The Laughter of Strangers

by Michael J Seidlinger

  SILENCE

  The memory continues to bleed with or without any sense.

  The celebrity doesn’t know how to control emotion during a fight and I take advantage of that. You can’t let anger fuel the fight; it can be an influence, sure, but if you are throwing volume punches with no other strategy, your opponent will stop your would-be freight-train long before the fight can go the distance.

  The cut is looking bad; bad enough that celebrity blood bleeds into the memory and ruins the end of the fight.

  I might have won the fight but it bleeds into the aftermath. Ambulance ride for both celebrity and I.

  Bleed.

  Somewhere later, we sit facing a set of cameras. Bright lights wash out the blood, wash out any words that we might have said.

  It looks bad.

  I look better than the celebrity, but it is clear that the publicity stunt went wrong. Maybe it went right. I don’t seem to recall.

  The memory continues to bleed out the final clause:

  And I hear it as a single sentence, a question, directed at me, from a media representative as baffled as anyone else, “What is wrong with you?”

  The memory bleeds until black.

  And then there is…

  SILENCE

  I want to say something but this is not the time or place to say much of anything. I’ve already spoken for myself. For better and for worse, I outstepped any logic, any reasonable understanding based on the identity as it used to be.

  Blink.

  A frame appears, sans memory:

  ARTICLE TITLE: THE RISE AND FALL OF WILLEM FLOURES

  ARTICLE TITLE: THE TRUTH ABOUT ‘SUGAR’ WILLEM FLOURES: INTERVIEW WITH A CIPHER

  ARTICLE TITLE: THE GOLDEN AGE OF FISTICUFFS: IS IT OVER?

  ARTICLE TITLE: THE SECRETS AND LIES EXPOSED: A GROUP INTERVIEW WITH THE FIGHTERS OF WILLEM FLOURES

  A frame breaks into shards before the next memory wipes the mirror clean. The memory has both color and sound.

  The memory takes place in a large arena, full of pyrotechnics, fans holding makeshift signs, many of them praising an identity that isn’t mine, and I have full control of the ring.

  I hold a microphone and, so unlike me (what does that even mean anymore?), I provoke the audience.

  The words “heel” and “sports entertainment” and “celebrity walk-on” flicker in between frames.

  The memory aligns to what I imagine are the official broadcast cameras. I see myself for what I really look like. Outside of any self-created visage, that is me…and I look a lot like ‘James.’

  It looks like ‘James’ is filling in for me.

  “I’m here to save all you idiot wrestling fans from wasting more brain cells watching a fake fight!”

  AUDIENCE

  LAUGHTER

  Provokes me.

  Their laughter is what I want to change.

  I don’t want to hear it. As the memory begins to reveal itself, I struggle to ignore, to look away, anything, just:

  No more of it.

  Please.

  But it seems the memory is a portrayal of the same self-conscious person that I am. The laughter switches to cheers, chaotic chanting, because it seems that I appeared at the venue for one reason and one reason only:

  I am there to beat up ‘Sugar’ Willem Floures.

  Not just any part of myself—

  I am there to beat up the most vulnerable part of me.

  “Is that what you want?!”

  The memory skips, already winded, out of breath from twelve rounds of a fight that should have never transpired.

  IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?!

  Then that’s what I give them.

  Punch to the stomach.

  Punch to the face.

  That gets a big enough reaction.

  Punch to the face, to the stomach.

  Punch to the mouth.

  Punch to the stomach, to the stomach, to the stomach.

  Punch to the eye.

  Eye closes shut.

  Punch to the eye.

  Punch to the mouth, to the face, to the stomach.

  Punch to the forehead.

  The memory skips, fading to black.

  SILENCE

  I breathe heavily.

  The black fades back to our reflection.

  And that’s what makes it all click into place.

  The voice narrating every single memory…

  It’s Spencer’s.

  The memories comprise his own sort of mourning for the Willem he once knew. Every single memory is familiar not only because they are mine but also because they were the subject of Spencer’s lectures long after I stopped listening. I wonder:

  If I had continued to listen and take notes, would Spencer have continued to discuss boxing?

  Would his lectures have continued to analyze my fight performance rather than my performance as myself, as the identity I confuse and abuse?

  Have I done something grave?

  Willem Floures as enigma, does it fail to be as prominent as Willem Floures the boxer?

  SILENCE

  Of course I have no one to consult but myself. They all seem to know what’s right even if we know that it’s wrong.

  I look at Sarah.

  I look at ‘James.’

  I look at myself and it’s a lot like looking at the reflection of a stranger.

  A knot of dread in my gut worsens when Spencer walks into frame.

  Right there, in the mirror, Sarah’s claims are correct.

  I wrote him out of my “story.”

  I look at my reflection.

  THAT’S ME?

  THAT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ME

  Spencer replies, voice an echo in my mind, “How would you know?”

  THE SILENCE I DROVE

  There is rhythm to any mania. Maybe it’s the mania that sets the rhythm and makes it impossible for me to keep up.

