this, my mother seemed to become immediately stressed and worrisome. This moment in my life ended my “care-free” childhood that I had previously enjoyed. In an attempt to keep me safe – and perhaps, keep her safe – she sent me to my Grandfather and Grandmother’s farm in a distant corner of District 11 far from the Square that forever reminded me of punishment and pain.

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The farm was an interesting transition. It seemed somewhat more carefree and simple here. However, my grandparents kept me grounded emotionally. Whenever I had free time to spend on myself, I found that I had to work on the farm with my aging grandfather. I worked from sun up to sun down whenever I wasn’t being educated about the history of Panem. My grandfather never truly trusted me to use tools or blades to help him harvest his crops that he prepared. However, he only trusted me with mediocre, medial tasks such as moving hay bales to and from the storage area.
I rarely saw my mother or Mrs. Tullip or any friends I had made as a child once I left for the farm. It gave me a lot of time to perfect myself emotionally and physically. The scars that my classmates who had bullied me for my appearance were fixed whenever I found free time. The acne scars I began to develop from instantly popping the blister under my skin was covered in globs of aloe gel to reform, to no avail. It appeared, however, whenever I wasn’t concerned with my physical appearance, the labor seemed to fix my imperfections. I could take off the glasses to avoid the nickname “four eyes”, and my darker skin slightly hid the imperfections my acne had created. My skinny frame was replaced by a thick, sturdy body that avoided any comparisons to a pencil or giraffe.
Once I reached the age of seventeen, my mother came to visit. She wrote a letter {for once} that gave details of her life up to this point in time, and she had told me she had some “big, big news!” to tell me once we had seen each other face to face. The only mistake I had noticed, however, was that she signed her name at the bottom of the page “Mary Anne Santucci” Santucci? Whenever I had left our home in District 11, she and I both had the same surname that her parents shared. The news, I later figured out, was that she had met a man many years ago but he had been married to his wife at the time. She stated that they fell in love before my conception was even a thought in her head. Until recently, she believed that he was still living with his wife until they had met at the market. His wife had passed, apparently, and they rekindled their love and got married without my knowledge. I was speechless to the woman that birthed me. The only clear thing I remember her saying was “He can basically be like your father! Won’t that be exciting?” I responded with a sterdy, emotionless, “I have no father, and to say otherwise is ridiculous, Mary Anne.”
My mother and I, from the point she had shipped me away to live with my grandparents, lost our relationship, if we ever had one. However, she requested that I return home and stay with her until I was finished with school and ready for the workforce. My grandparents, to my astonishment, agreed it would be better to resocialize me into society. So, every weekday is spent in school with people and every weekend I walk a few miles to my grandparents farm to stay. Being reintroduced to the classmates who tortured me in my youth was rather satisfying. Those who had not fallen to famine or hard work in the fields had reintroduced themselves to me with a new found respect that I had craved since the beginning. My return to the heart of District 11 yielded shocking results: Mrs. Tulip, my friendly protector, had died in some sort of “arsenal accident” a year ago. My mother married a man who had already possessed a son, a Mr. Evan Santucci. Evan and I were classmates when we were younger, and I’m pretty sure he was one of the bullies I experienced. My resentment to him now that I am bigger, stronger, and better is obvious – I spend every waking moment attempting to let the boy know I am better than him. I also am related to a little girl, Anabelle Santucci, who is a year old as of now.

*PERSONALITY

Some may call me a pompous man, but I see it more as a confidence. It may be that I consider myself an alpha dog in some situations, but I don’t run around urinating on all the men in District 11 to prove my dominance. I feel that these personality traits that people describe me with stem from their own inner jealousy. Not everyone can have confidence in themselves like I possess, so they angrily judge those around them who possess these acquired social traits. I don’t attempt to force everyone to believe that I am the gift to Mother Earth – however, if everyone feels that way there is no use in denying it. It isn’t my problem that people cannot deal with a strong man compared to themselves.
The main compliment I hear is from individuals calling me “charming”. When I am introduced to people I have never met previously, I feel that my social skills that my grandmother taught me from a young age come in handy. I feel that I can mold people to believing me – trusting me, even. It’s a skill few have and that makes it a gift. The ability to smile and look at someone and make them feel something is a gift all of its own. This doesn’t, by any means, make me a womanizer or anything of the sorts. I am a simply charming boy who can be kind when he needs to be.

Perhaps calling myself an alpha dog was a little extreme in describing myself. I feel, however, that I truly am a dominant human being. I only feel that this dominance stems from my younger years of being bullied by my schoolmates for my history and appearance. This, in general, seems to be the reason I act the way I do. I focus purely on myself – attempting to help myself look better to the public world. I’m a shallow man. The façade of a charming farm boy with an alpha-male personality is just a ruse to trick everyone around me into believing it’s my true form. Someday I hope that I will be able to masterfully trick myself into believing the same thing.
Being emotionless, however, doesn’t mean I care about nothing. I care about myself, my grandparents, some of the friends I have met in school. I care for humans in general. However, I guess my childhood has led me to believe that this caring, sensitive side needs to be hidden by a rough external shell of pompousness and cockiness to protect myself. This had led me to become extremely independent of others – I am a leader to myself rather than a follower of others. This, in my opinion, is the only good, true thing that has come from my inner separation of my connections to the society around me.

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