Iago Izar-McClaine, D11 [Done]

I a g o
I z a r – M c C l a i n e

{Age} 14

{Gender} Male

{District} 11

•••

{What is important}
{What's really important}
{Am I not to know by my name}
{Will I ever know silence without mental violence}
{With a ringing it might go away}

•••

I should start off by apologizing. Count yourself lucky because it’s not something that comes out of my mouth often. You’re probably tired of hearing all the ain’ts that populate the mouth of my fellow districters when they talk. You see, the closest most of them have come to proper literature and schooling is the half-mile from the rusted out school house. The other day I asked a boy what ten by ten would be and he looked me in the face and you know what he said? He said that ain’t no reason to figure out numbers on account of them being for the capitol and thinking folk

[/color]. I wanted to slap him across the face then and there. Could you imagine[/color]? Someone actually saying that they didn’t need to think because someone else would do it for them? I would’ve let him have it if he didn’t look like a typical knuckle dragging mouth breather.

I thank my lucky stars that I’m taller than most boys my age. It’s kept me out of trouble. With a full head on most of the boys my age, I can give them the old stare down if one tries to pick a fight. Not that I haven’t been on the receiving end of some nasty punches. I can count my fair share of black eyes over the past couple of years. I’ll have you know that I happen to have a mouth that may say the wrong thing at the wrong moment, but it’s usually entirely necessary. Honestly, you have no idea how frustrating it is to always roll your eyes and say nothing. Every so often I have to put my hand onto my hip and put people into their place, or point out where they’re missing the point.

Everyone is horribly dirty here as well. I get that we live and breathe the fields, but it’s as though everyone is comfortable letting dirt pile up under their toes and fingernails. It’s as though they’ve been picking at tar the way some of them have nails so black! It makes me gag. I’m thankful for running water and a hot shower, with lots of soap and a towel to wipe clean. If I go more than a day without a shower I just feel disgusting. There’s too much sweat and it’s too hot—my underarms have hair under them now so I smell more than I used to. That’s what gets me most, is the smell that you can taste at the back of your throat. Usually I can smell it off of my cousins when they’ve been working the week in the fields during the summer. It’s an acrid stench that puts me on the edge of dry heaves. I’m happier that we hardly see any of them anymore.

•••

We like to keep order in our house. My mother and father have taught me just how important that appearance is, especially to separate from the rest of the district. I always have my shirt tucked into my pants and part my hair to the side. Dad got me pomade from the shop that I’ve started to use to keep it into place. Every three weeks I cut my fingernails and toenails, and I’ll file them to make sure that they’re all the same length and shape. Things just feel so much better when there’s a sense of order. Even if we aren’t rich by anyone’s standards, we still do our best not to look as drab as the rest of our cousins. Then again, it’s not hard when they all walk into a dinner with mud on their pant cuffs and dirt on their sleeves. I suppose I would be judged more harshly if our extended family weren’t so enormous. Thank goodness for that.

What kind of nicknames do they have for me? I don’t rightly know because I wouldn’t listen to the sort of stuff that those noodlebrains would have to say. But if I did, it might be something along the lines of me being too much of a know-it-all and a wet blanket. I can’t help it though that they all are a bunch of rubes growing up in a Podunk district doing nothing with their lives. See, they all lack ambition. That’s what separates most of the people in this district. There are the people that serve the bread, and people that eat the bread. All of the people in this district are destined to serve the bread. Even if you polished them off and taught them how to address people as sir and ma’am, they’d never be capable. It’s that saying, about how you can’t polish a turd.

When I was growing up I would have to spend whole afternoons with my cousins. My parents said that it was good for me to spend time with boys closer to my age. So I’d get lumped with that duff Sampson, and the rest of the Izar boys and girls would all spend time in the fields singing and laughing and playing games. They would just go on and on about stupid things, about boys and girls—Sampson would want to play pretend, but the only things he ever seemed to think about were the farm, his dog, and the stars. He was a lot happier then—before he lost his brother. Now I think he spends most of his time crying and moping about, but to be honest I haven’t really spent time with any of the Izars since I was about twelve. It’s hard to believe that we’re of the same blood (though there are so many Izars I guess it’s not that hard[/color]).

I prefer being alone anyway. It’s easier to get thoughts strung together without having to be interrupted by a bunch of mushmouths. It’s why I consider myself lucky—my father is a counter, as is my mother, for the inventory of the crops. He manages what goes in and out of the warehouses, which means he doesn’t have to spend long hours in the fields. He’s training me in the same sort of work, since I’m good with numbers. I can add, subtract, multiply, and even do long division. He says that by the time I’m out of reaping age he might be out of a job. I told him I would go easy on him once I’m the boss. He laughed, but it’s half true. I’m going to be mayor of this whole district someday. And once I am, there are going to be a lot of changes.

•••

People used to ask me about Benat a lot more. I suppose I could have lied and said that he was a wonderful, amazing cousin that should never be forgotten. To be honest, he was already four years older than me, and the most that I remember is that he was king of the boys that liked to get dirty and stay dirty. Like, piggy dirty. I will never understand what the attraction girls had to him was for—disgusting. I mean, his face was soft and he had a good smile. And I don’t know if I ever heard anyone ever sing the spirituals the way that he could. One time we wrestled, and I thought that he was awfully strong for a boy his age. But no, I never did know him that well. It’s a shame what happened, really—I suppose we could have done more, if my parents had decided to do so.

We’re half-Izars. My mother was an Izar, and met my father while the two were still in school. Both of them were at the top of their class, and as my father puts it, they were smitten with each other the moment my mother noticed that he used a napkin in his lap. They got jobs out of the fields, which meant a lot better life for the both of them. It meant a house rather than being stuck out on a farm, and a steady income, rather than having to rely on the fields. They weren’t at the mercy of the dust storms that choked the crops, or the flash floods that wiped out whole acres. The better off they got to be, the more distance they put between them and the Izars. My mom said it was because they kept asking for help—food, clothes, whatever they could give. But I think it’s because she didn’t want to be known as being related to them.

Big families are always a problem that way. They say if you prick a finger in district 11, you’ll probably draw a drop of Izar blood. But I’m more McClaine than Izar. My father’s only got his mother left, and she dresses up in her Sunday best almost every day of the week. She puts a napkin in her lap and wears lipstick on her lips. She’s a real lady, not like the ones that walk around here with bags under their eyes and dirt under their fingernails. I’m not some simpleton from the backwater of the district. We’re a good family—the kind that’s striven for better. I can see it in the way my father’s taught me everything. I’m a gentleman, not some inbred hick. The fact is that most around here laugh at manners because they don’t find them useful.

I do intend to show all of them. The first thing I want to do is drop that Izar name, once I’m old enough and on my own. I’ll be a manager of intake just like my father. I’ll be able to make my own way, and once I’ve shaken enough hands and made a big enough name—especially on top of his name—then I’ll be able to do real things. I’ll be able to run the show and teach the rest of them just how to act and who to be. That’s life, anyway—to be always looking forward, and to come out on top. And I know that I’ll never be at the bottom if I just keep pushing forward. Because I’m not like the rest of them here.[/color]

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