Funny then, to come to another realization (it must be the fact that I am just so comfortable, most at ease, when in this house):
I am a fighter that has always loathed the act of fighting.
The sweet science is one of the most difficult to master and somewhere I found out that I was a natural. Well…maybe the truth is:
YOU CAN LIE ABOUT THAT TOO
I proclaimed myself a fighter and not just a fighter but a:
STRATEGIST
Not a boxer-puncher, not a brawler, not a throwback kind of style. I defined ‘Willem Floures’s to be a strategist. Meaning: I am all of the above. Meaning: I am full of shit. We are all full of shit. I mean, come on, a fight is a lot like a dance: it takes two to get things going.
Swing and a miss.
Round by round edge-of-your-seat fighting isn’t possible if I am not who I think I am. See how I am a contradiction?
Which part of me will inevitably change/fix that problem.
I used to think it was me; I’d be the one to make things work.
SILENCE
So the murder, the lies, will be enough to buoy an entire campaign Spencer has conceived tonight, as of this evening, four hours of what I had felt to be unproductive surfing the net. Guess I was the one wasting time, not Spencer. He also talks about how X will become a nonissue, might even be psyched out by the idea of having murdered someone.
What I wonder is:
“If I claimed to have killed someone, wouldn’t that mean X killed someone too?”
“No,” Spencer replies, “but yes. But no.” Never looks up from the screen.
YOU CAN LIE ABOUT THAT
“If you need to,” Spencer adds.
I killed a man.
It still feels strange to say these words.
I haven’t actually said them aloud.
Spencer says that I should.
That I have to.
“Say it, I want to hear you say it. You need to get used to saying it.”
Close one eye, open the other. Fine—
I KILLED A MAN
The statement hangs there, like I just carved through a curtain of space, rendering it wounded, broken, a black hole.
“You sound like you don’t mean it.”
True. True statement. I don’t mean it.
I don’t want to mean it.
“You have to make it sound genuine in order for this to work.”
Close my mouth. Someone find a needle and some string; I want to stitch my lips closed. Never again will I speak.
“Say it again,” Spencer commands.
I KILLED A MAN
He plays it back.
I hadn’t noticed that he was recording me saying the words.
“Does that sound like someone who killed a man?”
Of course not.
Spencer sighs, “We either do this or we don’t. Tell me now, what is it going to be?”
So someone that knew me would probably say that I’m not acting like myself. I have never been the type to go soft on something sinister; I am not a moralist. Not at all. I used to enjoy the way it felt to punch someone in the face. You might know me well enough to see that I haven’t been myself since the first chapter. Then again, was that me, or just a permutation, some kind of performance? Where do I look, what do I find when I look in the mirror?
Willem Floures, I hear, has always been a bit of a rebel.
He goes against the so-called grain.
In addition to being a fighter, he used to be the calm and brooding being in interviews, the one that barely spoke but said more with his silence.
He was all of these things, but not lately.
Or, maybe, he’s changed. He certainly fights using familiar signature moves and combinations. Depending on where you look, he’s a young prodigy, a journeyman looking to redefine, or an old mainstay, rambling to himself, turning to sensationalism and big lies in order to maintain the audience’s attention. Odds are that’s him. Willem Floures.
When he says:
I KILLED A MAN
He should mean it.
He shouldn’t cower behind morality and other sorts of principles.
He should stop talking in the third person; he isn’t that kind of stylist.
Yeah so I say it twice more, for Spencer’s sake.
Each time it feels easier, more innate. Give it a little while longer and I might actually believe it.
Really though, I just want to rest. I want more painkillers.
I want to spar for a few rounds. Maybe fight through the pain long enough to feel nothing at all.
“I killed a man,” and it sounds like something said at face value. I killed a man and tomorrow everyone will know about it.
SILENCE
I get to talking about something else, about the house.
“You should think about repairing the roof.”
Spencer shrugs, “Who’s got time for that?”
Upstairs we hear a loud crashing.
Alarmed, I sit up.
“Relax,” Spencer rolls his eyes, “it’s James.”
“Wait a minute, are you for real?”
A grin. Spencer says, “What do you think?”
“I thought it was just some imaginary friend of Sarah’s.”
He laughs, “Guess.”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“I could be lying,” Spencer narrows his eyes, “but it could also be true.”
He says it again as if this is all one big lesson:
YOU CAN LIE ABOUT THAT
“If you can’t tell the difference, maybe it doesn’t matter.”
These are a trainer’s words. He is trying to build me back up, trying to beat down all of the doubt that’s boiled to the surface. And I’d thank him for it, but somehow I am still not certain that this will result in something we won’t regret later. However, at the same time, I don’t see how we can stop now.
