Blaze I. Kenmore {D1} {FIN}

Blaze I. Kenmore
District One
Eighteen
Female
FC Kate Potter

Right now, ah’m look at the shiner bruising around ma right eye. Pops’d make me train twice as hard if he saw it. But Pops’s dead ‘n’ buried on account of he drank hisself to death two years ago. I miss him. I look a mess right now, but ah still look like him. Red hair, freckles and ears that look a mite too small fer my head. He always said I had Momma’s eyes, but I don’t remember too much about her. I was five when she passed. Some kinda disease that wastes the whole body away, and we ain’t had enough money to pay for treatment. She must have had some real purty green eyes though. I know I got my heart from Pops though.

I’m hot tempered. Take after Pops like that. I think that's why he named me Blaze. It don’t take much to get me heated and raring for a scrap. That’s another word for a fight, if’n your too fancy to know that. Oh yeah, I don’t fight fair if I can avoid it. Life ain’t fair, so why should I be? I got a pocket fulla sand all tha time. You get into a fight, that’s the first thing you hit’em with. They can’t see you, they can’t hit you. That’s when you punch ‘em in the throat. But a strong kick to the groin works too. I can still remember the best piece of advice Pops gave me afore he died.

Like it was yesterday.

You see them out there lollygagging? The Shores and the Lumieres n the frays and what have you? You ain’t a Darkfire. You sure as hell ain’t a Moreno. You a nobody, jess like you Pops. You ain’t one of them, ya hear? You weren’t born with a silver spoon jammed up ya ass girl. You from the wrong side of the tracks. You want something? You gotta work for it.

Ok Pops. You been gone awhile, but I ain’t forgot what you taught me. I know I ain’t nothing special. Not in this fancypants district. I’ll make something of myself, just you wait. Well— I guess you got all the time in the world on account of being dead, but that’s okay. Ain’t nobody around knows my middle name anymore and that’s a real relief. I don’t like Isabel that much. Everybody got something they don’t like to talk about.

The thing that rich folks don’t like to talk about is that even District One got its slums. Everybody can’t be a career. Everybody can’t make jewelry or live off they grandpappy’s estate. We got gangs in tha bad parts of town. Some of us gotta take out the trash ‘n’ clean the toilets. Yeah, yeah, ah know, plenty of them rich folks act like they ain’t use the shitter like tha rest of us, but they do, trust me, they do. I may not have gotten much school’n but I know the score. Especially when ah’m the one cleaning the toilets.

If you ain’t figured it by now, my Pops prolly wanted a son, but he got stuck with me. But that’s okay. He still treated me real good after momma died. We wuz always struggling ta make ends meet though. He didn’t make a whole lotta money cleaning toilets for them rich folks, but he saved and scrounged and set up a gym in our house. He couldn’t afford ta send me to train with the real careers, but I don’t think I’d have liked that anyway. Rich folk got a way of looking at you that makes you feel small. Like you ain’t worth the time it takes to notice you.

Anyways, my Pops learned how to fight when he was a young ‘un. From who exactly, he never did say. But he passed those lessons onto me. Taught me how to be a real ringer, a boxer. He couldn’t afford ta get me a practice sword or ax or a bow. But he had weights and he had punching bags, two of which I wore holes in. I know how to use my fists and my feet real good. Jabs, hooks; I gotta mean roundhouse kick too. I ain’t above scratching ‘n’ biting neither. I said it before, life ain’t fair, and I never seen a reason to fight fair neither.

So one day soon, I really hope ah do get picked in the reaping. Ah need to make him proud, show him I got what it takes. That could just about sum up my whole chil’hood right there. That’s me. Blaze I. Kenmore. And jess like my uppercut, when I finally git my chance to show up all these here fancy-pants in district one, they ain’t ever gonna see me coming.