Micah Trobridge--District 11

Micah despises the way he looks. It is not that he is particularly ugly, but rather the exact opposite. He is a handsome young man—a spitting image of his father. Almost everyone he meets goes on and on about how his thin lips, dimpled chin, and somewhat awkwardly large nose bring back memories of the late sharecropper. But the worst is when people look into Micah’s shifty, light brown eyes and comment about how it is “just like looking at Frank.” The only significant difference between the two is the fact that Micah has his mom’s straight brown hair instead of his dad’s thick, black curls. Micah tries to emphasize his hair more than his other facial features by growing it out or letting it get into his eyes, but his efforts to distance himself from his father’s memory are in vain. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask him if he’s Frank’s boy or calling him Mr. Trobridge by accident.

If you can call sharecropping a family business, Micah is already in it and it shows. The boy has been working in other people’s cornfields with his family since he was a little kid. His short frame is covered with a thin layer of solid muscle from hauling large sacks of grain and intense fieldwork. Micah’s firm hands are no strangers to cuts and callouses from the sharp leaves of corn stalks. Like many children in District Eleven, Micah sports a dark farmer’s tan.

Micah Trobridge may not be able to choose his facial features to differentiate himself from his father, but clothing is another story altogether. The teenager would not be caught dead in anything that remotely resembles his father’s dingy t-shirts or overalls. He instead prefers dark clothing. As a young boy, Micah would even find things to stain his hand-me-down shirts to make absolutely certain that his clothes at least did not make him resemble his despised dad. His favorite article of clothing is his black leather jacket that was a gift from his brother-in-law. The jacket may be hot as hell sometimes, but it deviates so much from anything in Frank Trobridge’s wardrobe to compensate for the heat. And that jacket is not coming off. The fifteen year old is very ashamed of the plethora of angry welts and scars on his back and upper arms from past encounters with the Trobridge patriarch, so he flat out refuses to allow anyone to see. Likewise, no matter how hot it is outside, you can find Micah wearing long black jeans. The black is to deviate from the blue denim standard set by his pop and they are never rolled up or replaced by shorts to hide more scars that run down his legs.

Frank Trobridge did an excellent job of destroying his son’s self-confidence, so even now, two years after Frank’s death; Micah’s voice is rarely more than a shy murmur. He is often teased for having a slight stutter, so at school, even his normal mumblings go unheard. This is not to say that Micah cannot be loud. It seems like the boy bottles up the volume that he doesn’t use throughout the day and then uncaps it to use as a megaphone when he is angry. Once he is in one of his little fits of rage, Micah’s booming voice fills the air with low growls. Naturally Micah hates this about himself too as even his “angry voice” reminds him of his dad.

For someone strong enough to work in the field every day, Micah is a wimp. After years of being mistreated, Micah is completely terrified of pain. He is one of the jumpiest individuals that you will ever meet. He despises the loud noises and sudden movements that his body associates with imminent pain. The teenager stays prepared to make himself scarce at a moment’s notice if he anticipates that something may hurt him. As jumpy as he is, most people would expect Micah to have a pretty low pain tolerance but Frank Trobridge took the liberty of ensuring that his son was used to pain. His agliophobia is rooted in a psychological dislike of pain rather than in a fear of being hurt or feeling discomfort. What really bothers the boy is that he is afraid of how he will react to whoever is hurting him and the fact that anytime he hurts, he remembers the horrors of living with an abusive father.

Despite feeling completely inadequate, Micah is actually quite clever. He loves learning and his brains and quiet nature make him a favorite of his teachers. Micah is the kind of person who makes only a few really good friends, but to these friends, not only is he loyal and kind, but he is just fun to be around. With his trusted comrades, Micah shares his witty and often times rather funny observations about the world around him. He has a way of looking at everything in a way that is truly interesting and unique. Micah wishes that he could have spent more time in school instead of being pulled out most days to work on the farm. At school, he can joke around with his friends and get a chance to live a part of the childhood his father stole from him.

Micah is also very close to his family. When his father was alive, all of them had to suffer Frank’s wrath and have their own scars to prove it. Even though his brother-in-law has stepped up to replace Frank as the family patriarch, Micah’s list of responsibilities has grown tremendously as of late. With his sister’s husband working full time, the fifteen year old is expected to tend to his young niece and nephew, put in as many hours as possible in the field, and if he still has time (which is not often), he tries to keep up to date on his homework and do well in school. Micah is closest to his younger brother Ricky, to whom he acts as a mentor in school and around the farm.

Like his father, Micah has trouble controlling his anger. Most of the time, he can go off alone to blow off steam whenever someone makes him mad, but when he cannot, Micah is not someone you want to be around. He whips out his scary voice and all of his 125 pounds whirl around the room throwing stuff in a fit of rage. It doesn’t necessarily take a lot to push the teenager over the edge; just a stinging insult or annoying noise at the wrong time can turn the normally kind and soft spoken boy into a frightening monster of madness. As of right now, he has only had outbursts of this scale a few times and nobody has been hurt. But what if these angry outbursts offer a glimpse of a future in which Micah Trobridge is even more like his dad than he knows?

That is why Micah is more bothered by his episodes than anyone in his family is. He immediately apologizes profusely after he as much as raises his voice. Micah has sworn to never follow in Frank Trobridge’s footsteps. But every day, he has to battle the possibility that Frank’s anger runs through his veins too.