It’s already too late.
This is round two in a fight that probably never ends.
We fight until winded, and then we fight some more.
He’s wrong about one thing.
You can’t lie about that.
Can’t say it’s a fight you win because I’m not so sure anyone can win this particular fight. The opponent is time and its punches change you until they send you to the ground, six feet down and dead, the last brand of light isn’t limelight, it’s the bright light of the bare bulb hanging from above, the mortician tending to your body.
Somewhere in there, I feel like I’d still remain.
Unable to understand if I had died or not.
Win or lose?
SILENCE
Neither of us says anything.
I keep my eyes closed. I listen to the house in pain, mimicking my own groans, the ache of each joint, the cuts and bruises that still need a lot of time to heal. I inhale, hold, and exhale before asking:
“Do you think I can go spar for a few rounds?”
Spencer looks up from the laptop, expression as if saying:
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK?
It’s a no-go.
And probably better that I just rest.
What about the painkillers?
I want to ask but all of a sudden it feels like an impossible question to pose; the silence of the house lulls me into a self-conscious cocoon.
I want to keep, and obey, the silence.
For awhile, it feels like I’ve escaped the world.
SILENCE
PERFECT
SILENCE
But it ends around the same time Spencer starts typing again, and I can only imagine what else he is planning.
Whatever it is, you’ll hear about it in the morning.
THE SILENCE I REACH
As part of the plan, I keep my silence. I keep my silence despite having been more or less silent throughout most media events that have involved any part of me. Media events of silent intrigue and steady enigma. But silent especially now as I reach a new plateau
of distance, carrying along a grimace, maybe a frown if it calls for it, favoring facial gestures that fit the design of the headlines around the time word got out.
And word certainly got out.
Stuff like:
‘SUGAR’ WILLEM FLOURES MURDERS HIS PAST
And:
BAR FIGHT GONE AWRY FAMOUS BOXER SUSPECTED OF MURDER
I maintain my silence.
Spencer keeps me updated on all media requests.
We remain at the house, laptop against laptop, kitchen table our office, as I ease off the painkillers and frequently hide from the steady current of suspicion with a few rounds in the ring Spencer installed in the basement.
My own private gym.
When your name is Willem Floures, you really can’t afford to be seen in public gyms. Not because I’m smug (I’d never claim to have much of an ego; I’m too self-conscious to be egotistical) but because of the fact that the others like the same kind of gyms, same sort of equipment, same towns, cities, everything. For example, ‘Buster’ Willem Floures lives next door.
He is Spencer’s neighbor. Neither party planned for it.
It just happens.
Seems ‘Buster’ liked the quiet, slightly rundown little suburb too.
I mean having my own private gym means everyone has their own private gym and only the media really suffers.
No media day workouts.
No public sparring sessions.
No open calls for opponents.
No surprise challenges.
Everything is under wraps. A shroud.
But they will do what we say if they want to be partners in news-stories and spectacle of the likes of SUSPECTED MURDER.
I can’t say that I want it to fall into their hands, but then again who really has control over the media? Many claim they do and have the dollar signs to prove it; however, just so often a paid-for event hits public awareness. Something unexpected, like some nugget of information from a dark past resurfacing. In this case, I have killed a man that does not exist.
The media hears from the original source, Spencer posting under one of his longtime message board handles on boxing forums (boxing aficionados are some of the most vocal people around; they’ll debate for dozens of pages about fight patterns, the dynamics of the power punch, and famous boxer career choices), mentioned this particular dark nugget from my “past.”
It didn’t take long for it to spread.
Spencer did more, of course. He had photos, doctored documented proof (medical records?)—
He had something.
I know he did. Kept me in the dark for obvious reasons.
1) I didn’t want to know about it.
And—
2) I am supposed to plead ignorance/innocence.
I CAN LAST THREE ROUNDS
Before I am gassed. This isn’t even an actual fight. I’m merely working in some shadowboxing exercises while Sarah watches and pretends to be her father, shouting commands at me.
Think: Cliché of boxer trainer, “LEAD WITH THE JAB!”
Of course I lead.
It all comes from the jab.
I used to like doing this. Fighting.
Right?
Yeah.
Ask any of them and they’ll all say yes.
DO YOU LOVE BOXING?
NOTE: And all its variations such as “Do you like to fight?” and “Did you want to be a boxer?” and “Do you enjoy taking a punch?”
EXECUTIONER: Absolutely.
ICE: Wouldn’t want to do anything else.
BUSTER: I guess so. I am a fighter aren’t I?
ONE-TWO: That’s a stupid question given that you’re asking a professional boxer…
Yeah so I guess my answer would be an absolute, one hundred percent confident:
SUGAR: Yes!