  Some identities don’t have much else but the voice, no career source, no means of buoying their celebrity stake of the spotlight besides their ability to surprise. And maybe that’s why I drove myself to silence during the early, younger, golden years of my boxing career.

  I used to think silence would be enticing; only now, do I realize that silence is worthless unless it precedes or follows a storm.

  SILENCE

  It’s all I’m left with. Bask in silence of a basement where only X and I remain. The rest have escaped. They’ve taken any clear sense of what I can be. Spencer let them out as effortlessly as he led them here, tethered and tied. I pick at the scab of a memory where I confronted Spencer about his actions. I don’t remember what was said but I recall it had something to do with jealousy.

  Perhaps it was guilt. Whatever it was, it is no more.

  Left behind the silence and the solace I ignore.

  I have nowhere else to go.

  With the TV on full-blast, I keep myself entertained.

  I drive the silence away.

  The TV pays me back for having paid so much attention to it.

  The house doesn’t make a move, too afraid it’ll get my attention; I need to be alone. I need to think about this. I need to avoid it for the time being.

  Wait until this show is over.

  Not now. Maybe after the next one.

  It’s only thirty minutes.

  There’s plenty of time.

  Right X?

  BREAKING NEWS

  The show I’m watching, the show that’s watching me, is interrupted by a loud crescendo of over-produced brass instrumentation.

  I try turning the volume down but there’s no remote.

  “Hey X, you have the remote over there by any chance?”

  Executioner sits in the chair next to me, slouching, eyes open and cloudy; he’s quiet even though I set him free myself.

  Really, he was the one that should have taken my place.

  I can’t believe I’m saying this but…he would have carried the Willem Floures name well.

  It’s
because I can’t find the remote that I am stuck watching the one channel at the current volume.

  The news anchor with a well-rehearsed grin begins, “We interrupt our regularly scheduled program with an update from an already-in-progress press conference between league officials on what will be the follow-up to last month’s fight. We bring you there, live—”

  RECOGNIZABLE FACES

  SPENCER

  ‘JAMES’

  ME

  ‘SPENCER’

  I turn and look at where they had all been tied down. No one left.

  I count up from two, reassessing how many there had been versus how many were never caught. I give up somewhere around twenty.

  I ask X, “What do you make of this? If I am here, who is that?”

  X blinks.

  The press conference is most definitely breaking news.

  Then ‘Spencer’ speaks for ‘me’ making boastful claims about how the new contender, ‘Dynamite,’ but who I’ll always call ‘James,’ is yet another wannabe, just someone who hopes to ride the coat tails of a ‘G.O.A.T.’

  G.O.A.T.

  THE ACRONYM STANDS FOR:

  GREATEST

  OF

  ALL

  TIME

  Whatever it is that’s supposed to be me doesn’t speak.

  Just like I had been prior to my fight for the spotlight. I’m not sure which version was better. At the very least, I was entertaining and memorable. The loss of reality and self had to be for something, right?

  ‘James’ shadowboxes while Spencer expertly dodges and weaves ‘Spencer’s’ claims.

  The ‘Spencer’ of the past cannot contend with the Spencer of today.

  ‘James’ what do you have to say?

  I say: You can’t replace me.

  I say: You can try but you’ll fail.

  What I really say is nothing.

  I am a voyeur, watching from behind a dusty plasma TV screen.

  “Hey X, if that’s supposed to be me, then who the hell am I? Who the hell are you?”

  X blinks.

  “I’m starting to sense that you’re trying to use some kind of Morse code using blinks. I don’t know if I’ll follow.”

  BLINK ONCE FOR “YES”

  BLINK TWICE FOR “NO”

  BLINK THREE TIMES FOR “IDIOT”

  “That’s our code, okay?”

  The conference continues with banter from Spencer and ‘Spencer.’ Spencer toys with ‘Spencer,’ successfully summarizing the fight plan because it’s a strategy we used back during my twenty-first fight. Or was it my twenty-second?

  “X?”

  He blinks.

  I don’t catch how many times.

  ‘Spencer’ answers questions addressed for Spencer.

  Both ‘me’ and ‘James’ stand off to the side, arms crossed, the effect a fighter is looking to achieve at one of these press conferences is intimidation.

  Intimidate your opponent.

  Intimidate yourself.

  The conference ends with an official press release:

  SUGAR VS. DYNAMITE

  UNDERCARD:

  SCORPION VS. DEADSIE

  SWAGGER VS. THRILL KILL

  BAD INTENTIONS VS. STINGER

  Like any other fight card, it is a great night of boxing where, essentially, people get to watch me beat the shit out of myself for four hours.

  “That’s entertainment!”

  I look over at X, waiting for a reaction.

  Number of blinks: One.

  I clap my hands, “Righto!”

  You see, if I don’t act enthusiastic I’ll end up as desperately confused as I was when I first started. It will feel like the last couple fights were for nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  I can’t accept such a conclusion. I have to believe that I fought for valid reasons. Even if I don’t know where I stand, and I’m not quite sure if anyone can really see me, I can see myself.