Frank and Molly Trobridge married for convenience at the age of 19. For people who are going to live their lives on a farm, it is a necessity to marry and start having children young to help with farm work. So after only three months of dating, the two were wed and the next year, they had their first child, Ashley. It was not until after Ashley was born that Molly Trobridge realized her mistake. Frank was not a nice fellow to his wife. To Frank, the proper response to an overcooked supper was to slap his wife and when his daughter cried at an inopportune time, he would find Molly and beat her around for not keeping the baby quiet. Without a marketable skill, Molly was forced to put up with her husband’s behavior because Frank had a sharecropping deal with the owner of a large corn farm and he could put food on the table for Ashley. For years, Molly turned to long sleeved shirts and excessive makeup to hide the marks of her husband’s wrath. She got pregnant two more times in the next few years, but “fell down the stairs” during each pregnancy and was unable to carry to term. But when Ashley was five, she managed to appease Frank enough to avoid serious beatings for nine months and had a son, Micah.

Micah was born small and as a kid, he was never particularly tough, making him an ideal target for his dad’s misdeeds. Molly worried for her son’s safety and sent Micah off to school with his sister when he was only three just to get him out of his father's unsafe house. While Micah was little, he could hardly go a day without doing something “naughty” and getting switched. The bruises on his back and legs became a fixture in his appearance, so he learned from his mother and used modest clothing to hide his shame in being such a bad son. Ashley benefitted greatly from her brother’s presence. With him around to harass, Frank hardly had time to deal with her, and she was able to go through her pre-adolescent years under her father’s radar.

Molly Trobridge’s second son came when Micah was four and brought a new set of problems. Ashley and Micah both resembled their father, but Molly’s third son, Caleb, did not. Frank convinced himself that Molly had been sleeping around with other men and the aftermath of his rage put moth Molly and Caleb in the apothecary’s upper room with a multitude of bruises and broken bones. With Molly out of the house, recovering, and Ashley too afraid of her dad to do anything, Micah faced the worst year of his life. He was lashed daily and humiliated by his father. By the age of five, Micah was a defeated child, convinced that he was a monster who deserved to be brutally punished. He started to stutter when he spoke and he would avoid other kids out of fear that they would find out his secret.

After recovering with the apothecary and spending some time with her sister, Molly returned home out of fear for her children. Caleb had suffered severe trauma to the head, and he was expected to have brain damage, but he was alive. The Trobridges continued their painful lives.

But then, everything changed for little Micah. At school, he learned to read and discovered the magic of books. He was already working the fields, and his father still loved to cause him pain, but now, Micah could escape. He could fall into a book where the good little boy’s daddy loves him and takes care of him or where he doesn’t have to work with the nasty corn plants until its dark outside. Micah read everything in the house and went out in search of new reading material. And he found it. There was a store that only sold books! But they sold the books—like for money, which he didn’t have. So he did the practical thing and snuck a couple home to read and bring back before they were missed. It would have been a blessing if the store manager had caught Micah stealing books, but instead, Frank Trobridge was the one who noticed his son’s new reading material. Frank was pissed. What ensued was the worst beating of young Micah’s life. His father came after him with a large stick and ensured that Micah’s entire back was dripping blood. All the while, Frank screamed that Micah was a no good thief, a disappointment, a poor excuse for a human being…. A majority of Micah’s scars—both physical and psychological—came from that day nine years ago. But like his mother, sister, and brother, Micah bore the pain quietly and alone. He waited for protection that would never come.

Like her mother, Ashley Trobridge married young. By the time she was eighteen, she was hitched to a fellow sharecropper, Landon Caraway and pregnant with twins. Unlike her mother, Ashley managed to find a man who actually cared about her and her family. It didn’t take long for the Trobridges to figure out that Landon was the future of the family. He was just as capable as Frank, but without the violent tendencies everyone had come to know and hate. He was kind to Molly and her boys and when Ashley delivered her babies, he was a great father. But his family’s interest and approval of Landon made Frank very jealous.

Micah was thirteen on the last night he was beat. He was cowering in fear in a corner with his mom and brother as his demented father used a broken bottle to slash at his face. Micah can hear his mother’s cries of agony ringing in his ears. He can see the jagged outline of the dark green bottle and feel the scrape of the glass against his cheekbone. Micah and Caleb got away with just a few gashes to their arms and faces. Gashes that have for the most part healed. But Molly got the worst of her husband’s wrath. The scars on her face were deep and many, but the scars on her heart were much worse. Molly Trobridge knew what she had to do.

Frank Trobridge died the next morning in a tragic tractor accident. His wife did not see him as drove a tractor through the field and poor Frank was crushed under the machine’s tire. Molly was devastated, but claimed to have not heard her husband screaming over the roar of the engine. It was all a…terrible, unfortunate disaster. After a quiet funeral, Molly and her kids moved in with Landon and Ashley. The family works hard to keep food on the table without Frank’s help, but they are able to keep their heads held high and provide for themselves.

The Trobridges had never been happier or safer. Everyone got along fine until Micah’s first outburst. It happened as a result of Ashley curtly telling him to pick a few more rows before turning in for the night. Something just snapped in the boy. He yelled at his sister, threw the corn he had already picked onto the ground, and within minutes, uprooted the nearest twelve or so corn stalks. Ashley was not hurt, but she was incredibly frightened. What would have happened if she was closer to her brother than the corn? After the episode, Micah felt awful. He felt that his apology was insufficient and he worried that he would become like his father. Micah had the knife, ready to kill himself and avoid that fate, but his deep fear of pain saved him. Try as he might, he could not bring himself to rip through his own flesh.

So Micah Trobridge is still here. The family is cohesive, but some relationships are strained. Everyone knows to give the angsty teenager some space when he is in one of his moods. That leaves Micah to be haunted by the ghosts of his past. Every day he hears his father telling him he’s worthless. Every day he feels his father beating his back, cutting his face, and whipping his legs. But worst of all, every day Micah sees his father staring back at him in the mirror and wonders if one day, his son will try so hard to forget the pain caused by him.