Maybe drop the exclamation point…
YES
Yeah that’s better.
I can agree to disagree with myself. By the looks of it, I’m a bit of a hypocrite. You turn the page you see a different side of me. Maybe more of the same, but the subtleties (if I can be considered subtle) take on poor, imprecise shifts like someone that is constantly aching to be in the limelight…
But doesn’t know why.
I’m afraid of the dark.
I am drawn to the brightest lights. Nothing is brighter than the lights shining on the ring on fight night.
Imagine the warmth of everyone’s gaze.
Imagine that you are standing facing the only person that matters:
Yourself.
And you are prepared…
Prepared to go twelve rounds if need be. You will defeat that part of you that fights back. You will fight yourself, JAB JAB POWER SHOT if it takes all the blood and guts spilled to the canvas to get you to stay down.
Imagine that and you might begin to understand why fighting is all I can do. It’s all I’m made to do. I understand the fight. Everything else, well that’s sort of the issue here. I started fighting in hopes of finding myself; big surprise fighting only created more of a rift between each emotion, each resurrected feeling, I might have.
There are no easy identities, only more interesting proximities.
CAN I GO ANOTHER ROUND?
Sarah seems to think so.
From upstairs I can hear Spencer laughing.
Things must be going well. But that’s not my fight. Well, it is, but at this very moment, I want to be as far removed from the version of me they are sculpting. I will see myself imposed upon every possible mode-of-delivery.
A good rumor makes for great spikes in site-hits, subscription purchases, and so forth. I don’t blame the media. They are the blood.
They carved out the veins.
No one exists without blood flowing.
The media makes sure the people that want to, need to, desire to be alive are still there, being viewed.
Read: Alive.
YOU ARE ALIVE
Right now, I am because they say that ‘Sugar’ Willem Floures is a murderer. Right now, I am because I am lead subject on over a dozen media outlets’ front pages. Right now…
I AM ALIVE because I lied.
Therefore, I am living a lie.
And not just one.
As many as needed.
Sarah asks me, “Do you want to win this?”
Words right from her father’s mouth. Spencer always barked the question in raspy, throaty calls during my training sessions.
Motivation mostly, but you know what…
I have been so busy thinking about my chances of winning that I have failed to think about whether or not I want to win.
What is in it for me if I win except a rematch, another one that fights on their toes, quick to strike, ready to replace me?
I WANT TO WIN
I know that I do but these days I worry that I don’t have any other motivation, nothing else to claim as purpose, besides the victory. I want to win because I want to win.
“Yes,” I shout back.
Sarah giggles, “JAB!”
Just like her father, she does her best to pretend that we have it all under control. But really, I’m in the basement, gassed, tired, achy, only a few days away from the rematch, and I haven’t even begun to train.
I have become someone people can’t stop talking about, not because I am still in their minds a great fighter but rather because I might be convicted. I might be that person that killed some person. When it involves murder, everyone gets at least moderately interested.
I lean back against the turnbuckle, corner of the ring my place to calm down, check my heartrate, and most importantly, listen for Spencer.
What is happening?
I tell Sarah, “Go get your father. Tell him we need an update.”
She salutes me like a soldier, “Yessir!”
Carefree and not at all concerned with identity and placement in this society, Sarah might end up disappearing on her eighteenth birthday like so many others. Without a visible an
d brand-worthy identity (and unless you fix yourself to one) you disappear from society. You become brandless. You are just another person, faceless and making do.
I have always feared that sort of scenario.
However, when I see the anonymous so quick, so carefree, I often wonder if it was their choice. Their decision to be private. Their identity solely theirs, no one else’s.
There might only ever be one Sarah Mullen.
Maybe she wants it to be that way.
That’s a lot of pressure, being in full control of yourself.
How anyone can do that…I can’t even begin to fathom.
Spencer has his own past. There are other Spencer Mullens out there. I know that a few of them have a Spencer as their trainer. They just don’t let Spencer treat them the way he treats me.
I never got over my social anxiety.
I never got over the fact that people are watching me and they care and yet I still need to say something interesting, something poignant.
I settle for silence.
SILENCE
It beats saying something you regret, something people won’t forget.
Spencer with daughter descends the stairs.
“My, my,” Spencer sounds chipper.
“You wouldn’t believe…” he starts but then stops when he notices that I have boxing gloves on and I am noticeably sweaty.
“I didn’t say you could start training.”
“I needed something to keep my mind off the hysteria.”
Spencer rolls his eyes, “This is the sort of spectacle that increases your brand.” Sarah wanders over to the left corner of the ring and hangs on the ropes.
“Sarah quit that!”
The Laughter of Strangers Page 7