  I pinch the skin of my forearm.

  I dig my nail into the skin, drawing blood.

  I feel it. I can feel something.

  No more mirrors. No more hauntings.

  Just this.

  I need to maintain a balance if I’m going to begin evaluating what is and what isn’t—and with all of them gone and/or against me, the fight is mine to win. Even though I’m the champion, I feel like the underdog.

  DYNAMITE POISED FOR TITLE WIN

  The media sweeps other coverage underneath the steady onslaught of ‘James’s’ younger look. He’s not the tattooed, scarred up, busted up and slack body that I command.

  Between commercials, I look at the tattoos for some sense of direction.

  NOISE

  I bask in the noise of a number of different sources.

  X hasn’t moved but he’s still here. Despite our past, I feel like he’s the only friend I have left.

  I used to have a close friend, a confidant, someone that kept certain aspects of me in check but he’s betrayed me, left me for someone that didn’t exist until a day or two ago.

  “Just because you say that he’s Willem Floures doesn’t make it true!”

  I clear my throat, “You idiot, do you think this is how it should end?”

  Spencer on TV, “Interview at Ringside,” one of those inside looks at upcoming fight events from the minds of experts.

  It might as well be a shout-out because I know he’s talking about me.

  WHY WOULDN’T HE BE?

  He’s talking about me.

  Whatever that means.

  “X, help me out here!”

  X blinks. Three…four times?

  “What are you trying to say? I’m an idiot?”

  Spencer chuckles, “Now that’s a knockout of a question. I don’t want to go into too much detail but the short answer is yes. What you have to understand about Willem is his propensity for expansion—be that new strategies, new campaigns, new ideas, or in this case, a new era. I really believe the same could be said about any other identity. The fight takes place not only in the ring but also in the limelight. Willem is a timeless fighter and in order to maintain that sort of commodity, he transforms himself as often as possible.”

  I press my nose up to the TV screen, “Those are my ideas! You fucking stole my ideas!”

  Flicker of a thought—

  HOW DO YOU KNOW?

  I exhale, suddenly overwhelmed by nausea, leaning back in my seat.

  Spencer continues unabated, “The fight is full circle. Mind, body, and self.”

  Interviewer with the next question, “Is it true what they say about how a second person comes out in the ring? I don’t want to resort to terms like ‘inner demon’ and ‘animal’ because…well maybe you can help clarify.”

  Nodding, Spencer replies, “Sure, sure and, yeah, that’s a tricky one. It is difficult to describe. A fighter certainly taps into some sort of reservoir of emotion and both instinct and skill use the emotive material as fuel for the will and audacity of going twelve rounds against well…every fight is ultimately a personal one. You could be fighting an entire country but the one opponent that you have to defeat in order to win is you. Time and time again, it’s always the same.”

  EVERY FIGHT IS A PERSONAL ONE

  I look over at X.

  “Hey…”

  X’s eyes are closed.

  “Hey…you watching this?”

  Silence.

  Don’t leave me with silence.

  I talk over the TV, talking about anything to keep from listening to the rest of the interview.

  I lean back in my seat, closing my eyes.

  “Hey X, remember the week before the fight. Not the second fight but the first fight. The one where you really gave me a wake-up call…

  “The one where you KOed me and ended my win streak…

  “The one where I didn’t make it past round eight…

  “The one where the media overused your alias in the merchandise, all that stuff involving a hooded ex
ecutioner punching me so hard my face caves in…the fight where I felt like you were telling me what I was going to do next…the fight where I couldn’t think for myself…I heard the world, and by that I mean I could hear the audience…separate voices pieced apart so that I could hear their criticism…I could hear them laughing as you sent me to the canvas for the ten count…

  “Hey X…

  “Do you think I wanted to lose?

  “That kind of goes against everything I’ve done to stay relevant…

  “But do you think, maybe, I am just in denial…

  “Maybe I should have quit before I fought you…

  “Maybe what I thought you were telling me was really what I wanted to hear…. Maybe…but, well, it’s just…

  “You know?”

  OPEN ENDED QUESTION

  Before I can fight to stay awake, I have fallen asleep.

  Dreamless and vacant, it feels like it lasts a single, solitary moment. It feels a lot like I am trying to escape myself.

  But I’m not lucky enough.

  I wake up to the sound of applause.

  On TV, ‘James’ works on his footwork, shuffling left, shuffling right, to the satisfaction of a dozen media cameras poised to capture the footage for the evening news and RSS feeds populating a billion people’s lives.

  Cling to those feeds.

  It might be the only reason you are alive.

  The cameras catch sight of ‘James’ as he readies himself for the media sparring event, an event Spencer never allowed before.

  But with ‘James…’

  ‘James’ can do everything and more!

  The camera close to his face as he seemingly laces up his boots, the news correspondent flatters him with voice-over introductions:

  “We are here with ‘Dynamite’ Willem Floures, the undefeated, charismatic boxer-puncher extraordinaire, about to go five rounds with one of the best and we’re capturing it all live on FightTV!”